[This article by Matthew A. McGuire and Spencer S. Cady was originally published in the August 2022 issue of The Iowa Lawyer magazine. The 2021-2022 term statistics were compiled by Chris Slack.] The 2021-2022 term of the Iowa Supreme Court concluded on June 30. A…
Stanley Liggins was convicted of first-degree murder from events which occurred in 1990. Liggins was charged with the murder of a nine-year-old child. Liggins’s initial conviction was overturned on appeal in 1994 due to the admission of irrelevant, prejudicial evidence at trial. Liggins was again…
On July 1 the State of Iowa filed a petition urging the Iowa Supreme Court to rehear its June 17 ruling on abortion in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v. Reynolds. (Read our previous post on the Court’s prior ruling here.) The State requested the…
The Iowa Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling handed down June 30 overturned a 2004 decision that created a path for challenging Iowa’s law protecting animal confinement operators from nuisance suits as a violation of the inalienable rights clause of the Iowa Constitution. In that…
Under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, a defendant has the right to effective assistance of counsel. This right includes an entitlement to reasonably necessary ancillary services paid at state expenses, including where the defendant is represented by court-appointed counsel. Iowa Code Section…
Trial courts have a duty under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to assure that a criminal defendant who cannot afford to hire a lawyer is provided one at the State’s expense. To comply with that constitutional mandate, Iowa created the Office of State Public Defender (SPD) to employ attorneys to provide indigent defense or to contract with attorneys in private practice willing to take on those criminal cases.
Online video provider TikTok does business with millions of American users in all 50 states, including Iowans who have downloaded the company’s app hundreds of thousands of times and who agree to its terms of service. Still, the company argues, it should not have to defend itself against a lawsuit filed in state court by the Iowa Attorney General claiming the company misrepresents the nature of its content available to Iowa children.
A plaintiff suing former coworkers at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines for defamation waited too long to file suit in Polk County District Court because she failed to act on information she knew or should have known that could have formed the basis for a defamation claim before the statute of limitations expired, the Iowa Supreme Court held in a Jan. 9 decision.
Does a foreign corporation consent to the jurisdiction of Iowa’s courts when it registers with the Secretary of State to do business in this state, appoints an agent in Iowa for service of process, and is served with notice of a lawsuit through its Iowa…
On Brief: Iowa’s Appellate Blog is devoted to appellate litigation with a focus on the Iowa Supreme Court, the Iowa Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
