Questions: Can a video of sexual assault be authenticated by circumstantial evidence where there is no witness to the assault, no witness to the video, and no one to verify the video’s origin? Does the defendant’s contention that it is a “deepfake” give rise to a genuine issue of authenticity under the best evidence rule?

On May 5, 2023, Clara (a pseudonym) had plans with Amyda at her sister’s house, where she was staying. They drank rum together in the garage before going to the bedroom where they kissed. Amyda undressed and said that he wanted to have sex, and Clara refused. Because she had a lot to drink, she fell asleep fully clothed, and awoke around noon the next day, finding that “everything seemed fine.” Roughly a month later, Clara’s sister forwarded her a close range video depicting a man’s hand abusing her while she slept. She recognized a tattoo on that hand as Amyda’s, but when she tried to contact him, he blocked her.

Law enforcement attempted to arrange an interview with Amyda, but when Amyda failed to appear, he was arrested. Police did not obtain a warrant for Amyda’s electronic devices. An officer could not trace the video’s digital footprint, and when arrested Amyda’s hand had a different tattoo than that depicted in the video. However, a tattoo artist testified that the tattoo appeared to have been freshly applied within the previous eight to twelve days. Amyda moved in limine to exclude the video before trial as unauthenticated, vulnerable to “deepfake” technology, and inadmissible as a copy under the best-evidence rule. At a pretrial hearing, Clara identified her bedroom, bed, blanket, pillowcases, the top she was wearing, her legs and body, and Amyda’s hand via the tattoo and scars. The district court denied the motion, overruled Amyda’s renewed objections at trial, and a jury convicted Amyda. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Court granted further review.

Amyda argued that the Court’s 2025 decision in State v. Manning had identified only two ways of authenticating a video: a firsthand witness who testifies that the video accurately portrays the event, or a “silent witness” who describes the recording process and testifies that it produces accurate recordings—neither of which was available in this case. He maintained that the use of “distinctive characteristics” to corroborate a video and nothing more effectively erases any protection that Rule 5.901 provides against the admission of fabricated evidence. The State countered that circumstantial evidence has always been sufficient and that Amyda’s deepfake theory was simply speculation and not evidence at all.

Ultimately, the Court agreed with the State. It explained that Manning does not limit authentication to two methods, and “[t]here is no special codicil to the rules of evidence governing videos.” It explained that the Court has long relied upon circumstantial evidence for authentication, citing a 1980 Iowa Supreme Court decision State v. Holderness, a burglary case where a photograph of the defendant outside the victim’s garage, from a roll of film a neighborhood boy found and brought by, was admitted, and State v. Farnum, a 1986 decision where a detective’s testimony that he recognized the décor of the defendant’s bedroom, together with similar photographs authenticated by the victims, was upheld as proper authentication. The Court explained that the circumstantial evidence in this case went beyond the distinctive characteristics because the video surfaced a little over a month after the night Amyda was in Clara’s room, appeared to have been filmed on the abuser’s cellphone, and Amyda blocked Clara when she reached out. The distinctive characteristics identified “ranged from the private (Clara’s bedroom) to the shockingly private (her genitalia),” the Court reasoned.

Finally, regarding the best-evidence rule, the Court rejected the State’s argument that a video does not qualify as either a “recording” or a “photograph” under the rules of evidence. It explained that before 2017 Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.1001 expressly defined “photographs” to include video tapes, and that the 2017 restyling, which defined a photograph as “a photographic image or its equivalent stored in any form,” was nonsubstantive, so a video remains a continuous “photographic image.” Still, a duplicate is admissible unless a “genuine question” is raised as to the original’s authenticity, and the Court agreed with the State that Amyda raised only conjecture. Amyda’s closing argument began, “Is it fake? Is it real? Ladies and gentlemen, we live in the age of artificial intelligence,” and continued, “people can manipulate a video to look like whatever they want to look – they want it to look like.” The Court stated that Amyda’s counsel relied “on popular culture rather than any of the evidence in the case,” attempting to “cash in on the so-called ‘liar’s dividend,’” where public awareness of deepfakes makes it easier to raise doubts about legitimate evidence.

The Court concluded by noting, as the State pointed out, that the federal Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules is considering a new Rule 901(c) that would require a party claiming AI fabrication to present evidence sufficient to support a finding of fabrication before the court inquires further, and explaining that Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.1003 “in a sense” already works that way.

The post Iowa Supreme Court affirms the admission of video in sexual abuse case over defendant’s claim that it was a “deepfake” appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

Question: If a person is reincarcerated for violating a lifetime special sentence, are they “presently confined” under the SVP statute, and does the State have to prove a recent overt act when they were released before returning to prison?

In 2017, Harlow broke into his ex-wife’s home and raped her. After pleading guilty to third-degree sexual abuse, he was sentenced to ten years in prison with a lifetime special sentence under Iowa Code chapter 903B. While he was in prison, he had approximately 65 behavioral violations, at least nine of which involved sexual misconduct, and was convicted of assaulting a female correctional officer in 2018. He was released to work release under the terms of his special sentence in 2022, and was arrested a day later for failing to report to his parole officer. Ultimately, his parole was revoked and he returned to prison.

In August 2024, roughly two weeks before Harlow’s anticipated discharge, the State petitioned to commit Harlow under Iowa Code chapter 229A which permits commitment against persons who are “presently confined,” or those who have committed “a recent overt act.” The State sought to commit Harlow on the former. Experts for both the State and Harlow testified at trial regarding Harlow’s mental health, agreeing that Harlow had antisocial personality disorder, and the district court found that he was a SVP beyond a reasonable doubt. Rather than contesting that finding, Harlow contended in a motion to dismiss that he was not presently confined and that the State had the burden of proving an overt act, but the district court disagreed.

On appeal, Harlow contends that because he was subject to a special sentence that began after the underlying sentence was completed that his confinement was not for the sexually violent offense, and that due process (on both the federal and state level) require a recent overt act from persons who have been released into the community, regardless of how long they were released. He cited In re Detention of Wygle, a 2018 opinion that interpreted “presently confined” to exclude respondents serving a chapter 903B special sentence and cautioned that committing someone “many years or even decades later without a recent overt act merely because of the existence of a special sentence would plainly stretch the statute beyond the boundaries of due process.” Conversely, the State contended that chapter 229A changed because of Wygle, “and that the definition [of “presently confined”] satisfies that constitutional threshold requirements to comport with due process.” Further, the State argued that it met “the law’s most exacting burden,” by proving that Harlow was dangerous beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Court began by examining chapter 229A, stating that the legislature defined “presently confined” as “incarceration…as a condition of…[a] special sentence following conviction for a sexually violent offense.” Therefore, they explained that excluding special sentences from that definition “would change the meaning of §229A.2(10) and exceed our role as interpreters.”

Regarding Harlow’s due process challenge, the Court explained that the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Kansas v. Hendricks (1997) and Kansas v. Crane (2002) suggest that due process does not require a recent overt act, though they do not definitively resolve the question. Conversely, Harlow cited a line of authority starting with Stamus v. Leonhardt, a 1976 federal district court decision that required an overt act for involuntary hospitalization, and later Iowa Supreme Court decisions that followed it. However, the Court explained that those cases arose from the general mental-health commitment statute (chapter 229, rather than chapter 229A) and were not controlling because “[t]he legislature enacted chapter 229A because it found ‘that the existing involuntary commitment procedure under chapter 229 [was] inadequate to address the risk…sexually violent predators pose to society.’” So when considering chapter 229A, the court cited In re Detention of Gonzales (2003) and In re Detention of Willis (2005), which held that when a respondent is presently confined for a sexually violent offense, that confinement satisfies the recent-overt-act requirement—a point Harlow conceded, acknowledging that serving such a sentence acts “as a substitute or proxy for a recent overt act.” The Court then held that confinement under a chapter 903B special sentence is confinement due to the sexually violent offense.

Indeed, the court explained that requiring the State to find that Harlow had committed an overt act would be absurd when considering the fact that “[e]xcept for a single day in 2022, Harlow has been incarcerated since 2017.” It explained that the State did not initiate the commitment proceeding “merely because of the existence of a special sentence,” but because of Harlow’s mental abnormality, underlying conviction, and conduct while he was incarcerated. The Court concluded that the due process concerns identified in Wygle do not apply to this case and “[s]peculation that the statute could someday be applied unconstitutionally” did not satisfy Harlow’s burden of demonstrating that the statute was unconstitutional when applied to his facts.

The Court cited several out of state opinions to bolster its position which agreed “that a recent overt act is not the only way to prove dangerousness.” The Court explained that requiring a recent overt act simply because Harlow had been released for a single day would create an arbitrary bright-line rule, forcing the State “to prove the absurd” and rewarding Harlow for being returned to prison so quickly.

The post Iowa Supreme Court rules that a one-day release does not require the State to prove a recent overt act before committing a sexually violent predator appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

Question: Can a district court remove an elected official  for their intoxication while carrying out an official duty under Iowa Code section 66.1A(6) based on  a single instance of intoxication?

When Scott Belt was in his fourth term as chair of the Board, he arranged for an evening town hall in Carson for November 5, 2025. He chose the venue and the speakers and decided to act as the emcee. The agenda made it clear that “[n]o deliberation or formal action will be taken at this meeting.” About an hour before the event, Belt went to a local bar where surveillance footage shows him ordering a Budweiser and a cocktail. He took the cocktail to go, including the straw, at about 6:14 PM. The mayor of Carson, who was sitting next to Belt, asked him if he had to attend the meeting. Belt replied that it was a meet and greet and that he would be alright.

He wasn’t okay. With about fifty people present and standing behind a lectern bearing the county’s logo under a screen that said “Scott Belt, Board Chair”, Belt led the Pledge of Allegiance before delivering a lengthy introduction to a moment of silence, which came to an end when he dropped the microphone. The attendees asked him to hold the microphone nearer to his mouth and sent text messages asking if he was drunk. The county auditor, who was sitting on the stage, replied simply with “SB drunk.” The chair of the county Republican Party persuaded Belt to leave the stage by putting to him a question concerning the city council election before Belt called fellow supervisor Brian Shea a “jackoff”, threatened to “kick [his] ass,” and, in a recording made in a nearby room, referred to his colleagues as “fuck ups” and “nitwits” before the county’s planning director drove him back to Council Bluffs. A video of Belt’s comments published by a Daily Nonpareil reporter quickly spread, and Belt told the paper that his behavior had been due to his medication, although he did not go into further detail because it was a “HIPAA deal.”

Nine days later, the county attorney filed a petition with the Pottawatomie County District Court to remove Belt from office, claiming that he had been intoxicated at the town hall as well as having attended other events over a period of more than thirteen months, including a national conference in Washington, D.C., at which it was alleged that Belt had taken two double shots of Bailey’s in his coffee before going to the class sessions (together with several other examples). That same day the district court suspended Belt. At the two-day trial in December, Belt not being there on the second day, the district court found clear, satisfactory, and convincing evidence that Belt had been intoxicated at the town hall and rejected the remaining allegations because they fell short of clear convincing, and satisfactory proof, though the court noted that its conclusion “might be different” under a lower evidentiary standard. Ultimately, the court decided that the incident at the town hall alone was sufficient by itself to justify Belt’s removal.

Belt argued on appeal that the State failed to prove his intoxication and that, under State v. Welsh, an 1899 Iowa Supreme Court decision, “[i]ntoxication, when not occurring while in the discharge of an official duty, is not a ground of removal for office.” Because there is no statute requiring supervisors to hold town halls, Belt argued that he was not acting in his official capacity, and that reading the statute otherwise “risks unintended consequences” for officials “who may be approached by the public at any time, in any place, because of the office they hold.” Alternatively, Belt asked for a remand because the district court failed to recognize its discretion, or for reinstatement because his “10 minutes of awkwardness” fell short of the “grave misconduct or…flagrant incompetency” that the Court, in a 1910 decision, State ex rel. Barker v. Meek, required for removal. The State responded that the statute’s text does not require any connection between intoxication and official duties, and that the district court both understood and exercised its discretion.

On all the issues, the Court agreed with the State. By using the definition given in the 1913 decision of the Iowa Supreme Court in State ex rel. Cosson v. Baughn (a person is considered intoxicated “when he is so far under the influence of intoxicating liquors that his passions are visibly excited or his judgment impaired”), the Court found sufficient evidence to show that Belt was intoxicated even though there had been no sobriety test administered. The State was not obliged to rule out the possibility of a medical cause, and Belt never presented any evidence regarding the medication he was taking or as to how it might have affected him.

As to whether Belt was acting in his official capacity, the Court held that the statute was clear. Other reasons which may lead to an official’s dismissal from office, such as “willful misconduct or maladministration in office,” are specifically linked to the duties of the office, whereas intoxication is not. The Court stated that Welsh came before intoxication was included as a ground for removal and therefore did not attempt to imply limitations which the legislature had left out, citing the safeguards in chapter 66 that prevent it from being used as “a political weapon,” such as the restrictions on who may file, the bond requirements, and the reimbursement fees. Instead, whether or not an official is acting in an official capacity is an equitable issue.

The Court also rejected Belt’s other arguments. The district court described the equity issue as “the closest decision in this case” and acknowledged its discretion before exercising it. The Court pointed out that the “grave misconduct” standard applies to grounds for removal, based on the word “willful”, a key point that has been established since Meek (1910) and State v. Roth (1913) and continued in State v. Watkins, a 2018 decision by the Iowa Supreme Court concerning grounds other than intoxication. Moreover, on its de novo review, the Court was not convinced by Belt’s description of the incident as lasting “only 10 minutes”: “Belt downplays the situation. He made a mockery of the town hall, and that ‘10 minutes of awkwardness’ extended well beyond that time frame when the story became news.”

Although the other allegations were unproven, the Court found unrebutted testimony that the town hall “was not an isolated event,” including the Bailey’s breakfast at a conference that county taxpayers “were presumably paying him to attend.” The Court acknowledged that removal “is heroic in nature and relatively drastic,” but that this record met the appropriate standard.

The Court did not address Belt’s request for attorney fees on the dismissed allegations. He conceded in his reply brief that he failed to preserve error, so the Court considered it waived.

Belt’s term would have expired on December 31, 2026, and he had already lost his party’s June primary. Both the voters and the Court reached the same conclusion, only on different schedules.

The post Iowa Supreme Court affirms the removal of Pottawattamie County supervisor for intoxication at Carson town hall appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

Question: Is it inherently prejudicial to have a uniformed sheriff’s deputy stand next to the witness box while the defendant testifies?

James Wiggins was found guilty of second-degree murder in connection with an incident where he shot at Tyrone Hutchins outside a bar in Des Moines in December 2022. When giving his testimony, Wiggins stated that he had been acting in self-defense since Hutchins had pointed a gun at Wiggins’s brother and friend before aiming it at Wiggins himself. A deputy sat near the witness box while Wiggins testified, as is required by Polk County courthouse policy, but no deputy was present while the State’s witnesses testified.

The Iowa Court of Appeals set aside Wiggins’s conviction and ordered a new trial. The court of appeals reasoned that the deputy’s presence was prejudicial, weakened the presumption of innocence, and constituted an error which could not be regarded as harmless, particularly as Wiggins’s credibility was vital to his self-defense claim. The court of appeals relied upon the Iowa Supreme Court’s 1987 ruling in State v. Wilson and said that security measures had to be justified on a basis “particularized to the defendant” rather than on the grounds of general policy.

On further review, the State contends that the court of appeals’ decision is in conflict with Holbrook v. Flynn, a 1986 opinion in which the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the presence of officers is not automatically prejudicial. It argues that no other court has held this practice to be inherently prejudicial and that the deputy maintained the same distance from Wiggins throughout the trial. Furthermore, the panel relied on the dissenting opinion rather than the majority opinion from a California case. The State claims that this resulted in two mistakes: the removal of the requirement that Wiggins have to prove actual prejudice and the substitution of the constitutional harmless-error standard with a less strict, non-constitutional one. It also maintains that any error was harmless because of the strong video evidence, the jury instruction telling the jury to disregard Wiggins’s custodial status, Wiggins himself mentioning his custodial status, and the jury returning a second-degree rather than a first-degree murder verdict.

Two of Wiggins’s arguments remain unresolved. The first of these is his objection to the jury instruction on “malice,” even though the district court refused to give that instruction. The second is his claim that mandatory participation in a victim-offender dialogue amounted to an illegal sentence.

The post Iowa Supreme Court to hear oral argument about the presumption of innocence October 2 in Iowa City appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

Question: Under what circumstances may a court reviewing a religious university’s decision to deny a religious exemption under the Iowa Civil Rights Act determine whether a student’s religious beliefs are genuine?

Andrew Perry, a junior at Dordt University studying nursing, asked for a religious exemption from the hospital’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements. Dordt University uses two criteria when handling such requests: whether the student’s denomination has issued a statement opposing vaccination and whether the student previously obtained a K-12 religious exemption. The committee denied his request about two weeks after his submission. Perry filed suit in Sioux County claiming religious discrimination under the Iowa Civil Rights Act, arguing that conditioning recognition of a religious belief on denominational endorsement favors organized faith, thereby discriminating against those who have the same beliefs who lack the same denominational support.

A key factual dispute concerned what the committee knew. About six months before Perry requested the exemption, he sent an unprompted email to the chair of Dordt’s nursing department stating that he had no problem with the vaccine and that the issue was his parents’ beliefs. Dordt states that there is testimony of Perry discussing being vaccinated without his mother’s knowledge so he could remain in the program, that Perry’s mother threatened to cut off financial support he was dependent on, and that he volunteered at a campus clinic administering that vaccine to classmates. The parties disagree about whether any of that information reached the committee. Dordt claims the committee knew of the email and Perry’s discussions about getting vaccinated without his mother’s knowledge, treating that knowledge as a reason to deny the exemption in addition to the criteria, while noting that the denial letter cited only the criteria. Conversely, Perry responds that Dordt did not have the evidence it provided at trial when it made its decision.

Perry transferred to a university in Florida and completed his nursing degree about two years later than he had originally planned. Following a two-day bench trial, the Sioux County District Court concluded that Perry’s religious belief was not genuine and ruled in favor of Dordt.

Perry argues that neither a university nor a court can tell whether a student has a true religious belief since such determination would be unfair. Those students who are supported by their denomination have an advantage, and courts ought to be careful when judging the sincerity of a belief since inconsistent behavior does not prove that the belief is not protected. Dordt replies that the outcome depends on the standard of review, pointing out that Perry had to prove that his belief was sincere, and that the district court’s decision should be maintained if the evidence is sufficient. Dordt states that the court did not decide whether Perry’s belief was genuine, but only whether he had acted on it. Furthermore, Dordt observes that its defense based on Iowa Code section 216.9(2), which protects religious organizations from discrimination claims, was not undermined, even though the district court had not addressed it, and requests that the case be sent back for consideration if the judgment is reversed.

There is also the matter of damages. Following the submission of the evidence, the Florida hospital where Perry had been trained offered him a job. The district court refused to reopen the record in order to admit the evidence, on the grounds that allowing rebuttal would open “Pandora’s box.” Perry contends that the court’s action was based on policy rather than an exercise of discretion, Dordt pointing out that the document was unauthenticated, consisted of hearsay, and was in the end irrelevant.

Dordt asked that the case be sent to the Court of Appeals and decided without oral argument, but the Court kept the case and scheduled it for a public session.

The post Iowa Supreme Court considers standards for assessing religious exemptions in special argument session in Spirit Lake appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

State v. Patterson

Argued September 9th at 9:00 AM.

Question: Did the district court apply the correct standard when determining competency when it adopted a medical provider’s competency determination?

The State appeals the district court’s ruling that Colton Patterson is incompetent to stand trial and unrestorable to competency. Patterson was charged with second-degree sexual abuse and lascivious acts with a child. An initial evaluation found Patterson incompetent but likely restorable with restoration treatment involving targeted education focused on trial-related topics. After restoration treatment, Patterson scored 84%, then 100% later on a legal-knowledge quiz administered to patients. However, another doctor evaluated Patterson in a 75-minute interview and concluded that Patterson was unrestorable. The district court ultimately adopted this doctor’s opinion, concluded Patterson was incompetent and unrestorable, and rejected the State’s argument that the facts underlying the evaluation showed Patterson was competent. The State argues the district court erred in adopting the doctor’s diagnosis and therefore the district court did not evaluate Patterson’s ability to understand the proceedings and assist in his defense. The State also argues the district court misapplied the burden of proof and should have placed the burden of proof on the defendant to prove competency under State v. Brown. The defendant argues the district court applied the correct standard and did not err in adopting the doctor’s opinion.

State v. Amyda

Argued September 9th at 9:00 AM.

Question: Did the district court err in admitting a video of alleged sexual abuse without proper authentication and without establishing the video was an original under the best evidence rule and not a “deepfake”?

Max Amyda seeks review of a Court of Appeals decision affirming his conviction for third-degree sexual abuse. The victim’s sister received a video allegedly taken by Amyda showing him sexually abusing the sleeping victim. Amyda argued the video was inadmissible because no witness testified that they witnessed the conduct or could describe how the video was produced, and therefore the video could not be authenticated. Amyda also argued the video was inadmissible under the best-evidence rule under a theory that the video was an AI-generated “deepfake” based on his argument that Amyda’s hand tattoo did not match the tattoo in the video, (although the State presented evidence that Amyda’s tattoo had been tattooed over after the video was taken). The Court of Appeals held that circumstantial evidence, including the victim recognizing her room and Amyda’s tattoo, sufficiently authenticated the video. The Court of Appeals further held that Amyda’s argument that the video was an AI deepfake was not supported by any evidence in the record and therefore amounted to unsubstantiated speculation.

Robert Teig v. Iowa Judicial Branch, et al.

Submitted September 9th without oral argument.

Question: Does Iowa Court Rule 35.4, deeming attorney-client files confidential, conflict with the disclosure requirements of the Iowa Open Records Act, and did state agencies fail to comply with the Act’s requirements to designate and publicly announce the person responsible for handling records requests?

Robert Teig sued the Iowa Judicial Branch, the Iowa Office of Professional Regulation, and the Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Discipline Board alleging violations of Iowa Code chapter 22 after each refused to provide copies of documents regarding an attorney-discipline complaint he filed against federal prosecutors. The district court dismissed Teig’s open records claims based on Iowa Court Rule 35.4(3), providing that disciplinary files are confidential, and later granted defendants’ summary judgment motion on Teig’s remaining requests based on attorney-client privilege and work-product protections. The district court did not reach Teig’s argument that OPR and the Board did not comply with chapter 22’s requirement to delegate and publicly identify a records custodian. Teig argues that a court rule such as Rule 35.4 cannot override the Iowa Open Records Act under separation-of-powers principles, citing State v. Thompson, and that the district court erred in granting summary judgment because the record shows no delegation was made and the requested materials are not protected by attorney-client privilege and work product protection.

Joshua Davenport v. Nathanael K. Fuller, PA-C

Argued September 9th at 1:30 PM.

Question: Is a general surgeon an individual licensed to practice in the same or substantially similar field as a physician’s assistant in order to provide a certificate of merit under Iowa Code section 147.139 in a lawsuit against the physician assistant for malpractice?

Joshua Davenport brought a medical malpractice action against Nathanael Fuller, a physician assistant, after Fuller allegedly misdiagnosed Davenport’s diverticulitis that progressed to bowel perforation and septic shock. Davenport’s expert witness, who submitted a certificate of merit, was a general surgeon with active trauma-call experience, but none in family medicine. The district court dismissed the suit, reasoning that a general surgeon does not practice in the same field as a family-practice physician assistant. Davenport contends that the district court misinterpreted the meaning of the word “field” under the statute—Davenport argues it should be defined by licensure of the expert and not by the expert’s specialty. Davenport further argues that Fuller failed to show that physicians and physician assistants are not substantially similar fields given the regulatory overlap of their responsibilities. Fuller argues the district court correctly concluded Davenport’s expert is not licensed to practice in the same or substantially similar field, including that the expert was not a physician assistant and did not practice in the area of family medicine.

In re Detention of Joshua Andrew Harlow

Argued September 9th at 1:30 PM.

Question: Does Iowa Code section 229A.2(10), regarding commitment of sexually violent predators, satisfy due process when it allows for confinement for a special sentence violation unrelated to a sexual offense without proof of an overt act?

Joshua Harlow discharged his sentence for a 2017 sexual-abuse conviction and began serving a lifetime special sentence under Iowa Code chapter 903B. He returned to prison later for failing to report to a work-release facility. The State petitioned to civilly commit Harlow as a sexually violent predator based on that confinement under Iowa Code chapter 229A, without alleging a recent overt act. The State argued that the legislature’s 2023 amendment to Section 229A.2(10) which defines “presently confined” includes confinement for a special-sentence violation such as Harlow’s. The district court denied Harlow’s motion to dismiss and found him to be a sexually violent predator. Harlow argues the Iowa Supreme Court’s decisions in In re Detention of Wygle and In re Detention of Gonzales concluded that confinement only for a special-sentence violation is not a “recent overt act” as due process requires, and the 2023 amendment therefore violates the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions. The State argues the 2023 amendments comport with due process requirements.

State v. McKnight

Submitted September 9th without oral argument.

Question: Can a defendant who pleaded guilty to two counts of willful injury appeal his concurrent sentences and argue his sentences are illegal because there was no factual basis for two separate counts of willful injury and therefore the convictions merged into one count, despite not filing a motion in arrest of judgment?

Jerell McKnight pled guilty to two counts of willful injury after shooting a man several times, and was sentenced concurrently on both counts. McKnight argues on appeal that the convictions should have merged because neither his plea nor the court’s findings established a “break in the action” between the shots. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal for a lack of jurisdiction, holding that his claim was unpreserved based on McKnight’s failure to file a motion in arrest of judgment. McKnight contends that a failure to merge the convictions is an “illegal sentence” claim that Iowa courts have allowed to be raised at any time, without applying traditional error-preservation rules. McKnight alternatively argues the Iowa Supreme Court should adopt plain-error review.

In the Matter of $11,500 Seized from Bitcoin Depot Operating, LLC

Argued September 10th, 9:00 AM.

Question: Does Iowa Code chapter 533C, requiring digital-asset kiosks to provide refunds to customers who fell victim to fraud, apply retroactively to transactions prior to the statute’s effective date such that the district court may order seized funds be returned to the victim-customer?

Bitcoin Depot sought the return of $11,500 seized from a kiosk after Gary VanderWerf told police he had been defrauded into sending Bitcoin to a scammer. The district court denied the return of the funds under Iowa Code section 533.1004, which requires digital-asset kiosk operators such as Bitcoin Depot to refund defrauded customers who meet certain conditions. Bitcoin Depot contends that the statute cannot be applied to VanderWerf’s transaction unless it expressly applies retroactively, and that even if it did apply retroactively, it would only create a separate refund obligation rather than determining who has the right to possess the seized funds under the return-of-seized-property statute. Further, it contends that VanderWerf did not provide the proof of fraud as the statute requires. The Attorney General argues it has authority to represent the State in the appeal and the State had authority to appear in the underlying seized property action. The Attorney General argues the district court correctly refused to order return of the seized property to Bitcoin Depot based on the victim-customer’s right to a refund under Iowa Code chapter 533C.

[Note: Nyemaster Goode represents the appellant]

State v. West

Argued September 10th at 9:00 AM.

Question: Where the alleged sexual abuse in a criminal prosecution may have occurred outside of Iowa, was there sufficient evidence that Iowa had territorial jurisdiction over a truck driver for sexually abusing a child during a month-long, multi-state trip?

John West, a long-haul trucker, was convicted in Muscatine County of seven counts of second-degree sexual abuse and four counts of lascivious acts with a child from a truck-driving trip he took with an eleven-year-old boy. Parts of the abuse occurred while they were out of state, and the child could not definitively testify whether any of the abuse occurred in Iowa. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that evidence that an incident occurred at a Muscatine motel at the outset of the truck-driving trip, and West taking the child out of state, were sufficient circumstantial evidence to establish Iowa’s territorial jurisdiction under Iowa Code section 803.1. West contends that the conduct the court of appeals found supported territorial jurisdiction over West related only to a charge he was acquitted of, indecent acts with a child, and therefore cannot establish jurisdiction over the lascivious acts with a child and second-degree sexual abuse charges he was convicted of because Iowa Code section 803.1 requires that the elements of the charged offenses occur in Iowa.

In the Interest of E.S., Minor Child

Submitted September 10th without oral argument.

Question: Should an appeal from a juvenile court permanency order be reinstated where the Court of Appeals dismissed it as untimely based on filing mistakes while the appellant was representing herself?

After a permanency hearing and termination of parental rights trial, the juvenile court found grounds to terminate a mother’s parental rights but declined to do so. Instead, the district court dismissed the termination petition and changed the permanency goal from reunification with the mother to sole custody to the father.  The pro se mother-appellant filed her petition one day after the deadline under Iowa Rule of Appellate Procedure 6.201(1)(b). The Court of Appeals dismissed the mother’s appeal, holding that because she chose to proceed without counsel, she was held to the same standard as a lawyer and did not show that the delay was outside her control.

Swan Lake Road Farms, LLC v. Iowa Utilities Commission

Argued September 10th at 1:30 PM.

Question: Did the district court err in affirming the Iowa Utilities Commission’s grant of a franchise despite finding Iowa Code § 306.46 unconstitutional, and did the district court err in ordering compensation rather than requiring the utility to obtain eminent domain authority?

The Iowa Utilities Commission granted ITC Midwest a franchise to build a new transmission line along Swan Lake Road in Johnson County. The Commission relied on Iowa Code section 306.46 to place poles and lines in the road’s right-of-way on land owned by Swan Lake Road Farms without paying compensation. Swan Lake challenged this ruling as an unconstitutional taking of its property. The district court agreed with Swan Lake that applying section 306.46 constituted an unconstitutional taking, but left the franchise in place and ordered ITC Midwest to pay just compensation through condemnation-commission proceedings.

Swan Lake argues on appeal that the district court erred on the grounds that once a taking is found, the utility can only proceed with eminent domain authority if the franchise is “necessary for public use” under Iowa Code section 478.15, asking the Supreme Court to reverse the franchise and order an evidentiary hearing on the necessity for public use.

State v. Belt

Argued September 10th at 1:30 PM.

Question: Does a district court have discretion to remove an elected official from office under Iowa’s removal from office statute based on one instance of the elected official’s intoxication at a public town hall event as being intoxicated in his official capacity?

Following a two-day bench trial, the district court removed Scott Belt, a Pottawattamie County supervisor, from office after finding that he was intoxicated while serving as emcee of a November 2025 town hall. The district court found there was clear, satisfactory, and convincing evidence that Belt was intoxicated at the town hall meeting. Belt contends that Iowa’s removal statute is discretionary, rather than mandatory, and that the district court failed to consider that it had discretion to deny the petition for removal under the circumstances. Further, he contends that the State failed to prove he was acting in his “official capacity” at a voluntary event with no official business on the agenda, and he seeks attorneys’ fees. The State argues removal was appropriate because Belt was acting in his official capacity even if the town hall was not a statutorily required meeting, and the district court properly exercised its discretion in removing Belt.

NewRez LLC, d/b/a Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing v. Lynae D. McMillen Dickey Tesdall

Submitted September 10th without oral argument.

Question: Is a homeowner who signs a mortgage, and not the promissory note, a “borrower” entitled to notice of the right to cure a default before foreclosure?

Lynae Tesdall and her partner bought a house and signed the mortgage. The mortgage documents described Tesdall and her partner both as “Borrower,” but only Tesdall’s partner signed the promissory note. After her partner moved out and defaulted, the lender sent notice of the right to cure only to him and not to Tesdall. The lender then filed the foreclosure action without notifying Tesdall, and Tesdall argued the lender’s failure to provide notice of the right to cure prevented foreclosure. The district court concluded Tesdall was not a “borrower” in default under Iowa Code section 654.2D because she did not sign the promissory note and therefore was not entitled to a right to cure. The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the lender, agreeing with the district court that a “borrower” is someone who has been loaned money and is obligated to repay, notwithstanding being labeled “Borrower” on a mortgage. Tesdall contends that the statute’s plain text includes Tesdall based on the plain-language definition of mortgage, and that reading the statute otherwise would undermine homeowner protections.

The post Summary of Iowa Supreme Court Cases Argued and Submitted Sept. 9 and 10 appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

The last four Iowa Supreme Court terms—from the 2022-2023 term to the recently concluded 2025-2026 term—have seen a stylistic shift in how the Court articulates its rulings. Brevity has become the order of the day. Not only have the Court’s opinions become shorter on average, but even factoring in those fractured rulings involving separate opinions, the Justices are using fewer words to say what they wish to say.

Opinions by the Numbers

The 2025-2026 term of the Iowa Supreme Court concluded on June 30. While it might seem straightforward to simply count the number of cases decided by the Court, there are different ways to measure the output of a term. The Court released 107 published decisions, decided 106 cases, released 105 majority opinions, and yet only decided 104 cases by opinion. This term involved a unique situation in which one appeal—City of Davenport v.  Office of Auditor of State of Iowa, No. 24-1160—resulted in the release of two opinions: one divided opinion released in December 2025 regarding an appellate procedural issue, and one unanimous opinion released in April 2026 on the merits. Two other appeals were divided 3-3, resulting in the underlying judgment being affirmed as a matter of law. However you want to count it, the Court’s output level was right in line with the last few terms.

Including dissenting, concurring, and per curiam opinions, the Court issued 149 total opinions, a slight increase from the last few terms. In particular, the justices collectively authored 20 concurring opinions, compared to an average of 13 since the Court gained its current composition in the 2022-2023 term. Justice Mansfield issued the greatest number of opinions this term, including eight dissenting opinions and 12 separate opinions overall. However, the number of non-unanimous cases, 23, was consistent with the last few terms. So was the number of closely divided cases, which was 13.

This term featured a dramatic discrepancy in reversal rates between the Iowa Court of Appeals and the district courts. The Court of Appeals was fully affirmed in only 22% of appeals from that court, with full reversals in 62% of appeals and a mixed disposition in the remaining 16%. District court rulings, by contrast, were affirmed in 49% of appeals. There tends to be a slightly higher reversal rate on appeals taken on further review from the Court of Appeals, likely due to an adverse selection effect reflecting the types of cases likely to be selected for further review. Nevertheless, this is the highest spread we have seen in recent history.

This term, nearly all of the Supreme Court’s cases came from the two traditional sources of jurisdiction: 51 cases heard on direct appeal and 45 cases heard via further review. The Court only heard one case via discretionary review, three cases via interlocutory appeal, and three cases via certiorari. The Court also decided two attorney discipline cases and one certified question from a federal district court. These figures stand in marked contrast to last year’s mere 33 direct appeals and 22 appeals combined via discretionary review, interlocutory appeal, or certiorari.

The Supreme Court decided 28 criminal cases and 78 civil cases. Though the ratio of civil cases to criminal cases has been gradually trending higher over the years, this is the highest ratio of civil cases to criminal cases since at least 2020.

Finally, 84 of the Court’s 107 published decisions were unanimous. This rate of 78% unanimous decisions is right in line with the historical average for the Court in its current composition. From the 2022-2023 term onward, the Court’s unanimous decision rate has ranged between 77% and 81%.

Length of Published Opinions

The published opinions of this term’s Court totaled 2,118 pages. While that may seem like a colossal amount of verbiage, it pales in comparison to the 3,135 pages of opinions the Court released only four years ago, during the 2021-2022 term. The shift to the current composition of the Court, beginning with the 2022-2023 term, has heralded an era of relative economy. Between the 2018-2019 term and the 2021-2022 term, the average Supreme Court ruling, encompassing all separate opinions but excluding opinions released per curiam, totaled 27.2 pages. Between the 2022-2023 term and the most recent term, another four-year span, the average ruling totaled 20.2 pages—a 25% decrease in length.

An astute reader might suspect that this decline would be attributable to the contemporaneous decrease in separate opinions and non-unanimous opinions catalogued in statistical overviews of prior terms in this magazine. This probably explains some of this statistical effect. A majority opinion that does not need to respond to a dissenting opinion may not need to say as much. But the Justices’ individual writings are getting shorter as well. The average individual opinion issued between the 2018-2019 term and the 2021-2022 term, inclusive of all concurring and dissenting opinions measured separately, was 17 pages. During the past four terms, that figure is 15 pages—a smaller, but nevertheless distinct, decrease.

This shift in writing style has manifested itself at both ends of the statistical spectrum. The outlier opinions are shorter, but so is the median opinion for each term. Each of the four terms between the 2018-2019 term and the 2021-2022 term featured at least one ruling totaling over 100 pages, inclusive of all separate opinions. The Court has only published one 100-page ruling since. The median opinion length has also steadily declined, with this most recent term featuring the shortest median opinion (16 pages) of the past eight years.

Frequency of agreement

This term’s justice alignment data stands out in at least three ways. First, the range of agreement percentages is wider than it has been since the Court obtained its current composition. While the data still shows most justices agreeing with each other between one-third and two-thirds of the time in divided cases, the average range of each justice’s alignment metrics—the discrepancy between the justices’ highest and lowest agreement levels—is 25% higher than it was last term. The Court’s collective standard deviation—a measurement of the distance of each agreement level from the average—also increased moderately term-over-term.

Second, this most recent data shows a relative lack of agreement among Chief Justice Christensen, Justice Waterman, and Justice Mansfield. These three justices have been the closest the current Court has come to a set of justices voting together reliably over the last few terms. Justices Christensen and Mansfield agreed with each other only 52% of the time in divided cases: by far that pair’s lowest agreement figure. And Justices Waterman and Mansfield, who have frequently been the two justices most likely to agree with one another, agreed on fewer than two-thirds of divided cases this term. That is also an all-time low value for the period for which we have alignment data.

Third, there are two trends involving Justice May worth noting. One, Justices McDonald and May have, for the second time in three terms, been the justices who have agreed most frequently. This term, that value was 91%. And two, Justice May, also for the second time in the most recent three terms, was the justice most likely to appear in the majority in divided cases: also 91% of the time. Justices Oxley and McDermott were most likely to author or join dissenting opinions, siding with the majority only 52% of the time in divided cases.

Justice alignments in closely divided cases

There were 13 “closely divided” cases this term, where a change to one vote would have changed the result. The most common four-justice majority was comprised of Justices McDonald, Oxley, McDermott, and May, who joined as a majority to decide three such cases. This, like some of the alignment data identified above, is a return to a pattern that emerged in the 2023-2024 term. This term, Justices McDonald and May were far most likely to sit with the majority in closely divided cases, at 82% and 80% respectively.

We caution readers against drawing too much from these small sample sizes, however. In prior statistical overviews, we have speculated whether the data was showing that Justices Oxley or McDermott were acting as a decisive “swing vote.” In reality, the safest takeaway from this data is that the outcomes and lineups of divided cases remain unpredictable.

The post A statistical review of the 2025-26 Iowa Supreme Court term: “The Incredible Shrinking Judicial Opinion” appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

This case began when Frank Santana was mowing his pasture with a horse drawn sickle mower while Jenny Shafer filmed him. After Santana finished mowing, he got off the mower and asked Shafer to hold the horses while he raised the sickle bar. Shafer held one horse by its lead rope, standing on the side away from the sickle bar. When the sickle bar dropped to the ground, the noise spooked the horses. The horses moved backward, then forward, and Shafer fell. The steel wheel of the mower ran over her and dragged her several feet, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down and with medical expenses over $700,000. Shafer sued Santana for $18.2 million. The district court dismissed the suit on summary judgment, ruling that Santana was immune under the Iowa’s Domesticated Animal Activities Act. The court of appeals agreed that the Act applied but reversed on the question as to whether Shafer could raise a fact question on the issue of recklessness, which could defeat the statutory immunity. Santana sought further review.

Iowa Code section 673.2 shields an owner from liability for injuries “resulting from the inherent risks of a domesticated animal activity.” Section 673.1(3)(a) defines a domesticated animal activity to include “driving a domesticated animal.” Shafer argued that once Santana dismounted and stopped the horses to raise the sickle bar, he was no longer “driving” them, so the Act’s immunity should not apply. The Court disagreed with how the court of appeals got to its answer, even though it agreed with the answer itself. Rather than relying on a generic dictionary definition of “driving,” the Court explained that the term is one of art within the equine community and means “the activity of an individual controlling the movement of an equine harnessed to a nonmotorized vehicle, such as a carriage.” Applying that definition, the Court found that the horses remained harnessed to the mower throughout the sequence of events, so Santana was still driving them even during the brief pause to secure the sickle bar. The Court rejected Shafer’s attempt to separate the activity into discrete moments, explaining that liability should not turn on whether the horses happened to be standing still or moving at the precise instant of injury. Relying on a parade case involving a runaway pony, the Court reasoned that a domesticated animal activity has to be viewed in its entirety and not broken into isolated snapshots. Because Shafer was at minimum a spectator to that activity when she was holding the horses, the statutory immunity applied to her injuries, and the burden shifted to her to identify an exception.

The second issue was whether Shafer’s evidence of recklessness was enough to survive summary judgment. Iowa law sets a high bar for recklessness, requiring proof that the defendant intentionally performed an unreasonable act and disregarded a known or obvious risk, making harm highly probable. Reckless conduct must be an act that is an extreme departure from ordinary care rather than a mere lapse in judgment. The Court acknowledged that expert opinion can sometimes support an inference of recklessness, but only where it shows the defendant disregarded a risk that was known to him or so obvious that he must have been aware of it. Here, Santana was never deposed, leaving the record without any direct evidence as to what he actually knew about the dangers of operating the mower. Shafer’s own expert, an eighty-two-year-old horseman, claimed that the mower was rusty, the safety rod was not secured, the horses were undertrained, and no one should have stood in front of the horses to hold them. Nonetheless, the Court found these opinions described ordinary negligence instead of a conscious disregard of a known risk. The Court also emphasized that Shafer had held the horses in a similar manner earlier that same afternoon without incident, undercutting any claim that harm was highly probable. Because the Act specifically protects against unpredictable reactions by an animal to a sudden loud noise, the Court concluded that the risks here were the ordinary and inherent risks the legislature intended to immunize. Therefore, this injury was not the product of Santana’s recklessness.

The Court did not pretend this was an easy result to reach. It acknowledged that Shafer’s injuries were severe and that she would be left without a forum to pursue her claim. However, it explained that the legislature made a policy choice to protect owners of domesticated animals from liability for the unpredictable behavior those animals inevitably present, and the Court was bound to apply that choice as written. The Court vacated the court of appeals’ opinion and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the suit.

The post Iowa Supreme Court Upholds Immunity in Horse-Drawn Mower Injury Case appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

Thompson v. State, No. 25-0891

Opinion date: April 29, 2026

On appeal from Pottawattamie County District Court

Issue:

• Whether the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision in State v. White, 9 N.W3d 1 (Iowa 2024), applies retroactively to invalidate Thompson’s conviction based on his Confrontation Clause challenge.

Eric Thompson was convicted of kidnapping in the first degree and assault causing bodily injury in 2000 and was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping and sexually abusing a ten-year-old child. At trial, the district court admitted testimony of the child-victim’s deposition wherein Thompson had been ordered to leave the room and observe the deposition from a separate room. Thompson filed prior applications for post-conviction relief arguing that his Confrontation Clause rights were violated by this procedure. In his fourth application for post-conviction relief, Thompson argued that the Iowa Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in State v. White applied retroactively such that the admission of the child’s deposition testimony violated his right to confrontation.

The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the post-conviction court’s denial of Thompson’s application. rejected Thompson’s arguments and concluded White applies only prospectively, finding the Iowa Supreme Court has several times found that “a change in our understanding of the right to confrontation” generally has not been applied retroactively. The Court separately rejected the “watershed” rule proposed by Thompson, finding that it had only been applied once by the United States Supreme Court regarding the right to appointed counsel and otherwise the “watershed” rule had been repeatedly rejected. Finally, the Iowa Court of Appeals concluded that even if White applied retroactively, any error in the admission of the child-victim’s deposition testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because evidence of Thompson’s guilt was overwhelming. Judge Buller authored the opinion of a unanimous panel.

Skaggs v. Carson, No. 25-1282

Opinion date: May 27, 2026

On appeal from Linn County District Court.

Issues:

• Whether Iowa Code chapter 598C—Iowa’s Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act—permits a district court to grant temporary caretaking authority over a deployed parent’s child to a nonparent rather than to the child’s other, nondeployed parent.
• Whether the district court properly denied the nondeployed parent’s petition to modify the parties’ prior custody-and-support order under Iowa Code chapter 600B.
• Whether the district court erred in awarding the deployed mother’s trial attorney fees and whether the appellate court should award appellate attorney fees.

Brandon Skaggs and Kodi Carson are unmarried parents of a daughter, with a 2021 order that placed the child in Carson’s physical care and granted Skaggs visitation. Carson is a member of the National Guard and, after she spent approximately nine months in Texas for National Guard training, Skaggs petitioned to modify the prior order. While Skaggs’s petition to modify that order to joint physical care was pending, Carson received orders to deploy to Kosovo for nine months and Skaggs then sought a temporary order under Iowa Code section 598C.301 placing the daughter in his physical care. Carson resisted, arguing caretaking authority should be delegated to her mother under section 598C.305.  The district court held an expedited hearing before Carson’s deployment and granted Carson’s request, finding that the statutory requirements were satisfied and that placement with Carson’s mother served the child’s best interest. By the time of the modification trial, Carson had returned from deployment, and the district court denied Skaggs’s modification petition for failure to show a substantial change in circumstances, also awarding Carson $19,000 in trial attorney fees.

On appeal, the Iowa Court of Appeals first addressed mootness, and found that although the temporary chapter 598C order was no longer in effect after Carson returned from deployment and the issue therefore moot, it would still reach the merits under the public-importance exception to mootness. The Court found that the scope of a court’s authority to place a deployed servicemember’s child with a nonparent is a matter of public concern, no Iowa appellate court had yet construed chapter 598C, and the issue is likely to recur, and such temporary orders tend to evade appellate review due to their expedited and short-lived nature.

The Court then addressed the merits of the temporary order and held that the express terms of section 598C.305 authorized the district court to grant caretaking authority to Carson’s mother as a qualifying nonparent even when a fit, nondeployed parent is available, because the statutory eligibility requirements were met and the arrangement was in the child’s best interest. The Court found that the best-interest standard in section 598C.305(4) incorporates the factors of Iowa Code section 598.41(3) and those set out in the Iowa Supreme Court’s 1974 opinion in In re Marriage of Winter and that nothing in Chapter 598C creates a presumption favoring the nondeployed parent. The Court agreed with the district court that placing the daughter with Carson’s mother—who had already provided substantial care, lived near the child’s daycare and preschool, and preserved stability—served the child’s best interest better than uprooting her to live with Skaggs, who had never been her primary caretaker and would have required changing the child’s daycare, school, and surrounding relationships.

Regarding modification of the prior custody-and-support order, the Court agreed with the district court that Skaggs failed to carry his “heavy burden” of showing a substantial and permanent change in circumstances, because Carson’s periodic military training and deployments were foreseeable at the time of the original 2021 order and were, in any event, temporary rather than permanent. Finally, the Iowa Court of Appeals found no abuse of discretion in the trial attorney-fee award to Carson given the parties’ disparate abilities to pay, and it exercised its own discretion to award Carson $8,000 in appellate attorney fees as the prevailing party on appeal. Judge Langholz authored the opinion of a unanimous panel.

The post July 2026 Iowa Court of Appeals Published Opinions Roundup appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.

This case began with a police sting operation. After Kevin Charles Lind allegedly offered a prostitute money to “find a friend who had a young girl he could” molest, the prostitute went to the police who then put Lind in contact with a female undercover officer. This officer operated under the codename “Kami.” Kami played the part of a prostitute who had a thirteen-year-old daughter named “Destini.” The officer (Kami) sent Lind photos of Destini that were actually just age-regressed images of a police officer. Destini was a completely fictional person. Lind and Kami nonetheless negotiated a plan under which Lind would meet Kami and Destini at a motel and pay $1,300 for sex acts with both of them. Lind arrived at the motel with over $1,500 in cash and was arrested on the spot. The State charged him with human trafficking as a class “A” felony under Iowa Code section 710A.2(1), but the district court dismissed the charge, and the State appealed.

The central question on appeal was whether Lind’s alleged conduct fell within the statutory definition of human trafficking when there was never any real victim or any real person engaged in human trafficking.

The dispute on the merits of the case narrowed in on a single phrase. The State relied only on subsection (4)(b), which defines human trafficking to “also mean[] knowingly purchasing or attempting to purchase services involving commercial sexual activity from a victim or another person engaged in human trafficking.” In the State’s view, the word “attempting” meant it did not matter whether a real victim existed. Therefore, all that mattered was that Lind believed real people were involved and acted on that belief by driving to the motel with cash. The district court, by contrast, interpreted the phrase to require an actual victim or actual trafficker.

The Court began from first principles, emphasizing that “[i]n Iowa, [m]atters of crime and punishment are creatures of statute,” so the judicial task is to interpret the text and give the legislature’s words their fair meaning. Reading the phrase in (4)(b) in its ordinary sense, the Court explained that it “is most naturally read to mean that there must be an actual ‘victim’ or other ‘person engaged in human trafficking.’” Therefore, because Lind’s transaction was entirely pretend, the phrase did not reach him. The State argued that “attempt” carries a “technical meaning in the law” that requires only intent plus an act in furtherance of that intent, regardless of factual possibility. But the Court explained that a term’s established legal meaning does not automatically govern when the context points the other way. In this case, the surrounding body of law pointed decisively against the State.

That context was the heart of the opinion. The Court walked through the legislative history of Iowa’s sex-crime statutes and found a telling pattern: when the legislature wanted a statute to reach undercover officers posing as victims, it expressly said so. It did so in the 2012 solicitation offense, section 710A.2A, and again in 2023 when it added undercover-law-enforcement language to sections 710.10, 728.12, and 728.15. Yet the legislature never added such language to the human trafficking statute, even while amending that very statute in the same sessions. Under the canons of selective placement and against surplusage, that silence was meaningful: the State’s reading would render the legislature’s deliberate “law enforcement officer or agent” language mere surplusage in the statutes that contain it. As the Court put it, “the legislature knows how to authorize sting operations when it wants to.”

The 2025 amendments sealed the conclusion. That year, the legislature expanded the definitions of both “human trafficking” and “victim” to expressly include a law enforcement officer or agent posing as a person subjected to or engaged in trafficking, the exact sting tactic used against Lind. Because “‘a material change’ in statutory language is presumed to ‘change the force and effect of the existing law,’” the Court inferred that those tactics were not authorized under the earlier 2024 statute. The Court rejected the State’s warning that this reading would “end all Iowa sting operations,” explaining that the legislature has now added the missing authorization. The Court also noted that it is not free to “expand criminal liability beyond what the legislature has created.” And even if doubt lingered, the rule of lenity would resolve it in the defendant’s favor.

The result is a straightforward ruling with an important limitation. Under the 2024 statute, attempting to buy sex from an imaginary victim is not human trafficking, and the dismissal of the charge against Lind stands. But the decision is expressly limited to the 2024 law before its amendment. The Court signaled that the same conduct would “likely fall within the definition of human trafficking” under the amended 2025 statute. For Iowa prosecutors, the takeaway is that the gap exposed in Lind has already been closed going forward, and that, in criminal cases, the words the legislature actually enacted will control over the result the State would prefer.

The post Iowa Supreme Court Limits Human Trafficking Liability Under 2024 Statute, Requiring an Actual Victim appeared first on Nyemaster Goode On Brief.