Yesterday, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin forwarded two names to President Obama to fill a vacancy being left by Eighth Circuit Judge Michael Melloy, who will take senior status on January 30.  Making the cut: Jane Kelly, a federal public defender from Cedar Rapids, and Mary Tabor, a judge on the Iowa Court of Appeals.  While those recommendations do not restrain the President’s nomination power (he can choose whomever he wants), presidents do not generally stray outside a home-state senator’s recommendations.

Kelly, a law school classmate of President Obama, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991.  She then clerked successively for South Dakota Federal Judge Donald Porter and Eighth Circuit Judge David Hansen.  From 1993-1994, she taught at the University of Illinois College of law, and since 1994 she’s worked as an assistant federal public defender in Cedar Rapids.

Judge Tabor graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1991, and began her career at the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C.   She joined the Iowa Attorney General’s office in 1993, where she practiced until her appointment by Governor Chet Culver to the Court of Appeals in 2010.

Judge Tabor was also on Harkin’s short list for the recent vacancy on United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.  President Obama ultimately appointed Stephanie Rose, who was sworn in this week.  At the age of 39, Judge Rose is the youngest federal judge in the United States.

Today the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a surviving husband who elects against his wife’s will is not entitled to any portion of her pay-on-death (POD) assets that pass outside of probate.  The case, Estate of Myers, is the Court’s first significant foray into elective share issues since deciding in 2006 that elective share rights extend to assets held in a revocable trust, and not just those passing under a will.  Sieh v. Sieh, 713 N.W.2d 194.

In an opinion by Justice Waterman, the Court acknowledged that the same rationale for subjecting revocable trust assets to the elective share applies to POD assets as well – in both cases, the decedent has complete control over the assets at all times prior to death.  However, the Court ruled that the legislature’s 2009 amendment of the elective share statute both codified and limited the holding in Sieh, such that its rationale applies only to revocable trusts and not to other non-probate assets.  The Court appeared sympathetic to the public policy arguments of the spouse, but directed him to make those arguments to the legislature.  The Myers case is here.  Sieh is here.

Today,  the the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced that Chief Justice John Roberts has named Iowa-based Eighth Circuit Judge Steven Colloton as the chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules.  Judge Colloton, who succeeds Sixth Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, will serve a three-year appointment that is subject to renewal.

[The following summary was written by Nyemaster Goode attorney Colin Smith]

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently overturned a lower district court’s ruling that stated that a Missouri High School’s suspension and re-assignment of two students who created a derogatory blog about the school and fellow students violated the students’ First Amendment rights. In S.J.W. v. Lee’s Summit R-7 School District, the Court held that while students are entitled to First Amendment protections for speech generated on and off campus, student speech “targeted at” a school that has the potential to “materially and substantially disrupt” school orderliness is not protected.

[The following summary was written by Nyemaster Goode attorney Colin Smith]

Recently the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in its en banc rehearing of Phelps-Roper v. City of Manchester, held that a Missouri town’s funeral protest ordinance was constitutional as a narrowly tailored restriction on free speech that served the significant state interest of preserving the solemnity of ongoing funeral services.  This case is the latest in a string of funeral protest cases that have come out of the Eighth Circuit, some of which have been previously discussed on this blog.

[The following summary was written by Nyemaster Goode attorney Colin Smith]

In one of the latest cases to come down in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently dismissed another challenge to the healthcare law.  Authored by Iowan and rumored Supreme Court short-lister Judge Steven Colloton, the Court denied two plaintiffs’ challenges to the universal coverage provision in the ACA on the grounds that neither party had standing to bring the case.

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert. in in Rubashkin v. United States, City of Des Moines v. Kragnes, and Carlson v. Wiggins, three Iowa-based cases that have received local–and in the case of Rubashkin, national–attention.  For more information, see our previous posts on these cases:

U.S. Supreme Court to Consider Three Iowa Cases on September 24
Eighth Circuit Rejects Constitutional Challenge to Iowa’s Judicial-Selection Method
Sholom Rubashkin Files Petition for Certiorari with U.S. Supreme Court
City of Des Moines Asks Iowa Supreme Court to Reconsider Class-Action Ruling
Rubashkin Hires Former SG Paul Clement for Supreme Court Challenge

When the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court meet for their conference on September 24, they’ll consider whether to add several high-profile cases to their docket; chief among them, the California “Prop 8″ case and the challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.  More specific to Iowa, however, the Court could decide whether Sholom Rubashkin will serve a 27-year sentence, whether Des Moines must pay $40 million at the expense of its property owners, and whether Iowa lawyers will continue to elect members of the judicial nominating commission.

Those are the general issues in Rubashkin v. United States, City of Des Moines v. Kragnes, and Carlson v. Wiggins, three Iowa-based cases that have received local–and in the case of Rubashkin, national–attention.   The losing party  in each case filed a petition for writ of certiorari with Supreme Court early this year, and the justices will decide whether to grant or deny the petitions during their private conference on the 24th.

Unless at least four justices vote to grant the petition, the lower court opinion stands.  And that’s the likely outcome here, as it is in most cases: the Supreme Court receives about 8,000 cert. petitions each year and grants somewhere between 60-90 of them.  But that said,  it’s not  completely outside the realm of possibility that the Court will hear one of these Iowa cases.

Tomorrow at noon, On Brief contributor Ryan Koopmans will discuss the Iowa Supreme Court with Iowa Public Radio’s Katherine Perkins.  Iowa Public Radio airs on 90.1 FM in the Des Moines area; a list of other stations around the State is here.

[UPDATE: The interview is available here.]

[The following summary was written by Wade Hauser, a law clerk in Nyemaster Goode’s summer program.]

In American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Iowa, Inc. v. Records Custodian, Atlantic Community School District, No. 11-0095, the Iowa Supreme Court considered an open records request by the ACLU under Iowa’s Open Records Act. The ACLU requested records relating to the discipline of two school district employees who stripped searched five students. In response to the request, the school district released the names of the employees, but did not describe the discipline it imposed. The school district asserted this information was exempt from the Iowa Open Records Act under section 22.7(11), which exempts from disclosure “personal information in confidential personnel records of public bodies including but not limited to cities, boards of supervisions and school districts.”

When the school district refused to release the records, the ACLU sought an injunction to compel disclosure. The district court ruled that section 22.7(11) exempted the disciplinary reports from the open records requirement and granted summary judgment for the school district. The court of appeals affirmed.

On appeal, the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts by a four-to-three vote. Writing for the majority, Justice Wiggins held that the court must employ a one or two-step process to determine whether a sought after record falls within the “personal information in confidential personnel records” exemption. The court must first look to the language of the statute, Iowa precedent, and out-of-state case law to determine if the exemption covers the requested information. If the record falls within the exemption, the inquiry ends. If the record does not clearly fall within section 22.7(11), the court applies a balancing test to determine whether the section applies.

Writing in dissent, Chief Justice Cady, joined by Justices Waterman and Mansfield, argued that the majority overruled decades of case law by questioning whether Iowa uses a balancing test to determine if the requested information falls within the section 22.7(11) exemption; the dissent contended that the court has consistently used the balancing test in these circumstances. The dissent also argued that the majority’s decision undermined the intent of the open records act and that its “approach is a return to the government of the past and a danger to our future.”

Iowa Court of Appeals

Eighth Circuit

SCOTUSblog

Additional Blog Resources

Employment Law Blog

Intellectual Property Blog

Categories