The Iowa Supreme Court reverses a conviction that relied upon inadmissible hearsay, when a witness testified regarding information contained in medical or business records. The exception to the hearsay rules allows the record to be admitted, but not oral testimony regarding what the record contained.

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The Iowa Supreme Court has determined that in a case in which the Defendant, who filmed himself having consensual sex with his girlfriend, and later, after their break-up, posted the video on a porn website without her permission, plead guilty to harassment, the Defendant could not be required to register as a sex offender unless the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that his crime was sexually motivated.  “Sexually motivated” means that one of the purposes for commission of a crime [was] the purpose of sexual gratification of the perpetrator of the crime.” Under the plain language of the statute, it was not sufficient for the State to show that the crime involved sexual content or the offender had an interest in sexual content. Merely containing sexual content did not prove that his motive in posting the video was sexual as opposed to mere revenge or to annoy his former partner. The State was required to prove the “commission of [the] crime” was for the “purpose of sexual gratification of the perpetrator of the crime.” This the State failed to prove. Hence, the sentence was reversed and he will not be required to register as a sex offender, nor will he be subject to the life limitations such would require.

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Iowa Court of Appeals rules that a law enforcement officer entering a subject’s vehicle to move it without permission to do so is not necessarily a community caretaking function, and that evidence obtained as a result of the illegal unconstitutional entry must be suppressed.

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No contact protective order dismissed. Petitioner was not able to establish a domestic relationship as defined by the Iowa Code, which is required for an NCO, and therefore a motion to dismiss was granted.

The Iowa Supreme Court has issued a shocking ruling on gambling fraud. Gamblers beware. If you don’t win and someone else does, do not attempt to claim their winnings, even if they have authorized you to do so.

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The U.S. Supreme Court again upholds the constitution by refusing to allow the state of Georgia to re-try a Defendant on a charge in which he was acquitted, holding that it would violate the double jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution. When a jury appeared to have rendered inconsistent verdicts on various counts, finding Defendant McElrath not guilty by reason of insanity on one count but guilty but mentally ill on other counts, both of which could not be true for crimes that occurred at the same time, the Georgia Supreme Court remanded for retrial on all counts. The U.S. Supreme Court held that for double jeopardy purposes, the count in which McElrath was found not guilty by reason of insanity was an acquittal for double jeopardy purposes, and he cannot be retried on that count. Retrial only could occur on the remaining counts (for which there had been a guilty verdict).

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In reversing a conviction and remanding for dismissal, the Iowa Supreme Court discussed what does and does not constitute child endangerment. To violate the child endangerment statute, a parent must knowingly act in a manner that creates a substantial risk to a minor child’s physical, mental, or emotional health or safety. A substantial risk requires the very real possibility of danger. The court emphasized the word “create.” In this case, leaving six children, ages ranging from 5 to 12, home alone, did not create a substantial risk to their safety.

The court noted that life is inherently risky, and no parent can shield a child from all risks. Virtually any conduct has the possibility of endangering a child’s life, including playing on climbing equipment from which they could fall, playing football, driving a child to school vs. allowing them to walk. Courts “must exercise special caution when deciding whether a parent has created a particular risk and …be subject to criminal liability… . A parent does not create a risk if that risk is part of the background risk of ordinary life. Rather, a risk is created by a parent when the parent’s behavior produces an identifiable risk that falls outside the range of risks that accompany ordinary life. Ordinarily, this means that a parent creates a risk when that risk is the product of behavior that is (1) independently unlawful, that is unlawful under a statute other than section 726.6; or (2) overtly abusive.”

Such would include causing a fire in the home by smoking illegal drugs, causing severe bruises by hitting a child with a broomstick, leaving the child in the care of a known abuser, eluding the police at over 20 mph over the speed limit while children were in the car, hitting a child very hard or multiple times, causing injuries, shooting a gun near a child’s head, pointing a gun at the child’s mother in the child’s presence, brandishing a knife near a child’s face, using drugs in a child’s presence. Ordinarily, parent-created risks are those risks that arise from illegal or overtly abusive behavior.

There can be cases where neither apply, but the behavior still must create an identifiable risk which falls clearly outside the risks of ordinary life. For example, driving young children in the bed of a truck full of improperly loaded and tied down tree limbs and brush with little protection at the back of the truck to prevent items from falling or being blown out the back (only a wooden plank) – it was foreseeable that the branches might slide or be blown off, taking the children with them out of the truck and falling to their deaths. Although children have long ridden in the back of pickup trucks, this situation was more egregious than simply children riding in the back of a pickup. There is a difference between ordinarily risky situations and extraordinary risk. Leaving a severely intoxicated teen who had fallen and hit his head alone at home can be child endangerment. This includes willfully depriving a child of necessary food, clothing, shelter, health care or supervision appropriate for the child’s age and which deprivation substantially harms the child – i.e. abandoning the child to fend for himself while knowing the child is unable to do so.

Here, no statute prohibited the defendant from leaving her children alone. No statute sets a minimum age at which children can be left home alone. The parent was not overtly abusive. No child was harmed. There was no identifiable risk that fell outside the range of risks that accompany ordinary life. There was no evidence that the mother’s actions created any extraordinary risk. There was no evidence showing that leaving the kids home was any riskier than driving with them to the store.

Ultimately, the child endangerment statute has both a subjective requirement, that is that the parent act knowingly, but it also has objective requirements, regardless of the parent’s subjective state of mind.

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The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that the implied consent procedures contained within Iowa Code section 321J are not the exclusive means for an officer to investigate an OWI, and an officer may bypass the implied consent procedures and apply for a search warrant in lieu of utilizing implied consent.

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Furthermore, in a similar case, the Court held that if the officer has applied for a search warrant for a body specimen, and subsequently violates Iowa Code section 804.20 by failing to allow a requested phone call to a lawyer or family member, the specimen obtained via the warrant is not necessarily suppressed and excluded, if the warrant was obtained via means independent of and not tainted by the subsequent rights violation.

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Iowa Court of Appeals holds that a defendant cannot be held responsible for the crime of introducing contraband or drugs into a correctional facility when the drugs were in a backpack which had been seized by the police, and it was the police who brought the backpack into the jail, not the defendant. Since the drugs were not on the defendant’s person, he could not be held responsible for the backpack which the police had seized and brought in with them.

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Iowa Supreme Court rules that once a prison sentence has been imposed, on a motion for sentencing reconsideration, the Court can suspend the sentence, but it cannot grant a deferred judgment.

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Iowa Supreme Court rules on personal jurisdiction in a civil case, but which potentially could have implications in criminal or civil no contact case proceedings.

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