Latest news with #IowaSupremeCourt
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court spikes an excuse for hiding public comment
The Iowa Supreme Court chamber in the Iowa Judicial Building on Feb. 22, 2023. (Photo by Kathie Obradovich/Iowa Capital Dispatch) The Iowa Supreme Court gave citizen engagement and accessibility to public meetings a much-needed boost Friday in an appeal of a lawsuit against the Iowa City Community School District. The district's practice of posting full videos of school board meetings on the internet for on-demand public viewing was at the heart of the case. Government officials, staffs of statewide organizations of cities, counties and school boards, and access advocates like the Iowa Freedom of Information Council had awaited the decision with some trepidation. They worried the court might impose liability for statements expressed during public comment portions of governmental meetings and for their republication via internet posting of meeting recordings on government web sites or YouTube. But the justices unanimously upheld lower court decisions dismissing the claims by Amie Villarini, the former girls' tennis coach at Iowa City West High School. The Supreme Court ruling should curtail a recent practice by an increasing number of public officials who advocated that the risk of defamation lawsuits made it necessary for city councils and school boards to omit or limit public comment periods during their meetings, to warn speakers in advance about what they could and could not say, and even to remove or arrest speakers who made crude or demeaning comments. The court decision takes away any rational basis for a governmental body to claim it should not archive recordings of meetings for later public viewing. The Iowa City case arose because the school district is among the governmental bodies that did not cower to pressure to limit members of the public from speaking their minds, lodging complaints, or heaping praise during meetings. The district also did not give in to pressure to closet away video recordings of meetings that captured those comments. Villarini's lawsuit in effect challenged both practices. She sued over statements by two former West High School tennis players who spoke freely during the public-comment time at a 2022 school board meeting. The students expressed disappointment with the results of an internal school investigation of allegations of mistreatment involving the tennis coach, whom the girls did not identify by name. One girl told the board she believed the investigation protected the coach, not students. The other girl asked the board to change the district's investigation procedures to protect students better. Board members did not respond to the girls' statements. The following day, the district placed Villarini on paid leave for the remainder of her one-year contract. The deputy superintendent said school staff learned after the meeting Villarini had posted comments the administrator described as unprofessional and disrespectful to students. In keeping with its custom, the district posted a complete, unaltered video recording of the school board meeting on its YouTube channel two days after the meeting. The district refused multiple requests from Villarini and her lawyer to take the video down. She sued, alleging the district defamed her by republishing what she called 'slanderous' statements by the two girls. The district defended the case, in part arguing that posting unaltered video of a public meeting of a governmental body constituted privileged speech. The Supreme Court agreed. Chief Justice Susan Christensen wrote in the decision: 'The fair-report privilege protects the publication of defamatory matter concerning another in a report of an official action or proceeding or of a meeting open to the public that deals with a matter of public concern … if the report is accurate and complete or a fair abridgement of the occurrence reported.' The court continued: 'Although we are fully articulating this privilege for the first time, we have recognized a version of it since the early 1900s. At the time, the privilege only covered judicial proceedings and could be defeated by a showing of malice. … Here, we are expanding the privilege and updating it so that it covers the report of more proceedings and is defeated by inaccuracy instead of malice.' The court said it may have reached a different conclusion had the district edited the meeting recording. Yet, the court reiterated the importance of supporting steps that increase public access to governmental meetings. 'The application of the fair-report privilege to this case furthers Iowa's open-meeting laws. … Government entities, including school boards, must prioritize the accessibility of public meetings,' the court wrote. 'ICCSD [Iowa City Community School District] has chosen to comply with these laws with the most transparency possible, and that should not be punished. The fair-report privilege protects those government bodies that provide the public with a full account of their meetings.' Thankfully, the Supreme Court did not mince words when it ratified that comments at a public meeting are privileged communications and that posting recordings of those comments is protected so long as the posted version is unaltered. This common sense support of citizen participation in and access to governments continues Iowa's history of openness and its protection of free speech, while adapting state law to current realities. Letting people watch live-streamed governmental board meetings and archived recordings of past meetings from their homes, offices — or even their tractor cabs — is a positive result from the Covid pandemic, when many people avoided large gatherings. Citizens without transportation, parents with children at home, the elderly, or people away from home learned to use Zoom or YouTube to watch their school boards and city council meetings when they could and from remote locations. By applying the fair-report privilege to meetings live-streamed or archived on the internet, even when they contain untoward comments, our Supreme Court has modernized an important protection for expressive rights of Iowans and articulated how the distribution of full-length recordings of meetings promotes government transparency. With this Supreme Court endorsement, city councils, school boards and county boards of supervisors that persist in opening their meetings only to in-person attendees serve only themselves, not the public. Even more, the court's decision strips away a convenient but now dispelled legal excuse for elected officials to avoid doing the right thing. Randy Evans is a member of the Iowa Writers' Collaborative and his columns may be found on his blog, Stray Thoughts. Editor's note: Please consider subscribing to the collaborative and the authors' blogs to support their work.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Yahoo
Scam victims can't get back cash they put in Bitcoin ATM, Iowa Supreme Court rules
Two cybercrime victims won't be able to recover their money, seized from a third-party cryptocurrency company, the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled. The decisions, issued Friday, May 1, involve two Iowans who were targeted in nearly identical scams. In July 2023 and February 2024, the two were contacted by an unknown person online and told to purchase cryptocurrency at a Bitcoin ATM in Linn County, and to send the bitcoin to a digital wallet controlled by the scammers. One scammer claimed to be from the "Geek Squad" and said the victim's accounts had been "compromised," while the other claimed the victim had child pornography on their computer and demanded money not to turn the victim in, according to court filings. Both individuals did as they were told, purchasing and sending more than $14,000 apiece in bitcoins. Both then contacted law enforcement officials, who, in the ensuing investigations, seized the cash deposited from the Bitcoin ATM. The purchased bitcoin, however, has not been recovered. From 2023: Clive resident falls victim to cryptocurrency scam; police warn to be on the lookout The question before the Iowa Supreme Court was, once investigators no longer need the money as part of their case, who gets it? In separate opinions on the cases, one by Justice Dana Oxley and the other unsigned, the justices reversed a lower court and ruled that ATM operator Bitcoin Depot should get to keep the cash. Key to the decision is that the crypto ATM requires users to confirm they owned the wallets they were sending bitcoin to, and prominently warned users against scams. "There is no evidence in the record before us that Bitcoin Depot had reason to know that a scammer had contacted (the victim) and told her that she needed to purchase bitcoins from the Bitcoin ATM and transfer them into a specified wallet to avoid her accounts being impacted," Oxley wrote, holding that Bitcoin ATM had done nothing wrong and was entitled to keep the money. USA Today: How crooks convinced her to put $17,500 into a bitcoin ATM to 'secure' her money An attorney for the victims and attorneys for Bitcoin Depot declined to comment. Friday's decisions are a win for Bitcoin Depot, but the company is embroiled in a larger struggle with the Iowa Attorney General's Office, which sued it and another crypto ATM company in March. The state claims Iowans have lost more than $20 million in scams facilitated through the company's ATMs and accused Bitcoin Depot and competitor CoinFlip of failing to protect users against scammers. William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@ or 715-573-8166. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Supreme Court says Bitcoin Depot can keep cash deposited in scams
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iowa Supreme Court: District didn't defame ex-West High tennis coach by posting meeting video
The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a defamation and breach of contract lawsuit from a former West High School tennis coach, concluding a three-year legal battle. Anne Villarini filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the Iowa City Community School District, arguing that the district enabled defamatory comments by two former students. The comments were published in meeting minutes and broadcast in a video of the meeting from April 2022 on the district's board website and YouTube channel. Villarini, who joined the West High tennis program in 2013, requested "on many occasions" that the school district remove the video and redact the meeting minutes, claiming that the comments and video were defamatory. More: Iowa City West High tennis coach sues district, calling comments at school board meeting defamatory Villarini also argued that the district wrongfully terminated her and breached the contract terms. She was hired on a series of one-year contract extensions during each tenure, according to court filings. A Johnson County District Court judge initially granted "summary judgment" to the Iowa City district and dismissed Villarini's lawsuit. In November 2024, the state Court of Appeals denied Villarini's appeal. The Iowa Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts on Friday, May 16, upholding the dismissal and writing that the school is protected by "fair-report privilege." The principle often protects the news media from legal repercussions when it reports on defamation during a public meeting. "Applying the fair-report privilege to public school board meetings adds scaffolding to our open-government structure," Iowa Supreme Court Judge Samuel Langholz wrote in the opinion. "Shielding those that err on the side of transparency by drafting thorough minutes or posting unabridged videos." More: Federal judge grants injunction in Iowa student visa case, halting possible deportation By publishing the meeting video, the court ruled that the Iowa City Community School District was "fairly and accurately relay(ing) statements made during open, official proceedings." The court said the fair-report privilege "furthers the public's interest" by allowing residents to make their own judgments about meetings, school board decisions and board members without having to attend the meeting. During the comment period from the meeting in question in April 2022, a then-Iowa City West High School student described a 15-second experience where Villarini allegedly "touched (her) inappropriately" on her back and thighs and said "inappropriate things." She and another student were critical of how the district handled the alleged situation. "The district made clear to me that my feelings do not matter," the student said, referencing a district investigation and report that preceded the comments. That report confirmed that some of the alleged actions, which included "unwanted physical contact," favoritism, retaliation, and insensitivity, did happen. The district determined that the accusations didn't amount to "incident contact" and were "not violative of any ICCSD policy," according to the Johnson County District Court judge's 2023 ruling. More: Iowa Legislature ends 2025 session with no action on property taxes. Here's what happened: The report cautioned Villarini to "refrain from touching players as much as reasonably possible." Villarini remained the coach of the girls' tennis team after the report was released. Villarini was placed on administrative leave in 2022, the day after the two students spoke at the board meeting. Villarini said the decision was a "knee-jerk" reaction. She received full compensation under the terms of her contract, according to the Iowa Supreme Court. More: Despite a sudden closure 6 months ago, the Sanctuary Pub is reopening under new ownership In her claim for breach of contract, Villarini wrote that Iowa has a public policy to protect 'against school employees being forced out of their jobs by angry parents and students making wild, unfounded allegations for the purpose of ousting that employee.' The Iowa Supreme Court agreed with the district court, which said the claim failed because Villarini did not reference a "clearly defined public policy." Ryan Hansen covers local government and crime for the Press-Citizen. He can be reached at rhansen@ or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ryanhansen01. This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Supreme Court upholds dismissal of West High coach's defamation suit
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Appeals ruling curtails voting rights cases in Iowa, six other states
A federal appeals court has blocked one of the main remaining means for civil rights activists to seek enforcement of a landmark voting rights law's protections against racial discrimination in Iowa and six other mostly Midwestern states. The 2-1 panel of the St. Louis-based Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday, May 14, that private plaintiffs cannot use an 1871 civil rights law as a means to enforce protections enshrined in the Voting Rights Act. The court reached that conclusion as it reversed a judge's ruling finding that Republican-led North Dakota's 2021 legislative redistricting plan unlawfully diluted the voting power of Native Americans. More: Iowa Supreme Court overturns ruling, forbids non-English voting documents, such as ballots Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the ruling, if allowed to stand, would weaken voters' ability to challenge unfair voting maps in Iowa, Arkansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota, as well. Those states are within the jurisdiction of the Eighth Circuit, which already had severely restricted the ability of their voters to file lawsuits challenging voting maps when it held in 2023 that only the government and not private plaintiffs can pursue cases enforcing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Two members of the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority have suggested in past cases that private plaintiffs do not have a right to pursue such cases, even though the vast majority of Voting Rights Act lawsuits for decades have been filed by private parties, not the U.S. Department of Justice. Against that backdrop, civil rights advocates last year opted against appealing the 2023 ruling to the Supreme Court, citing the availability of an alternative mechanism for plaintiffs to still pursue voting rights cases. That avenue was Section 1983, an 1871 law enacted in the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, which gives people the power to sue in federal court when state officials violate their constitutional or statutory rights. A federal judge in North Dakota relied on it when he sided with the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, the Spirit Lake Tribe and three voters in holding that the state's 2021 redistricting plan unlawfully diluted Native Americans' voting strength. More: After flagging 2,000+ ballots, Iowa secretary of state says 35 noncitizens voted in 2024 But U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Gruender, writing for the majority in Wednesday's decision, said Congress did not speak with a "clear voice" to unambiguously confer an individual right in the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 that could be enforced through Section 1983. Mark Gaber, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement that "this radical decision will hobble the most important anti-discrimination voting law." His group did not say whether it would pursue further appeals, but the plaintiffs could either ask the full 8th Circuit to rehear the case or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review it. Republican presidents appointed all three judges who heard the appeal, including U.S. Circuit Judge Steve Colloton, the lone dissenter. He said the majority was wrong and that, under its logic, the more than 400 lawsuits that have resulted in judicial decisions brought under the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 since 1982 should have been dismissed. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Seven-state ruling curtails voting rights cases in Iowa
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iowa Supreme Court overturns ruling, blocks non-English voting materials
DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Supreme Court ruled against the League of United Latin American Citizens and overturned a district ruling allowing non-English voting materials. The 2002 'English-only' law requires all official documents to be in English unless necessary to maintain a person's Constitutional rights. In 2008, a district court ruled this applied to election materials, like ballots, and placed a permanent injunction barring the state from using non-English materials. Kimballton water tested safe following days of uncertainty LULAC sought to overturn that ruling a sued Secretary of State Paul Pate in 2021. A district court sided with LULAC in 2023, dissolving the injunction and allowing voting materials in other languages. Pate then appealed the ruling. On Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that LULAC lacked standing in the case and said there was no proof that the organization faced a direct injury to its legal rights. Following the ruling, Pate released a statement saying Iowa would continue to follow federal standards. This includes providing translated versions of official documents and forms in areas where certain population thresholds have been met. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
