Iowa
Judge holds Iowa Department of Corrections in contempt for violating order • Iowa Capital Dispatch
Remarking that it’s not feasible to jail the Iowa Department of Corrections for deliberately violating a court order, a Polk County judge has fined the agency $1,500 for contempt of court.
The penalty stems from a lawsuit that 13 prison inmates, then housed at Anamosa State Penitentiary, filed against the Iowa Department of Corrections in 2018. The inmates alleged the DOC was violating their constitutional rights by denying them access to magazines or other materials with nudity or sexually explicit content.
The lawsuit was triggered by the Iowa Legislature’s 2018 revision of the state law that restricts inmate access to adult content. After the 2018 revisions, the law barred any commercially published material that contained not only sexually explicit content, but also nudity.
A judge in the case concluded the law and the DOC policies that sprang from it were potentially too broad and could infringe on the inmates’ First Amendment rights. The court issued an injunction that stated the DOC “shall not prevent the distribution of materials to (the plaintiffs) and other inmates similarly situated that features mere non-sexually explicit nudity.”
In 2022, with the injunction still in place, one of the plaintiffs sought to hold the DOC in contempt of court, alleging the department was violating the 2019 order by denying his request to purchase lingerie magazines. The inmate later testified that he had filed a complaint with the Iowa Office of Ombudsman on the issue. Court exhibits show that in October 2020, the ombudsman’s office told the inmate it questioned the DOC’s “dubious interpretation and application of the court injunction” — indicating the DOC had been put on notice that it was violating the court order.
At around that same time, another plaintiff complained the DOC had taken away his copy of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue – a magazine that’s commonly available at grocery stores and other mass-market retailers.
During the trial, Dee Radeke, an inmate and prison librarian, testified that after the Legislature amended the law in 2018, a prison security director asked him to pull from circulation any pictures of pin-up girls, graphic novels or novels containing strong sexual content such as “Shades of Grey.”
DOC Executive Officer Rebecca Bowker testified that she followed the court’s order “to a T,” but also testified that she wasn’t sure whether she had even seen the order. In addition, Bowker testified that she believed DOC policy prohibited photos of women in thong bikinis on the grounds that woman’s genitalia would not be “substantially” covered.
The inmates lost their case, with Polk County District Court Judge Jeffrey Farrell concluding they did not have a First Amendment right to possess materials containing nudity. Farrell then turned to the issue of whether the DOC had violated the 2019 injunction while the case was still pending.
The DOC, Farrell concluded, had “violated this order in multiple ways,” in part by amending its own policies in 2022 – long after the inmates had sued and the injunction was issued – in a way that more explicitly barred any materials that included nudity.
“The injunction had been in place for three years at the time DOC changed its policy in 2022,” Farrell noted. “This action shows DOC acted willfully in denying nude content despite the injunction. The DOC denied (one plaintiff’s) request for three editions of Playboy that had been approved under the prior policy.”
Because there were three separate magazines the inmate was denied, Farrell found there were three separate instances of contempt. In determining what sanctions to impose against the DOC, the judge observed it “does not consider jail as a real option, even though there is no excuse for DOC’s failure to comply with the order. DOC as an entity understood the injunction. Still, it amended its policy to ban materials containing nudity and Executive Officer Bowker personally denied some materials containing nudity.”
Adding there was no single individual who could or should be jailed as a result of the “institutional” violations of the court’s order, Farrell imposed the maximum $500 penalty for each of the three violations.
Farrell wrote that he considered awarding the $1,500 to the inmate who pursued the contempt action “so he could receive some remuneration for the unlawful denial of the publications he requested.” The law, however, stipulates the fines are punitive in nature, Farrell noted, and are intended for “the benefit of the state” – the same entity that will be paying the fine.
The Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Last week, the inmates filed a motion for a new trial as well as an appeal of Farrell’s decision.
Editor’s note: Reporter Clark Kauffman worked for the Iowa Office of Ombudsman from October 2018 through November 2019.
Iowa
Iowa woman accused of pandering for prostitution and harassment after incidents at Casey’s and a daycare
AURELIA, Iowa (KTIV) – A Northwest Iowa woman is facing charges of harassment and pandering for prostitution after two incidents took place in December 2025.
Forty-seven-year-old Kristal Miller of Odebolt was taken into custody on an arrest warrant and faces three charges: one count of pandering for prostitution and two counts of first-degree harassment, according to court documents.
The charges stem from two separate incidents that took place on Thursday, Dec. 18. 2025.
According to court documents, at 6:15 a.m., Miller reportedly went to the Casey’s General Store, located at 100 Pearl St. in Aurelia. Documents state Miller approached an employee and customers, requesting money from them.
Authorities state Miller claimed she was wanted by the FBI and told people, if anyone called the police, “she would kill them.”
During this encounter, she also allegedly asked an employee to remove the string from her hooded sweatshirt. Documents state when the employee refused this request, she threatened to strangle them.
That same day at 7 a.m., Miller reportedly approached a female employee outside an Aurelia daycare and asked them for money.
Court documents stated Miller suggested the unnamed employee leave her boyfriend. Miller reportedly told the employee, if she did, then she and Miller would both be paid.
Authorities say when she was told no by the employee, Miller became upset and started yelling at them.
Miller also allegedly threatened to “steal her car” and ”take her away to her guys to start a new life.”
She was booked into the Cherokee County Jail on a cash-only bond of $5,000. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled in Cherokee for Friday, Jan. 9, at 10 a.m.
Want to get the latest news and weather from Siouxland’s News Source? Follow these links to download our KTIV News app and our First Alert Weather app.
Copyright 2026 KTIV. All rights reserved.
The Iowa Supreme Court’s 2025-2026 docket is filled with key cases
Iowa’s top court has a busy schedule as it launches into a new term this fall, delving into cases involving subjects including bullying and TikTok.
A feud between two Jefferson County officials has landed before the Iowa Supreme Court, which must decide if a 2024 addition to Iowa’s Rights of Peace Officers law is unconstitutional.
Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding is asking the state’s high court to overturn what he calls the “constitutionally vacuous” law, which allows officers to petition the courts to be removed from their county’s Brady-Giglio list.
Named for two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the lists compiled by prosecutors identify law enforcement officers and others whose credibility is in question, and it can provide grounds for questioning their testimony in court.
After a dispute over a case involving a sheriff’s deputy’s use of force, Moulding in 2024 notified Jefferson County Sheriff Bart Richmond he was placing him on the Brady-Giglio list. Richmond petitioned a court to reverse Moulding’s decision, and a district judge did, finding Richmond’s actions in connection with the case, while unprofessional, did not bring his honesty or credibility into question.
In his appeal, Moulding argues that’s not up to the court to decide, and that the law lets judges improperly intrude on prosecutors’ professional judgment and, ultimately, defendants’ rights.
“The practical real application of (the 2024 law) is to create a Kafkaesque scenario where a criminal defendant could face the prospect of criminal charges involving a State witness who is so lacking in credibility that the State’s attorney has qualms about even calling him to testify, but is prevented from disclosure,” Moulding wrote. “Such a situation is unconscionable, and underlines the constitutional vacuousness of the statute itself.”
The court has not yet scheduled arguments for the case, which could have impacts far beyond Jefferson County. Attorney Charles Gribble, representing Richmond, said this is just one of three Iowa Brady-Giglio appeals he personally is involved in.
What is a Brady-Giglio list?
Under the Fifth Amendment, criminal defendants are entitled to due process of law. In Brady v. Maryland in 1963 and in subsequent cases the U.S. Supreme Court held that due process requires a prosecutor to disclose any known exculpatory evidence to the defense. That includes anything giving rise to doubts about the credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses, including law enforcement officers.
In 2022, Iowa formalized that process by mandating prosecuting agencies maintain a Brady-Giglio list of officers whose credibility can be questioned due to past dishonesty or other misconduct. The law requires agencies to notify officers when they are being put on a list and allows them to seek reconsideration.
Being placed on a list can damage or destroy an officer’s career, as prosecutors generally will decline to call them as witnesses or to bring charges that would depend on their testimony.
2024 law gives courts a role in Brady-Giglio lists
Iowa’s 2024 law went beyond requiring officers be notified of their placement on a Brady-Giglio list by giving them the right to appeal to a district court if their prosecuting agency refuses to take them off a list. The law requires judges to confidentially review evidence and allows them to affirm, modify or reverse an officer’s Brady-Giglio listing “as justice may require.”
In less than two years, courts have reversed local prosecutors on several Brady-Giglio placements, including a messy Henry County dispute in which prosecutors accused a sheriff’s deputy of making misleading statements on a search warrant application.
What happened in Jefferson County?
The lawsuit before the Iowa Supreme Court involves an April 2024 traffic stop by a Jefferson County deputy. As laid out in a subsequent memo by Moulding, video recordings show the deputy handling the driver roughly and, when the man complains, telling him “I can do whatever I want” and, “You’re not going to tell me what I can and can’t do. … You’re going to learn what respect is, young man.”
After learning about the incident, Moulding wrote, he repeatedly emailed Richmond, asking if the deputy’s actions had violated any county policies. Richmond did not respond. Concerned about possible litigation against the county, Moulding then asked another county to conduct an investigation. While the details are disputed, Moulding accuses Richmond of stonewalling both his office and the outside investigators and instructing his subordinates also not to cooperate.
“A county sheriff ordering deputies not to cooperate with an inquiry into a deputy’s use of force represents a fundamental lapse in judgment and raised serious concerns regarding the Sheriff’s honesty, candor and ethics as a law enforcement official,” Moulding wrote.
He scheduled a meeting that Richmond did not attend and then placed him on the county’s Brady-Giglio list. In an emailed statement, Moulding called the entire matter “unfortunate.”
“Frankly, I am shocked that instead of attempting to address this matter with my office cooperatively, the Sheriff instead decided to stonewall an investigation, stonewall the Brady-Giglio investigation, and then take this matter to court instead of sitting down and addressing the matter like an adult and an elected official,” he said.
In a letter, Moulding warned Richmond that he would no longer be called as a law enforcement witness and advised him to limit his involvement with criminal investigations, as “your engagement in such activities could likely negatively impact the outcomes in court.”
Judge disagrees with sheriff’s placement on list
After Moulding denied Richmond’s request for reconsideration, Richmond filed suit. In February 2025, Judge Jeffrey Farrell ruled Richmond should be removed from the list.
Farrell’s order criticized both parties, finding that Moulding had failed to comply with some procedural elements of the law but that Richmond could have avoided the whole situation with “basic and professional” responses to Moulding’s emails. Nonetheless, he found Richmond’s actions did not demonstrate dishonesty or deceit that would justify placement on a Brady list.
“This is not a case in which an officer lied to a court, was convicted of a crime, manufactured or destroyed evidence, or committed some other act that would serve as the basis for impeachment in any criminal case,” Farrell wrote. “Game-playing the county attorney is not the standard of professionalism that Iowans expect of our elected county sheriffs,” he added, but does not constitute grounds for a Brady-Giglio listing.
Prosecutor appeals, argues law is unconstitutional
In his appeal, Moulding does not address Farrell’s factual findings, instead asking the court only to decide whether the law is constitutional.
“The most glaring constitutional defect in (the 2024 law) is that it impedes a criminal Defendant’s substantive and procedural due processes of law, and right to a fair trial,” the appeal says. “These fundamental rights constitute the bedrock raisons d’être for the entire body of Brady-Giglio jurisprudence in the first place.”
Iowa appears to be the only state with a law allowing officers to sue to be removed from a Brad-Giglio list, but Moulding cites a recent federal lawsuit where a judge rejected a South Dakota officer’s attempt to get removed from a list, finding the request “in essence, asks this Court to require a State’s Attorney to violate the constitution.” He further argues that the law violates the constitutional separation of powers and is “so poorly drafted as to be unenforceable and void for vagueness.”
Sheriff’s attorney says single lapse of judgment is not grounds for listing
Gribble, Richmond’s attorney, argued in his Supreme Court brief that the law is constitutional and that the sheriff’s actions fall well short of Brady-Giglio standards.
“Under (the 2024 law), placement on the Brady-Giglio list results not from a single lapse of judgment but rather from repeated, sustained, intentional and egregious acts over a period of time,” he wrote. “Thus, while a singular act of bad judgement may undermine a police officer’s credibility in a particular case, placement on the Brady-Giglio list places a permanent and unreviewable scarlet letter on the officer that he/she is unlikely to be able to ever overcome.”
He also suggests that a court order removing an officer from a list “does not in any way alter the prosecuting attorney’s duty to provide exculpatory evidence in all cases.” In an interview, he argued there should be a legal distinction between prosecutors disclosing concerns about an officer’s conduct in the case in which it occurred, and doing so in every future case involving them.
“To me, that’s what Brady-Giglio is for, not for occasional or first-time wrongs, even if established of a police officer, but those that have a history of that sort of thing,” he said.
The Supreme Court has not yet set a date for arguments in the case.
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – Some students at the University of Iowa are getting hands-on medical experience before the spring semester officially begins — and they’re doing it inside a mobile simulation lab.
Wednesday, Simulation in Motion-Iowa (SIM-IA) brought its high-tech training truck to the university’s main hospital campus during what’s known as “transitions week,” just days before physician assistant students head out on clinical rotations.
Instead of practicing on classmates, students worked through simulated emergency scenarios using lifelike mannequins designed to closely mimic real patients. The mannequins can breathe, blink, sweat, and even go into cardiac arrest — giving students a realistic first taste of what they’ll soon face in hospitals and clinics.
“So they have pulses like you and I, they have lung sounds, breath tones, so they get to practice their patient assessments — their head-to-toes, what they think is wrong with that patient, determine what treatments they’re going to offer and do,” said Lisa Lenz, a Simulation in Motion-Iowa instructor.
Lenz controls the mannequins’ movements and symptoms behind the scenes, adjusting each scenario based on how students respond in real time.
“We can kind of assess and watch and make sure they’re doing the skills that we would expect them to do, we then get to change and flow through our scenario,” Lenz said. “So we start out with a healthy patient, maybe something like chest pains and continue through states of either progression or decline.”
Faculty members say the goal is to help students bridge the gap between classroom learning and real patient care — especially with clinical rotations beginning soon.
“This is now putting book work to the clinical practice,” said Jeremy Nelson, a clinical assistant professor in the university’s Department of PA Studies and Services. “We’re getting them ready to go out to various scenarios.”
Nelson says repetition is key, especially since some medical emergencies are rare while others are unpredictable.
“They may see them 10 times on rotation, they may see them once,” Nelson said. “This gives them that ‘first touch’ so when they do see it they have a better chance of learning more and being engaged and practicing.”
The spring semester at the University of Iowa officially begins January 20 for those students. Faculty say experiences like this help boost confidence and reduce anxiety before students ever step into a real emergency situation.
Copyright 2026 KCRG. All rights reserved.
After feds cut key food insecurity survey, Maine lawmaker urges state to fill data void
Md. Gov. Moore touts public safety funding increase, even with crime continuing to drop – WTOP News
Applications for spring turkey season in Michigan is open through Feb. 1. What to know
Mass. unveils $250 million in subsidies to protect residents from premium hikes – The Boston Globe
Rifts widen as Minnesota, feds face off over ICE shooting
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Trump plans to meet with Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado next week
Trump says meeting Iran’s ‘Crown Prince’ Pahlavi would not be appropriate
Federal immigration agents shoot 2 people in Portland, Oregon, police say
Video: What Trump Told Us About the ICE Shooting
Trump calls for $1.5T defense budget to build ‘dream military’
-
Detroit, MI5 days ago2 hospitalized after shooting on Lodge Freeway in Detroit
-
Technology3 days agoPower bank feature creep is out of control
-
Dallas, TX4 days agoDefensive coordinator candidates who could improve Cowboys’ brutal secondary in 2026
-
Health5 days agoViral New Year reset routine is helping people adopt healthier habits
-
Nebraska2 days agoOregon State LB transfer Dexter Foster commits to Nebraska
-
Iowa3 days agoPat McAfee praises Audi Crooks, plays hype song for Iowa State star
-
Nebraska3 days agoNebraska-based pizza chain Godfather’s Pizza is set to open a new location in Queen Creek
-
Entertainment2 days agoSpotify digs in on podcasts with new Hollywood studios