Talk:Iowa Supreme Court

Is it relevant to mention the SSM Ruling here?
It's not like this is the first thing the Court has ever done....--Occono (talk) 22:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It should be put in the context of important court decisions the Iowa Supreme Court has made, along with its decisions against slavery in 1839, racially segregated schools in 1868, racial discrimination in public accommodations in 1873, etc., all long before the United States Supreme Court. Fortuynist (talk) 00:57, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. There should certainly be a section for landmark cases - of all kinds - in the article.  Unfortunately I suspect that few Wikipedians would have the background to identify/find the landmark cases of the court w/o a lot of research, so it may be a while before the article is properly balanced. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The court itself identifies some "landmark cases" in its decision (which is, by the way, a public domain publication):

In the first reported case of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Iowa, In re Ralph, 1 Morris 1 (Iowa 1839), we refused to treat a human being as property to enforce a contract for slavery and held our laws must extend equal protection to persons of all races and conditions. 1 Morris at 9. This decision was seventeen years before the United States Supreme Court infamously decided Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1856), which upheld the rights of a slave owner to treat a person as property. Similarly, in Clark v. Board of Directors, 24 Iowa 266 (1868), and Coger v. North West. Union Packet Co., 37 Iowa 145 (1873), we struck blows to the concept of segregation long before the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954). Iowa was also the first state in the nation to admit a woman to the practice of law, doing so in 1869. Admission of Women to the Bar, 1 Chicago Law Times 76, 76 (1887). Her admission occurred three years before the United States Supreme Court affirmed the State of Illinois’ decision to deny women admission to the practice of law, see Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 130, 139, 21 L. Ed. 442, 445 (1873), and twenty five years before the United States Supreme Court affirmed the refusal of the Commonwealth of Virginia to admit women into the practice of law, see Ex parte Lockwood, 154 U.S. 116, 118, 14 S. Ct. 1082, 1083, 38 L. Ed. 929, 930 (1894). In each of those instances, our state approached a fork in the road toward fulfillment of our constitution’s ideals and reaffirmed the “absolute equality of all” persons before the law as “the very foundation principle of our government.”4 See Coger, 37 Iowa at 153.

[Footnote 4] The cases we have cited are not meant to imply this court has been at the forefront in recognizing civil rights in all areas and at all times. See, e.g., In re Carragher, 149 Iowa 225, 229–30, 128 N.W. 352, 354 (1910) (upholding a law that effectively denied women pharmacists the right to sell alcohol, stating “discrimination between the sexes is neither arbitrary nor capricious, and the fact that in many instances individuals of one sex are in general better fitted than those of the other sex for a given occupation or business is one of such common knowledge and observation that the Legislature may properly recognize it in enacting regulations therefor”). These cases do, however, reflect this court has, for the most part, been at the forefront in recognizing individuals’ civil rights. The path we have taken as a state has not been by accident, but has been navigated with the compass of equality firmly in hand, constructed with a pointer balanced carefully on the pivot of equal protection.
 * Cheers! bd2412  T 17:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, and it's great to have them in the article. Doesn't solve the balancing issue, though, since they are all Equal Protection-ish cases, which make up only a small fraction of the Court's cases, and probably only a small fraction of the Court's landmark cases as well.  Still, much better than nothing. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:13, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

links in the names of Iowa supreme court justices names
Hello people, the table in the article contains lists of people who are currently serving in the iowa supreme court. I think the links on the dates should be removed, since they lead to nowhere in particular. plus, the link of justice mansfield leads to a disambiguation where he is not one of the options. cleanup is required. 89.139.17.151 (talk) 12:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello again, registered to wikipedia and removed the links myself. maybe there isn't a smarter way to change the Justice mansfield thing. Drorzm (talk) 13:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I created a redlink to Edward Mansfield (judge) and have also added that to the disambig page. Cheers! bd2412  T 14:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Nelson v. Knight
I've removed Nelson v. Knight from the list of notable cases. It's attracted national attention, yes, but it's a simple workplace claim and seems out of place with the other cases listed. The description was also grossly inaccurate--the summary mentioned "sexual harassment", despite the plaintiff specifically claiming sexual discrimination only, not harassment. Mackensen (talk) 21:57, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

User:Pauseforfermata added discussion of this case again. I'm also not sure that it's notable; it seems to be just a garden-variety sex discrimination claim that (like lots of other appellate sex discrimination suits) got mentioned on a specialist legal blog or two. The most pressing recent cases to add seem to me to be the duos of AFSCME v. State (2019) and ISEA v. State (2019), especially as Matthew McDermott represented one of the parties, and the LULAC v. Pate (2020) and DSCC v. Pate (2020). Another one to possibly addd is Katko v. Briney, which is a frequently-anthologized torts case. Iowalaw2 (talk) 23:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Given the inclusion of a Template:Incomplete_list, I would argue that any case that generates coverage with national news coverage and single-focus articles in a legal journal is, to some degree, notable. In this particular, it was added after it was mentioned on the page of Edward Mansfield (judge), where it provoked enough interest in order to question why it was not included. Perhaps a greater discussion of the purpose of having such a list is warranted, given that the list is currently split between three modern and three (extremely) historic cases. I would contend that until such a list is complete enough to warrant categorization or overviews by topic, it is relevant. More cases should be added to the list, by all means, particularly if within the century-wide gap of case history.Pauseforfermata (talk) 04:05, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just modified 3 external links on Iowa Supreme Court. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100528122502/http://www.iowacourts.gov/Public_Information/Iowa_Courts_History/Early_History/ to http://www.iowacourts.gov/Public_Information/Iowa_Courts_History/Early_History/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090617051409/http://www.iowacourts.gov/Supreme_Court/ to http://www.iowacourts.gov/Supreme_Court/
 * Added tag to http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110114/NEWS/101140351
 * Added tag to http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110401/NEWS/104010361/Cady-will-continue-chief-justice
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060505082508/http://www.judicial.state.ia.us/Public_Information/Iowa_Courts_History/Civil_Rights/ to http://www.judicial.state.ia.us/Public_Information/Iowa_Courts_History/Civil_Rights/

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"Iowa Supreme Court"
This page used to reside at Iowa Supreme Court, and that appears to be its common name. For example, on the court's own web page, it consistently calls itself the " Iowa Supreme Court"; never the "Supreme Court of Iowa".

The article was was at the name Iowa Supreme Court from its creation in 2004 until a couple years year ago, when it was moved in December 2017, without prior discussion as far as I can tell, to its present name (by a now-blocked editor, so I won't bother pinging; although to be clear, there's no indication that the block had anything to do with moves like this) with the rationale "Like the other articles of this type".

Before making a formal Requested Move, I thought I'd bring it up here: I think it should be moved back to its actual common name; consistency with other articles is less important than accuracy.

In case you're wondering, there's no official name that might provide guidance here. The court's official name comes from Article V, Section 2 of the Iowa constitution, where it is simply the "Supreme court". TJRC (talk) 22:55, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

I've always wondered the same thing, why this page was named the way it is. I support the move. Snickers2686 (talk) 03:23, 3 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The undiscussed move has been reverted, per WP:BOLD. BD2412  T 12:11, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Judicial selection
This article needs a section on judicial selection in Iowa and in particular the role of the State Judicial Nominating Commission, noting the changes in 2019 and the resulting controversy and lawsuit. Iowalaw2 (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)