Check out this Motion to Dismiss filed by the Greene County, IA Attorney, Thomas Laehn, with the Iowa Supreme Court . Wow!
First some background. Holley was arrested by local police for reasons I haven’t studied. His 4th Amendment protection of the contents of his vehicle were violated when the police failed to give him an opportunity to have a family or friend come retrieve his vehicle. Once his vehicle was impounded they could search it, helping make their case. Police did this and filed the initial charges, not the County Attorney Laehn.
In some real irony, RTP agrees with the Court’s findings, without knowing anything about their reasoning. As a result of the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling, Laehn was forced to dismiss the case as the evidence in the vehicle was illegally seized by the police. Police need to be held to account as they do this too often.
But the nature of the arguments hit a real chord with Laehn. Sadly, he doesn’t understand that under our Common Law system, the final Sovereign is God and His Law, but he does know how to oppose judicial tyranny. See his Dismissal Order Here for some choice statements like:
“Yet, in State v. Ingram, 914 N. W.2d 794, 799 (Iowa 20 18), the Iowa Supreme Court arrogantly declared itself ”the ultimate arbiter of the meaning … of the Iowa Constitution.”
“In fact, the justices’ assertion is reducible to the proposition that the Iowa Constitution means whatever four of the seven justices on the Court say it means, thereby turning the words of the Constitution into empty vessels into which they can pour whatever meaning they wish and replacing the rule of law,”
Indeed, the scholarly literature has unequivocally demonstrated that a justice’s personal ideological beliefs and attitudes, and not the plain meaning of the law, is the primary determinant of his or her voting behavior on the bench. See generally JEFFREY A. SEGAL & HAROLD J. SPAETH, THE SUPREME COURT AND THE ATTITUDINAL MODEL REVISITED (2002).