FAIRFIELD – The Iowa Freedom of Information Council is challenging a ruling by the Iowa District Court for Jefferson County that kept testimony and documents from public view during Sheriff Bart Richmond’s Brady-Giglio hearing on Jan. 23.

On that date, District Court Judge Jeffrey Farrell announced that members of the public had to leave the Jefferson County Courtroom before the two sides in the case presented witness testimony and documents. Richmond had requested that the hearing and the pieces of evidence heard during it occur behind closed doors, citing Iowa Code 80F, known as the “peace officer’s bill of rights.” Though Farrell closed the witness testimony from the public, he allowed the public to be present for the closing arguments of Richmond’s attorney Charles Gribble and Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding, who placed Richmond on the Brady-Giglio list in June 2024.

In a petition to the Iowa Supreme Court filed on Feb. 24, the Iowa Freedom of Information Council argued that the entire hearing should have been open to the public, and that the portion of Iowa law that Farrell relied on, 80F, is unconstitutional. The council noted that members of its organization, including its Executive Director Randy Evans and council lawyers, raised this objection in person at the time Farrell closed the hearing, where they “apprised the district court of applicable state and federal constitutional provisions, controlling case law, and the history and tradition at common law and in Iowa of open courts and a fully accountable judiciary.”

The council wrote that this closure of the courtroom “violated fundamental free speech and freedom of the press rights under the First Amendment and Iowa Constitution … just as it contravened Iowa’s long history and tradition of open courts.” The council argued that the court deprived the public of an opportunity to “review and assess the evidence in an important matter involving the character and competence of an elected official.”

On the subject of 80F, the council wrote that requiring judges to close evidentiary proceedings elevated “statutory law over constitutional law.”

“A mandated closure of a trial and a presumption of secrecy do not comport with requirements of the U.S. Constitution or the Iowa Constitution,” the council wrote. “Thus, to any extent that the statute’s language compelled the district court to close the January [23], 2025 bench trial simply because the plaintiff objected to openness, the statute itself is unconstitutional, and the district court’s closure order thereunder is illegal.”

In the final paragraph of its brief, the council asked the Iowa Supreme Court both to declare 80F.1(25) unconstitutional (the portion that allows for closed hearings) and to unseal all remaining sealed materials and transcripts in the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Brady-Giglio case.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com