Doyle 7.1 2/22/2012 3:16 PM HISTORY OF THE IOWA COURT OF APPEALS Hon. Rosemary Shaw Sackett* Hon. Richard H. Doyle** I. Early History ............................................................................................. 1 II. Creation of the Iowa Court of Appeals .................................................. 3 III. The Court in Controversy ...................................................................... 10 IV. The Early Five-Judge Court .................................................................. 12 V. Changes .................................................................................................... 18 VI. The Expansion of the Iowa Court of Appeals ..................................... 20 VII. Ten-Year Anniversary ............................................................................ 22 VIII. Transitions ............................................................................................... 23 IX. Six Judges to Nine ................................................................................... 28 X. Further Transitions ................................................................................. 31 XI. Current Work of the Iowa Court of Appeals ...................................... 38 In celebration of the Iowa Court of Appeals’ thirty-fifth anniversary, we look back on its history. I. EARLY HISTORY The organic law of territorial Iowa vested judicial power in “a supreme court, district courts, probate courts, and in justices of the peace.”1 There was no provision for an intermediate appellate court. The people of the territory of Iowa later ratified the constitution of 1846,2 which vested * Chief Judge, Iowa Court of Appeals; B.A., Buena Vista College, 1960; J.D., Drake University Law School, 1963; L.L.M., University of Virginia, 1990. ** Judge, Iowa Court of Appeals; B.A., Drake University, 1971; J.D., Drake University Law School, 1976. The authors thank University of Iowa College of Law student Gina Messamer for her research and editing assistance. 1. Organic Law of Iowa, § 9 (June 12, 1838), in II THE DEBATES OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION; OF THE STATE OF IOWA, ASSEMBLED AT IOWA CITY xii (1857) [hereinafter II DEBATES OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION], available at http://www.publications.iowa.gov/7313/2/The_Debates_of_the_Constitutional_ Convention_Vol%232.pdf. “This act of Congress constituted the Organic Law, i.e. the Constitution, of the Territory of Iowa.” I DOCUMENTARY MATERIAL RELATING TO THE HISTORY OF IOWA 102 n.1 (Benjamin F. Shambaugh ed., 1896) [hereinafter I HISTORY OF IOWA] (citations omitted). 2. I HISTORY OF IOWA, supra note 1, at 185. 1 Doyle 7.1 2/22/2012 3:16 PM 2 Drake Law Review [Vol. 60 judicial power in “a Supreme Court, District Courts, and such inferior courts, as the General Assembly may from time to time establish.”3 Another constitutional convention was convened in 1857, with the ostensible objective of removing an unsatisfactory anti-bank provision from the Iowa constitution of 1846.4 Delegates to the 1857 constitutional convention debated, among other issues, whether an intermediate appellate court should be created.5 Ultimately, the delegates chose not to recommend to the convention that a court of appeals be formed; however, the Iowa constitution adopted by the convention gave the Iowa general assembly the power to create additional courts “inferior to the Supreme Court.”6 This was later ratified by the people of Iowa.7 The legislature formed such an additional court in 1868.8 Designated the “General Term,” the court functioned between the district court and supreme court.9 It consisted of a district judge and two circuit judges from each district.10 But Iowa’s first intermediate appellate court was so short- lived it barely appears as more than a footnote in Iowa’s legal history—in 1870, the legislature inactivated the court.11 There is little history from the two-year life of this court, except that its decisions, noted for their brevity, were “usually embraced in one word ‘affirmed’ or ‘reversed.’”12 3. IOWA CONST. art. VI, § 1 (1846); I HISTORY OF IOWA, supra note 1, at 202–03. This constitution became the supreme law of the State of Iowa upon Iowa’s admission into the Union on December 28, 1846. See I HISTORY OF IOWA, supra note 1, at 185–86, 217. 4. See id. at 217–18. 5. I THE DEBATES OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION; OF THE STATE OF IOWA, ASSEMBLED AT IOWA CITY 430–46, 461, 467–71 (1857) [hereinafter I DEBATES OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION], available at http://www.publications .iowa.gov/7313/1/The_Debates_of_the_Constitutional_Convention_Vol%231.pdf. 6. II DEBATES OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, supra note 1, at 1019–20 (“The judicial power shall be vested in a Supreme Court, District Courts, and such other Courts, inferior to the Supreme Court, as the General Assembly may, from time to time, establish.”). 7. See IOWA CONST. art. V, § 1 (“The judicial power shall be vested in a supreme court, district court, and such other courts, inferior to the supreme court, as the general assembly may, from time to time, establish.”). 8. See 1868 Iowa Acts 116–20. 9. Id. at 116. 10. Id. 11. See 1870 Iowa Acts 40 (repealing the very act in 1868 that created the court). 12. PIONEER LAWMAKERS’ ASSOCIATION OF IOWA: FIFTEENTH BIENNIAL SESSION 54–55 (1915) (quoting Letter from Robert Sloan (Feb. 18, 1915)). In his Doyle 7.1 2/22/2012 3:16 PM 2011] History of the Iowa Court of Appeals 3 II. CREATION OF THE IOWA COURT OF APPEALS A century later, the Iowa Supreme Court faced an increasing workload and began to develop a backlog of appeals ready for submission.13 The number of cases docketed each month more than doubled between 1958 and 1969.14 Although the backlog had not yet become overwhelming, various proposals were made to avert a potential crisis.15 Five years later, despite several procedural changes,16 the backlog remarks to the Pioneer Lawmakers’ Association of Iowa on March 11, 1915, Secretary William H. Fleming noted: There was in our early years an appellate court, between the district and supreme courts, designated for want of any other appellation, the ‘General Term.’ It was composed of the district judge and the two circuit judges, with which each district was furnished. It seemed like a tribunal composed of one judge and two apprentices. Regarding that court, I have a letter from Judge Robert Sloan, probably the last survivor of the members of the short-lived tribunal. It vanished from existence in the next general assembly after the one that gave it life, its period being covered by 1868-1870. Here is Judge Sloan’s letter: . I remember the ‘General Term’ very well. In our district there were two sessions held, and then the Legislature met, and it passed away. There was not enough of it for either history or comment. The decisions were noted for their brevity, usually embraced in one word ‘affirmed’ or ‘reversed.’ Id. (quoting Letter from Robert Sloan (Feb. 18, 1915)). 13. ADMINISTRATION OF THE IOWA APPELLATE SYSTEM (1977), in THE NEW IOWA RULES OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 1977: A COMPARISON WITH HINTS FOR THE PRACTITIONER (Emil Trott, Jr. ed., 1983). 14. William C. Stuart, Iowa Supreme Court Congestion: Can We Avert a Crisis?, 55 IOWA L. REV. 594, 596 (1970) (footnote omitted). 15. See, e.g., id. at 597–612 (acknowledging an intermediate court may be required if the following suggestions did not work: increasing the number of supreme court justices, sitting in divisions, using court commissioners, creating intermediate appellate courts, reducing the kinds of appeals allowed as a matter of right, improving administrative procedures, increasing the number of law clerks, limiting length of the record, briefs and oral arguments, reducing the number and length of opinions, and using memorandum opinions and summary affirmances); see also James D. Hopkins, The Role of an Intermediate Appellate Court, 41 BROOK. L. REV. 459, 461–62 (1975) (setting forth various alternatives to relieve courts of the burden of increasing appeals). 16. Mark McCormick, Appellate Congestion in Iowa: Dimensions and Remedies, 25 DRAKE L. REV. 133, 141–43 (1975) (noting the procedural changes included the court sitting in divisions, using per curiam and memorandum opinions in more cases, adopting a screening process, and submitting more cases without oral Doyle 7.1 2/22/2012 3:16 PM 4 Drake Law Review [Vol. 60 continued to grow, and the court became unable to decide cases in a timely manner. The Iowa legislature established the Appellate Court Systems Subcommittee to study the problem.17 As an interim solution, Justice W. Ward Reynoldson suggested the creation of a commissioner system in which the court would endorse opinions written by court-attached commissioners.18 Justice Mark McCormick, also speaking on behalf of Justices David Harris and Harvey Uhlenhopp, proposed “a solution that primarily involve[d] increasing the efficiency of the court along with the legislature providing more staff for the Supreme Court.”19 Chief Justice C. Edwin Moore, who also spoke on behalf of Justices M. L. (Larry) Mason, Maurice Rawlings, Clay LeGrand, and Warren Rees, suggested “the establishment of an intermediate appellate court system.”20 argument); see William Eberline, ‘Plenty of Cases’ Awaiting Start of Appellate Panel, CEDAR RAPIDS GAZETTE, Sept. 29, 1976, at 3C (“The nine-member high court has been sitting for the last several years in two panels of five judges each to increase the number of cases that can be heard. The logjam now is such that it takes an average