A judge in Pottawattamie County late last week granted an extension of time request by the defense, in the case of a teacher from Treynor who’s been charged with two counts of Sexual Exploitation by a School Employee. The request, filed by Attorney Jon Jospeh Narmi, sought more time for the filing of pre-trial motions and notice of defense. Fourth District Court Judge Mark Eveloff, on Friday, approved the motion and ordered a continuance in the jury trial of 44-year-old Michael Douglas Travis. The trial, which was supposed to have begun today (Tuesday, 8/19), is now slated to begin October 14th.

Travis had previously plead not guilty to the charges that were filed following an investigation this spring into complaints from two former students, who accused Travis of inappropriate contact. Court records show the incidents allegedly occurred in May, 2002 and May, 2006.

The makers of a documentary about a prohibition-era whiskey are promising new revelations about how a small Iowa town became a bootlegging empire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MuhrPTOFaEQ

Dan Manatt directed the film Whiskey Cookers: The Amazing Story of the Templeton, Iowa Bootleggers. “The film is really going to rewrite the history of Templeton Rye,” Manatt said. “It introduces so many new characters, so many new plot lines, and so much new back story.” Roughly a decade in the making, Manatt said the documentary draws on never-before-seen files from the National Archives, court documents, and other materials.

Manatt said the secret to Templeton Rye’s success went far beyond the ingredients used to make the whiskey. “In the middle 1920s, Carroll County juries basically started engaging in civil disobedience and refused to convict bootleggers,” Manatt said. An advance screening of the film will be held this Friday at 7 p.m. at the Templeton Community Center in Templeton. The film’s “world premiere” is scheduled for Saturday at 5:45 p.m. at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City as part of the Landlocked Film Festival.

The film will air later this year on Iowa Public Television. Manatt noted that the film is not affiliated with and received no funding or editorial input from Templeton Rye Spirits LLC.

(Radio Iowa)

Twenty-two of Iowa’s 99 county sheriffs are no longer complying with requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold people suspected of being illegal immigrants unless they have a judge’s approval, according to the Iowa A-C-L-U. ICE issues what’s called a “detainer” which asks the counties to hold the individuals for 48 hours while ICE determines if they will pursue immigration proceedings. Iowa A-C-L-U spokesperson, Erica Johnson, says ICE detainer requests are often unconstitutional.

“The ICE detainer requests in and of themselves, if they’re not accompanied by any sort of warrant signed by a judge, don’t necessary give local law enforcement any reason to detain an individual,” Johnson says. Johnson says it’s up to local law enforcement whether they want to corporate with ICE.

“It’s really-like I said, it’s a good showing to the community as saying, ‘Hey, we want to work with you.’ Especially those vulnerable communities, especially immigrants,” Johnson says. The counties which have told the A-C-L-U they won’t comply with the detainer requests are: Allamakee, Benton, Cass, Clinton, Dubuque, Franklin, Fremont, Ida, Iowa, Greene, Jefferson, Johnson, Linn, Marion, Monona, Montgomery, Polk, Pottawattamie, Sioux, Story, Wapello, and Winneshiek.

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in special sessions at four locations across the state during its upcoming term. The Des Moines-based court said Monday that justices will travel to hear arguments next month in Iowa City, to Storm Lake in October, to Creston in March and Decorah in April.

The visits build on an outreach campaign that Chief Justice Mark Cady instituted after three justices were ousted by voters following the court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in 2009.

In a statement, Cady says the court has visited 13 communities for oral arguments and public receptions in the last three years. He says the visits give justices “a tremendous, first-hand insight into what Iowans expect from their court system now and into the future.”