Trish Mehaffey

Iowa is facing a severe shortage of contract lawyers willing to represent indigent defendants, meaning the 562 lawyers still taking those cases sometimes face “grueling” caseloads. That number is almost a 50 percent decrease since 2014.

A prosecutor asked for delay in the March 28 trial for Timothy Rush, who is accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend and another man and also seriously injuring others April 10 inside the Taboo Nightclub and Lounge. Two key witnesses to the prosecution’s can’t testify later this month.

A retired federal prosecutor and a Drake law professor say the fatal stabbing of Devonna Walker don’t meet requirements for a hate crime or murder because the man who stabbed Lavonna Walker was reacting to being attacked.

Alexander Jackson was sentenced to 3 consecutive life sentences for killing his father, mother and sister in June 2021 in their northeast Cedar Rapids home He declined to make a statement during the Friday sentencing hearing.

Alexander Jackson, convicted of killing his parents and sister in 2021, faces three life sentences.

Trial is reset to April for one Fairfield teen accused of beating their Spanish teacher with a baseball bat in 2021. The trial is expected to last 10 days.

A judge set a $1 million cash only bond for a Cedar Rapids man charged in the beating and fatal stabbing of Dennis First in 2007.

A 42-year-old Cedar Rapids man will be charged Thursday for the 2007 cold case murder of Dennis First, 64. The two men lived in Hawthorne Hills Apartments in southwest Cedar Rapids in 2007. First was beaten and fatally stabbed.

A Cedar Rapid man and his wife had a previous run in with Devonna Walker in December and he should have known using a racial slur would provoke a violent response.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office has asked the Iowa Supreme Court to review an appeals court decision that overturned a Marion man’s second-degree murder conviction for fatally stabbing Chris Bagley in 2018.

A Cedar Rapids man faces charges he bashed his brother in the head with a cigarette roller after the other brother stabbed him with a box cutter. One brother’s injuries left a blood trail outside the Linn County Courthouse and Jail.

Ethan Orton pleaded to two charges of first-degree murder, just before his trial was to start Tuesday. He admitted to stabbing parents with a knife and then grabbing an ax and killing his mother who was still alive in 2021. He faces two life sentences.

Trial is reset to April for one Fairfield teen accused of beating their Spanish teacher with a baseball bat in 2021. The trial is expected to last 10 days.

A prosecutor plans to ask a judge to stack sentences for a Chicago man who made nasty comments to a deputy after he was convicted. If the sentences are stacked for Stanley Donahue, he faces 107 years in prison for robbing a Casey’s and shooting the deputy.

A Marengo man pleaded to lesser charges and was sentenced to 15 years for a fatal crash in 2020. He was intoxicated and crossed the centerline on Highway 151 in Walford, striking a vehicle driven by Erik Halvorson, 32, of Cedar Rapids.