For the longest time I couldn't figure out why the widow of Tom Lyon, the farmer slain by Rodney Heemstra in a property dispute, was fighting the release of Lyon's medical records to his life insurance company. After all, it's pretty standard stuff. Now I understand. Sounds suspiciously like a fishing expedition by the defense to me.



I do understand that Heemstra's defense centers around Lyon's alleged bad temper. But evidence of that was presented by Heemstra at trial and it was weighed by the jury in reaching its decision. According to Iowa law, "A person is justified in the use of reasonable force when the person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to defend oneself or another from any imminent use of unlawful force." Iowa Code Section 704.3



Iowa Courts have also held that ". . .where the accused asserts he or she acted in self-defense and the slightest supporting evidence is introduced. Then the violent, quarrelsome, dangerous or turbulent character of the deceased may be shown, both by evidence of his or her reputation in that respect and by witnesses who can testify from an actual knowledge of the victim's character." State v. Begey (Iowa 2003).



The jury apparently decided that the testimony regarding Lyon's temper or lack thereof was not sufficient to show that Heemstra reasonably believed deadly force was necessary to defend himself, based on the nature and severity of both Lyon's and Heemstra's actions. Even if the medical records do show some physical reason behind Lyon's temperment, I can't see that it changes what the manifestation of that temperment was, or what a reasonable response was given that Heemstra didn't have access to the records at the time.



Hypothetically speaking only - I'm not in a position to judge the deceased: Presume the defense is right, Lyon had a temper. Presume they find some deep dark reason why he has one in the medical records. If the manifestations of rage - yelling, physical abuse etc., were the same, would the fact he were angry because he had ADHD or bipolar disorder be any different than if he were angry because he was on crack, or that he was just plain mean? Would the deadly response by Heemstra become more reasonable, by simply changing the physical motivation behind Lyon's anger without changing the manifestation of the anger itself? The jury needs to base it's decision about Heemstra's state of mind on the information available to Heemstra at the time of the murder.



For example, in February the Iowa Appellate Court said in State v. Carey that: "Based on all of the evidence set forth above, we conclude there was sufficient evidence in the record to generate a jury question as to whether Carey reasonably believed McNamee and Krogh were not police officers and thus reasonably believed his actions were necessary to defend himself from the imminent use of unlawful force." The men involved were police officers. But the question was whether Carey would have known that, or whether he believed the force used against him was unlawful.



I don't think this part of the appeal should get very far, even if they do give him access to the medical records.