Over 100 people got the opportunity at Greene County High School auditorium Tuesday night to watch a special session of the Iowa Supreme Court.

The state’s highest court heard oral arguments about a tenant/landlord brief from Johnson County that was appealed to the Supreme Court from the Appellate Court. Having grown up in a rural town of Harlan, Chief Justice Susan Christensen talked about her favorite part about doing these types of “Court on the Road” sessions where the Supreme Court conducts hearings in smaller communities.

“So to me, when we do these stops, I’m always impressed with the number of people that show up. Because this isn’t something normal for a small community to have happened and I love how the communities just roll out the red carpet, just for example what you’re doing right now and the opportunity to share what we do and how important it is. So I feel right at home. And if anything, I think it helps me remind some of my colleagues who are the, ‘I’m the country mouse and some of them are city mice,’ and it’s kind of a nice opportunity to share that we are represent different pockets of our state, and so I feel right at home, I love it.”   

Chief Justice Christensen explained what being the Chief Justice allows her to do on behalf of the Supreme Court.

“Being the Chief allows me the opportunity to perhaps be involved in every pocket of the state on a more regular basis, to get to be a part of the trial courts, to also be more involved with the legislature, maybe than others would be when it comes time for discussion about legislation and our budget. It gives me a chance, I think, just to be a little bit more aware of what’s going on across the entire landscape of the state and not just in our building.”  

Following the oral arguments was a question and answer session where attendees asked a variety of questions, including internal operations of the Supreme Court, the amount of cases they hear in a term, and how the public can do their own research about the judges in the state regarding the district, appellate and the Supreme Court levels. Christensen closed out the program with a comment that of the over 40 Court on the Road sessions that they have done, the high school auditorium was the nicest setting that they have been in.