Defense attorneys file a second change of venue motion in Kasemeier First Degree Murder trial

For the second time in a span of five months, defense attorneys in the first degree murder case of Brandon Kasemeier, the now 41-year-old man from Waukon charged in the January 21, 2024 death of his estranged wife, Jami Kasemeier, have filed a motion for a change of venue for the upcoming trial in the case. Kasemeier’s defense team of Raya Dimitrova and Erin Carr of Carr Law Firm, P.L.C., Des Moines had originally filed a motion for a change of venue December 6, 2024 based on pre-trial publicity, a motion that was denied by Iowa First Judicial District Judge Alan Heavens.

At that same time, Kasemeier’s defense team also filed a motion to request information about the November 2024 jury pool for Allamakee County District Court to help determine through a representative survey process if a fair and unbiased jury could be anticipated for the upcoming murder trial. Both of those motions were contested by the State of Iowa prosecution team, but Judge Heavens ultimately granted the pooling of the jury by a private investigator hired by Kasemeier’s defense team with input on survey content to be agreed upon by both the defense and prosecution in the matter.

In the renewed change of venue motion, filed Friday, April 18, the defense repeated some of the same foundational information for its new motion, including the suggestion that “Because the population of Allamakee County is relatively low and the alleged crime in this case is one of the two murders that occurred in the county in the last 8 years, there is a substantial likelihood that a fair and impartial jury cannot be selected for Defendant’s trial in Allamakee County.” A search of court records, however, shows instead that there have been two other murders in Allamakee County during that suggested timeframe prior to the Kasemeier case, as the deaths of Dean Russell of Waukon in April 2018 and of Daniel Lundy of Lansing in May 2022 were both ruled to be homicide cases that went to trial in Allamakee County. Those two deaths ruled murders would make the Kasemeier case the third such case in Allamakee County in just the past six years.

With the private investigator having been able to complete his pretrial survey granted by Judge Heavens in an effort to “discover how much the average Allamakee County resident knows about this trial” - as noted in court documents, an Exhibit H was entered into the court records that included those survey results. In summation of the new filed motion for a change of venue, the defense team stated the following in its renewed motion filing: “Based on the results contained in Defendant’s Exhibit H, there is a substantial likelihood a fair and impartial trial cannot be preserved with a jury selected from Allamakee County, and this action should be transferred to another county.”

RESISTANCE
On behalf of the State of Iowa prosecution team in the case, Assistant Attorney General Frank Severino filed a Resistance to the new Change of Venue motion Monday, April 21. In addressing the mention of pre-trial publicity again noted in the new motion, the filed Resistance stated, according to court documents, that “The crime occurred 453 days ago and has received little media coverage. There are no recent stories about the case.”

In denying the defense team’s initial change of venue motion earlier this year, Judge Heavens had explained that the timing and frequency of the media coverage in the case had appeared to be in line in such a case, coming after such developments in the case as trial information being filed, arraignment, a trial being scheduled, and any recent hearings. His written ruling stated, “Articles following these types of events are common for high profile trials. It’s not accurate to describe media coverage of this case as ‘pervasive’ or ‘saturated.’ In sum, the nature and frequency of the press coverage of Kasemeier’s case is normal for a case of this type.”

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