Renewed change of venue motion in Kasemeier first degree murder trial denied
Brandon Kasemeier ...
The renewed change of venue motion filed April 18 by defense attorneys in the first degree murder trial of Brandon Kasemeier, the 41-year-old man from Waukon charged in the January 21, 2024 death of his estranged wife, Jami Kasemeier, has been denied, marking the second time in the past five months a change of venue motion has been denied 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. That initial motion was denied in January of this year with the understanding that the change of venue motion could be renewed after Iowa First Judicial District Judge Alan Heavens gave approval to a request for the gathering of more information through the surveying of a previous Allamakee County jury pool by a private investigator hired by Kasemeier’s defense team.
That renewed change of venue motion filed Friday, April 18 on behalf of Kasemeier focused on the argument that there is a “substantial likelihood a fair and impartial trial cannot be preserved with a jury selected from Allamakee County.” That argument was based on information gathered by that private investigator while surveying members of a previous jury pool in Allamakee County. That survey was described as having the purpose of discovering “how much the average Allamakee County resident knows about this trial,” and the results of that survey were entered as Exhibit H in the case’s court records, along with the renewed change of venue motion.
JUDGE’S ORDER
In his ruling filed Friday, May 2 denying the renewed motion for change of venue, Judge Heavens initially wrote that “Kasemeier’s motion is weaker today than it was when he first filed it (December 2024) because two subsequent decisions from the supreme court and the court of appeals weaken Kasemeier’s arguments, and the results of his investigation into potential jurors show that many people in Allamakee have not heard anything about this case.”
His filed order further specified that 16 of the 30 Allamakee County residents surveyed had heard about the case, and 14 had not. He further shared that only eight of those surveyed believed Kasemeier was guilty, with half of those eight acknowledging they had “not heard much about the case or acknowledged what they heard was hearsay.”
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