(AmericanProsperity.com) – According to a WND September 26 report, the Iowa District Court for Sioux County ruled against a controversial Iowa’s Orange City law that required mandatory inspections of every rental property within the city. The judge argued that this law violated the Iowa Constitution.
The ruling came nearly two years after a coalition of Orange City tenants and landlords, along with the Institute for Justice (IJ), filed a lawsuit where they formally challenged this ordinance. In a statement, IJ Attorney John Wrench said that the decision represents a “major” victory for the privacy rights of every single renter in Orange City. He also said no one can lose their constitutional rights simply because they rent their homes instead of owning them.
The ordinance in question allowed the city to search the homes of every tenant without their consent. To do this, they city needed to obtain an “administrative warrant,” which didn’t require it to show any suspicion or probable cause. In the ruling, the court held that the city’s mandatory inspection rule was a clear violation of the Iowa Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8.
In a separate statement, IJ Attorney Rob Peccola said that homes contain some of the most intimate and personal belongings and records, and claimed that these “private materials” shouldn’t be subjected to the “prying eye” of the government. He added that the only way this could happen is that the government legally obtain a warrant in an “adversarial proceeding,” allowing tenants to face their accusers and respond.
According to different reports, this situation started when Bryan Singer and his wife Erika Nordyke decided to team up with the IJ to file the lawsuit. The couple lives in a house they rent from landlord Josh Dykstra, and considers Orange City’s law a violation of their privacy.
The city has repeatedly said it hasn’t tried to spy on any citizen or family yet and even claimed that the lawsuit shouldn’t have moved forward because of this.
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