Gazette Daily News Briefing, May 28 and May 29
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for the weekend of May 28 and May 29.
Memorial Day Weekend will have plenty of sun. Saturday will start cool and cloudy, with a high of 79 degrees. There will be a very slight chance for rain Saturday afternoon. Sunday and Monday’s weather will be very similar, breezy and sunny with limited cloud cover, and a high of 88 and 90 degrees respectively.
A judge will not move the trial for a former University of Iowa student charged with killing his parents and sister last year to another county because he says the media coverage in Linn County hasn’t been “pervasive and inflammatory” as the defense argued.
Alexander Ken Jackson, 21, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder. He is accused of killing his father, Jan Jackson, 61; mother, Melissa Jackson, 68; and sister, Sabrina Jackson, 19, in June of last year.
Sixth Judicial District Chief Judge Lars Anderson, in his ruling filed late Thursday, said after reviewing 152 exhibits of media coverage provided by Jackson’s lawyers, he found the coverage to be “uniformly factual and largely devoid of inaccuracies, denunciations of Jackson or overly emotional coverage.”
A first-degree murder charge has been changed to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter for a Cedar Rapids man accused of fatally shooting another man during a fight.
James J. Siegel, 42, now faces a 10-year sentence, if convicted, instead of a life sentence in the May 13 fatal shooting of Ty John Casey, 39. According to an amended complaint filed Thursday, further investigation revealed a history between the two men and the crime scene and autopsy supported the lesser charge.
Siegel’s actions resulted from a “sudden, violent and irresistible passion” as a result of serious provocation by Casey, and these elements make the crime more fitting for the charge of voluntary manslaughter Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks stated in the complaint.
Maybanks was asked by the Gazette about the history between Siegel and Casey, but he said he couldn’t provide details.
The rapidly growing southwest quadrant of Cedar Rapids is slated to see even more of an uptick in warehouse construction, thanks to the area’s shovel-ready land and easy access to transportation through the airport and highway network.
The Cedar Rapids City Council this week approved tax incentives for two new warehouses in the Midwest Commerce Park from local developer Tiffany Earl Williams.
The projects are a 50,000-square-foot building on Capital Dr. SW, which would be leased by Hy-Vee for a warehouse and distribution facility, and a 100,000-square-foot building on Atlantic Dr. SW for the headquarters of Worley Warehousing.
