State v. Ryan

SCHULTZ, Justice.

In this original certiorari action the State challenges the district court’s authority to effect a change in the confinement of a prisoner from a facility under the jurisdiction of the director of the Division of Adult Corrections to one outside of the director’s control. We hold the district court is without power to order this kind of change except in situations specifically authorized by statute or mandated by the constitution.

On September 2, 1983, defendant district court judge Rodney Ryan ordered Jack Whitney, an inmate of the men’s reformatory in Anamosa, to be…