Sioux City, Iowa — A new judge has been appointed to serve one of the districts in our coverage area.
We have received word that Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has appointed Tod Deck as district court judge in the Judicial District 3B. Deck will fill the judicial seat formerly held by Judge Edward Jacobson.
Jacobson announced his retirement this past summer and retired effective October 9th, 2017.
Among his judgments rendered in our area was the one in Rochelle Sapp’s murder trial, in which she was accused of causing fatal injuries to 3-year-old Autumn Elgersma of Orange City in 2013. About a year later, she pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to two 50-year prison terms to run back-to-back, or “concurrently”. About a year after that, in 2015, Judge Jacobson cut Sapp’s sentence in half when he ruled that the terms should run together instead of back-to-back. The reconsideration was unprecedented in the State of Iowa in a case involving a victim. Sapp remains incarcerated in the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville, Iowa, and is tentatively scheduled for release in the year 2038, according to the Iowa Department of Corrections.
The new judge — Tod Deck, of Sioux City — received his law degree from the University of Louisville and his undergraduate degree from Morningside College. He currently serves as a judicial magistrate in Woodbury County.
Judicial District 3B includes Sioux County in our immediate area, as well as Crawford, Ida, Monona, Plymouth, and Woodbury counties.
