The Greene County Attorney’s Office recently prosecuted one of the most serious criminal cases.

Adam Coy of Grand Junction was recently sentenced to 36 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of a Class B Felony for attempted murder, a Class C Felony for willful injury resulting in serious injury, and a serious misdemeanor for domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury. On February 4th, Coy used a firearm and shot at the back of his fiance’s head after an argument turned physical. Laehn says the attempted murder charge has a mandatory 25 years in prison. Laehn points out one of the main reasons he argued for all three charges to be served in prison consecutively instead of concurrently.

“The only fair sentence would be something  in addition to 25 years to account for the fact that the victim was injured, she was struck by the bullet. And that 25 year sentence was merely for the attempt and does not require an injury. So there’s a separate and distinct element to the crime of willful injury resulting in serious injury, namely the serious injury.”   

Laehn notes that this case was the largest case Greene County has had in 40 years that involved about 20 witnesses, including expert witnesses from Chicago, Minneapolis and Des Moines on medical and scientific information. He describes his thoughts of how he and Assistant Greene County Attorney Laura Snider prosecuted the case.

“I thought Laura (Snider) did exceptionally well. She examined roughly half of the witnesses. We had a trial strategy that we jointly devised and executed. It resulted in a very quick and unanimous verdict.”

Laehn adds the five-day jury trial ended after one hour of deliberation before the guilty verdict came back. He appreciates the investigation that was conducted by the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation with this case.