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Thread: Iowa Capital Punishment News

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    Iowa Capital Punishment News

    Bill seeks to reinstate death penalty in Iowa

    By Rod Boshar
    Media Group News

    DES MOINES – The leader of the Senate Republican minority is pushing to reinstate a limited death penalty in Iowa for any adult who kills a minor in the commission of a rape or kidnapping, but majority Democrats say it’s a political ploy to interject a distracting social issue during a session focused on job creation and reforming the state’s property tax, education and mental-health systems.

    Senate GOP Leader Jerry Behn of Boone said he introduced the death-penalty measure this session as he has done in previous years as a way to deter perpetrators of class A felonies in Iowa from killing their minor victims who may later identify them or testify against them if they are arrested by law officers and prosecuted for crimes that currently carry maximum penalties of life in prison without parole.

    “In essence, it is an incentive in Iowa right now to murder your victim so there are no witnesses,” Behn said. “This adds a level to that to provide a disincentive.”

    Senate File 2095 would establish effective Jan. 1, 2013, a two-tiered judicial process for criminals — charged with kidnapping and/or raping a victim under the age of 18 and then killing the minor — who are later convicted of at least two Class A offenses currently punishable by life prison terms. A separate court proceeding would be held to determine whether the perpetrator would be executed using lethal injection.

    The bill provides for an automatic review of any death-penalty sentence by the Iowa Supreme Court. To be eligible for capital punishment, a convicted defendant would have to be at least 18 years of age at the time the offenses were committed, must not be mentally ill or mentally retarded, and would have to “have been a major participant in the commission of the crime or must have shown a manifest indifference to human life,” according to the proposed legislation.

    Sen. Eugene Fraise, D-Fort Madison, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday he already has decided S.F. 2095 will not be considered in committee this session.

    “We won’t take it up,” he said. “This issue’s been around for a long time. It’s been turned down.”

    Fraise noted that Republicans controlled both chambers of the General Assembly during Branstad’s fourth term and did not debate the capital punishment issue.

    “It seems to me like it’s a political gimmick (for Republicans) to say they (Democrats) wouldn’t bring up the death penalty,” he said. “They’ve had their chances over the years to do it, but I won’t support it. We’ve always said that we sentence people to death in the institutions. They spend the rest of their life there until they die there. To me, it’s a far harsher sentence than just the death penalty. They have to think about what they did forever, so that to me is a far harsher penalty than the death penalty.”

    Branstad said he supports a limited death penalty in circumstances involving multiple Class A felonies as a deterrent for someone already facing a life prison sentence “from killing more people, figuring that improves their chance of getting away with it or killing the rape or kidnap victim.”

    The governor, a Boone Republican currently in the second year of his fifth, four-year term, said he chose not to include a death-penalty proposal in his 2012 legislative package because “I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere in the Senate. I want to focus on things that we can get done.”

    Capital punishment ended in Iowa in February 1965. The last person put to death under Iowa’s former capital-punishment statute was Victor Feguer, who was executed in March 1963 for killing a Dubuque doctor.

    http://easterniowagovernment.com/201...nalty-in-iowa/

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    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    The last person put to death under Iowa’s former capital-punishment statute was Victor Feguer, who was executed in March 1963 for killing a Dubuque doctor.

    http://easterniowagovernment.com/201...nalty-in-iowa/
    The last person put to death under Iowa's former capital punishment statute was Charles A. Kelly on September 6, 1962.

    Victor Feguer was executed under federal law.

    http://www.iadp.org/iowa.html

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    Girls' deaths lead to talk of reviving death penalty in Iowa

    In the wake of the discovery of the bodies of two Iowa girls who had been missing for nearly five months, talk of reinstating the death penalty in Iowa has bubbled back up.

    One GOP state senator says he intends to introduce a death penalty bill, but it’s not likely that there is enough support in the Iowa Legislature for it to pass this coming session.

    “Even if it came up, it wouldn’t pass,” predicted Sen. Gene Fraise, D-Fort Madison, chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Iowa Senate. “Not only Democrats but Republicans have pretty much agreed if we send someone to prison for life, they are sentenced to death in an institution.”

    Iowa repealed capital punishment in 1965, three years after the last execution in Iowa.

    Elizabeth Collins, then 8, and her cousin Lyric Cook-Morrissey, then 10, disappeared from Evansdale on July 13. Hunters found two bodies in a Bremer County park this week, and law enforcement said Thursday they are confident the bodies are Lyric and Elizabeth.

    Noreen Gosch, whose 12-year-old son, Johnny, disappeared in 1982, said this week she will renew her push in the 2013 legislative session for the death penalty in cases like this.

    State Sen. Kent Sorenson, R-Milo, intends to introduce a bill this session to allow the death penalty in part because the deaths of Elizabeth and Lyric have raised awareness, he said.

    “I’m not sure all Republicans would be for it,” Sorenson said.

    Sorenson feels strongly that if the Evansdale girls’ kidnapper knew he or she would face death if caught and convicted, the girls might not have been killed.

    Iowa law allows life sentences for convictions of murder and the most serious cases of sexual assault and kidnapping.

    Someone who kidnaps or rapes “at that point has nothing else to lose,” Sorenson said. “They’re going to face life in prison so they have no reason at that point to let (the victim) live.”

    In the 1990s, legislators attempted but failed in efforts to reinstate the death penalty under limited circumstances supported by then-Gov. Terry Branstad.

    Democrats currently control one chamber, and the leader in the Iowa Senate, Mike Gronstal, has opposed the death penalty in the past. In 1995, a Des Moines Register Iowa Poll showed 67 percent of Iowans wanted to revive the death penalty. But Gronstal blocked it on the grounds that it would be morally wrong and too costly to the legal system.

    The Register last polled on the issue in 2006. Then, 66 percent of Iowa adults favored reviving the death penalty for certain crimes, and 29 percent opposed it.

    No death penalty bill has been debated in the Iowa Senate since the 1990s.

    Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack, who served from 1999 to 2007, opposed the death penalty. Democratic Gov. Chet Culver, who served from 2007 to 2011, supported reinstating the death penalty in limited circumstances, but no bill reached his desk.

    Branstad returned to office last year after a 12-year absence. Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht said Friday: “The governor’s position on the death penalty remains the same, which is in limited circumstances, yes.”

    The Iowa County Attorneys Association has no position on the death penalty because it hasn’t been a viable issue in Iowa, president John Werden said Friday.

    But Werden said, “Everyone needs to step back and look at the financial impact it would have on our criminal justice system.”

    http://www.desmoinesregister.com/art...h-penalty-Iowa
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    Bill to restore death penalty in Iowa faces uncertain fate

    Iowa would become the first state to reinstate the death penalty since New York in 1995 if legislation filed last week becomes law.

    The abduction and slaying of 8-year-old Elizabeth Collins and her 10-year-old cousin Lyric Cook-Morrissey this summer in Evansdale gave capital punishment advocates the resolve to try, once again, to reintroduce it to Iowa where it was abolished in 1965.

    Elizabeth's parents, Heather and Drew Collins, joined with conservative state Sen. Kent Sorenson, R-Milo, and the parents of other missing and murdered children at a pair of Statehouse news conferences announcing their intention to push for its reinstatement.

    They also met with Gov. Terry Branstad, who indicated he would sign a bill that brought the death penalty back in limited circumstances.

    But enthusiasm in both the House and the Senate seems muted at best. The majority Senate Democrats said there's no interest in the bill, and it won't make it to the floor for a vote. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, indicated it's not a top priority for the House if the Senate is not going to act.

    "Discussion on the death penalty is taking place in the Senate. If they send a bill over, we're obviously going to take a look it," he said.

    A trend

    In 2007, New York abolished the death penalty again. Four other states --- Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey and Connecticut --- have since.

    In all, 17 states have abolished the death penalty, and 33 have it, although it is used with varying degrees of frequency.

    Kansas, for example, last executed an inmate in 1965, while the most recent execution in Texas occurred on Nov. 15, 2012. A woman, Kimberly McCarthy, was scheduled to die in Texas last week, but her execution was stayed until April.

    A Pew Research poll released last year showed that 62 percent of Americans support the death penalty. That's less than the 78 percent who supported it in the mid-1990s, but much higher than the mid-1960s when less than 50 percent of Americans supported capital punishment, according to Pew.

    Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said there are at least a dozen bills to reintroduce the death penalty in statehouses across the country, but he's skeptical any will be successful. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit doesn't advocate for or against capital punishment and tracks state-by-state data.

    "The trend in recent years has been toward abolishing the death penalty," Dieter said. "The states that have abolished it do usually put in strict alternatives, like life without the possibility of parole. New York didn't have life without parole until they abolished (the death penalty)."

    Greg Heartsill, a Republican from Melcher-Dallas, said he will push a bill in the Iowa House to reinstate the death penalty.

    "I don't care about the trends. I'm not trendy," he said. "This is not just a matter of justice for the victims' families, it's about putting another tool in the toolbox of law enforcement, because the death penalty has been used as a huge bargaining chip."

    Pressure

    Sorenson's bill would allow a death sentence in cases in which someone commits a murder and either first-degree kidnapping or first-degree sexual abuse, or both, against the same victim who is a minor.

    He said he's keying on state Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Cedar Falls, who is from the area where the cousins were abducted and killed as a potential ally to get traction in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

    Danielson said he has spoken to Sorenson about a bill that would set up a system notifying hunters when children go missing, but he's not interested in a capital punishment bill.

    "My position is pretty clear: I'm morally opposed to capital punishment," he said "We have the death penalty in Iowa. It is if you commit a heinous crime, you go to jail and die there."

    Meanwhile, the families of the victims say they're starting a grassroots effort to apply pressure to lawmakers.

    Drew Collins said the families who are connected through the tragedy launched a Facebook group last week called "Enough is Enough" that supports reintroduction of the death penalty in Iowa. The Collinses' own web page, where they once posted reward amounts for information that led to the safe return of their daughter and niece, soon will host petitions to reintroduce the death penalty to Iowa. That web page can be found here at www.picbadges.com/badge/2652852/#.

    "When we abolished the death penalty in 1965, there might have been more reason to believe there might be false convictions," Drew Collins said. "But now we have the technology to eliminate that. We have a 1965 law in 2013. It's time to change."

    http://lacrossetribune.com/news/loca...a4bcf887a.html
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    GOP senators seek limited death penalty

    By Rod Boshart
    The Quad City Times

    DES MOINES — More than a half century after Iowa’s death penalty ended, a group of Senate Republicans wants to allow capital punishment in cases in which an adult kidnaps, rapes and murders a minor.

    Senate File 335 would restore capital punishment in Iowa for the first time since 1965 by establishing a two-pronged process in which a jury or judge could convict a perpetrator of committing multiple Class A offenses and separately make a decision whether to execute the offender by lethal injection.

    Any death penalty conviction automatically would be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, and juvenile offenders would not be eligible for capital punishment.

    “It’s narrowly scoped,” said Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, one of six GOP senators who introduced the measure Wednesday.

    Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City, also filed a death-penalty bill with slightly different provisions.

    “Right now, there is no criminal charge difference,” said Chapman, who noted that committing one or more Class A felonies carries a maximum of life in prison, so there’s no deterrent for a kidnapper or rapist not to kill the victim.

    “What this says is that if you do all three, you are going to be in line for the death penalty,” he said. “Not only is it a deterrent from someone thinking of taking that next step having kidnapped and raped and then considering killing that individual, it also is — for me — the penalty is fitting for the crime. So you have two aspects: You have the deterrence, but then you also have if it does happen, what is the proper, just punishment for that crime?”

    Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a bill co-sponsor, said the bill is arriving with the session’s first “funnel” deadline approaching at the end of next week for non-money bills to have cleared at least one standing committee to remain eligible for debate this year.

    He said he hoped to schedule a subcommittee meeting next week, but he was uncertain how far the measure would go this session.

    He said the 2005 eastern Iowa kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage is often cited as an example of why the death penalty is needed. In that case, Roger Bentley, a convicted sex offender and friend of Gage’s family, was convicted of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in 2006 and sentenced to two consecutive mandatory life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.

    “We have talked about this for many years,” Zaun said of reinstating capital punishment. “There’s no higher penalty if you kill off your witness. I typically am not a big death penalty person, but I think in this particular situation where a child is raped then killed, I agree that the death penalty is in order.”

    Sen. Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, said she was in the House when lawmakers debated reinstating the death penalty in 1995.

    “We spent an enormous amount of time and emotional energy — that’s part of our job — trying to decide whether or not that was a good thing for Iowa to do, and the answer was no,” Jochum said. “So we’ve been through this more than once before, and I think that in Iowa if you are convicted of a capital crime — life is life. You are going to die in prison, and I think that’s satisfactory.”

    Earlier this month, Republicans who control the Legislature introduced a major rewrite of Iowa’s collective bargaining law and passed it within 10 days using a procedural move that ended debate and brought the issue to a vote. Jochum said if Republicans use the same expedited procedure for this issue, it “would be an absolute injustice, truly, to give something of that magnitude that short a period of time where the state is sanctioning killing people.

    “Regardless of the offense they committed, we’re still going into the same gutter that others are in, and I don’t think the state should be involved in it. Life is life.”

    http://qctimes.com/news/state-and-re...d3a3c37b9.html

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    Death penalty bill scrapped in Iowa Senate for 2017

    By William Petroski
    The Des Moines Register

    State lawmakers scrapped plans for a debate on capital punishment this year when they ran out of time prior to a key deadline this week in the Iowa Legislature.

    Senate File 335 would have reinstated the death penalty, but only for multiple offenses in which a minor was kidnapped, raped and murdered. The bill was sponsored by six Republican legislators who pointed to the 2005 death of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids, who was abducted from her grandmother's residence and was found slain the next day in a mobile home southwest of Iowa City. The girl had previously been a victim of sexual abuse.

    A Senate subcommittee hearing on the bill was canceled Thursday amid a crush of action on other legislation as lawmakers rushed to comply with the Legislature's "funnel" deadline. Most bills are required to clear at least one committee in the House or Senate this week to remain eligible for consideration in the 2017 session.

    "It is not going to be debated this session," said Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said there simply wasn't enough time to consider the proposal this week. Two Senate bills advocating for a return of the death penalty have been filed this session, but both were introduced last week.

    A host of groups had lined up to oppose the Senate bill. The opponents included the Iowa Attorney General's Office, the Iowa Academy of Trial Lawyers, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People-Iowa and Nebraska; Iowans Against the Death Penalty, American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, the Iowa Catholic Conference, Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Diocese of Iowa, and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa.

    Sen. Jerry Behn, R-Boone, a lead sponsor of Senate File 335, said the bill was aimed at circumstances where an assailant had an incentive to kill a child who had been raped and murdered by eliminating the possibility that the victim could provide testimony.

    Iowa abolished the death penalty in 1965. The state's last execution was on March 15, 1963, at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison when Victor Harry Feguer, a federal inmate, was hanged for murder. Thirty-one states authorize the death penalty.

    The last major debate in the Iowa Legislature over capital punishment occurred in the 1990s. Since then, lawmakers have generally accepted the idea that Iowa will not execute murderers, and people convicted of first-degree murder and given life sentences in recent years have rarely been granted clemency by the state's governors.

    http://www.desmoinesregister.com/sto...2017/98645850/

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    It'll be too bad if they can't get this through before the November elections since the Governor is currently a Republican and both houses of the General Assembly are now controlled by the GOP.

    Lawmakers will debate returning death penalty to Iowa

    By Rod Boshart
    The Quad City Times

    DES MOINES — Bringing the death penalty back to Iowa likely will be debated but probably not approved during the 2018 legislative session, key lawmakers say.

    Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he plans to assign a subcommittee to take up Senate File 335 with an eye on possibly expanding the provisions, but he is uncertain how far the issue may go in a session already loaded with what he said were more pressing priorities.

    S.F. 335, introduced by a group of Senate Republicans last session, would restore capital punishment in Iowa for the first time since 1965 by establishing a two-pronged process.

    A jury or judge could convict a perpetrator of committing multiple class A offenses, and separately make a decision whether to execute the offender by lethal injection. Any death penalty conviction automatically would be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, and juvenile offenders would be exempted.

    Proponents say it would allow capital punishment in cases where an adult kidnaps, rapes and murders a minor. Zaun said there are some who would like to expand it to situations where police officers are killed in the line of duty or other heinous circumstances.

    “My promises at this point are that I will promise that I will assign a subcommittee and the subcommittee will hold a hearing so people could weigh in on whether they’re for or against that,” he said. “I think considering some of the tragedies that have happened here in the state of Iowa — and I’ve heard from so many Iowans who would at least like to have the conversation started.”

    Among them is Sen. Jerry Behn, R-Boone, the bill’s lead sponsor who has raised the issue for nearly two decades in the Legislature without success.

    “Right now in Iowa, if you kidnap and rape someone, there’s a perverted incentive to murder your victim because you’re no worse off. I think that’s not appropriate at any level and we’ve had a couple horrific crimes of similar nature in the past and I would just as soon not wait for another one of those horrific crimes before we try to do something about it,” Behn said. “That was the genesis of introducing the bill in the first place, to fix that.”

    The Boone Republican said he believes the death penalty is a deterrent to crime worth considering and believes it would get public backing if it were a topic of discussion again in the Legislature, although he has not gauged support for it among legislators.

    Sen. Rich Taylor, D-Mount Pleasant, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who worked for 27 years in the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, said he is willing to listen to the arguments for reinstating capital punishment but doubts there were be enough support for Senate passage.

    “For me, it’s a no. Somebody’s going to have to show me some real good reason to change my mind on that,” said Taylor.

    “There’s too many chances for error and we’ve seen that over the last few years with the new DNA sampling. There are a lot of people in prison who really shouldn’t have been there in the first place. So, if we have the death penalty, there’s no return from that,” he said.

    “It rather surprises me that the Republicans on one hand say all life is precious and believe that life begins at conception and then are for the death penalty on the other end,” added Taylor. “It’s pretty contradictory.”

    Taylor said the death penalty is such a divisive issue he questions whether lawmakers should take it up in a year already beset with some major issues. The GOP-run General Assembly will work to erase a projected budget deficit and consider a major rewrite of the individual income tax code.

    Top lawmakers from both parties had similar views in pre-session interviews.

    “I haven’t heard from folks in my community about that being a key priority this year,” said House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights. “I just haven’t seen it rise as a priority on our side yet, so I’m not particularly concerned about.”

    Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said he is aware there is interest within his caucus to have a debate on the issue and he is willing to let the process work and see where it goes.

    http://qctimes.com/muscatine/news/la...921102cd6.html

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    House bill would reverse a half-century-old ban on capital punishment in Iowa

    The Iowa House of Representatives is set to consider a bill that would allow those convicted of 1st degree murder to be put to death by lethal injection, potentially reversing a half-century-old ban on capital punishment in the state.

    The House proposal, which is scheduled to get its 1st hearing Thursday, is much broader than a Senate version of the bill, which would apply only to those convicted of kidnapping, sexually abusing and killing a minor.

    "It seems like some crimes are violent and vicious enough that the perpetrators should not have the right to breathe," said the bill's author, Rep. Clel Baudler, a Republican from Greenfield and chairman of the House Public Safety Committee. "It should send a message to society that we're not going to tolerate this kind of behavior."

    He pointed also to Judge Rosemarie Aquilina who told former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar that she "just signed (his) death warrant" as she sentenced him to 40 to 175 years in prison last week in Michigan for molesting young athletes.

    "The audience in the courtroom clapped," Baudler said. "So apparently it's OK to hold a guy between 40 and 175 years and it's a death warrant. Everybody thinks it's OK. But if you say the state has a law that allows the death penalty, people get all squeamish. And I don't have that in my bloodstream, I guess. It's either right or wrong."

    Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, will lead the public subcommittee meeting on House Study Bill 569 Thursday morning. He said he has not made up his mind about whether he will vote to advance the legislation.

    "I believe that there are heinous crimes in which the death penalty is warranted," he said. "However, there's also a lot of statistics that suggest maybe more minorities are impacted by this, which would not be appropriate. So I'm listening and hearing all the arguments, and I'll make a decision at that time."

    The Iowa Senate is considering a similar bill, Senate File 335, which would allow the death penalty, but in far fewer circumstances.

    Daniel Zeno, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said his organization would oppose reinstating the death penalty in any form.

    "We think the death penalty is inherently unconstitutional," he said. "Too often, who gets the death penalty is determined by race, by geography. ... There should be consequences for criminal acts. But in this case, we think there are other ways to do it."

    If either bill is approved, Iowa would become 1 of 32 states to permit the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    The state's last execution was on March 15, 1963, when Victor Harry Feguer, a federal inmate, was hanged for kidnapping and killing a Dubuque physician. President John F. Kennedy denied Gov. Harold Hughes' 11th-hour bid for clemency.

    Hughes signed legislation in 1965 that outlawed the practice.

    A host of organizations have lined up in opposition to the House bill, including the Iowa Attorney General's office, the Iowa chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa. None has registered in favor of the bill, though many remain undecided.

    Tom Chapman, executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference, said his organization opposes the bill from a moral perspective.

    "The main reason we oppose it is it's not necessary to protect society," he said. "Here in Iowa we've got life in prison without parole for people who are convicted of 1st degree murder. If it's not necessary to kill someone to protect society, we would prefer the state uses non-lethal means."

    Both Holt and Baudler have been vocal opponents of abortion; both said they do not see the death penalty as a violation of their pro-life positions.

    "My faith informs me as a Christian that there are some situations in which, I believe, it is biblical that the death penalty is warranted in heinous crimes," said Holt. "...I don't believe there's any hypocrisy between being pro-life, when you're talking about an innocent unborn child, as opposed to someone who has committed a heinous crime."

    The bill is in its earliest stages and faces a long legislative road. But if approved, it would take effect in January 2019 and would apply to offenses committed after that date.

    It authorizes the costs for 2 attorneys for indigent defendants who face the death penalty, and it directs the Iowa Supreme Court and the state public defender to set up structures and training systems to provide legal assistance in cases of capital punishment.

    The legislation also would prevent the death penalty from being applied to children and to those who are mentally or intellectually disabled, and it would delay the death of pregnant women until after they give birth or until they are no longer pregnant.

    Under the bill, state employees could object to participating in administering the death penalty. The state Supreme Court also would be required to review every case where the death penalty is applied to consider whether the punishment is excessive.

    The Des Moines Register last polled on the issue of capital punishment in 2006. At that time, 66 % of Iowa adults favored reviving the death penalty for certain crimes, and 29 % opposed it.

    (source: Des Moines Register)
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    Bill to reinstate the death penalty in Iowa advances

    Iowa legislators are considering bringing back the death penalty, a move partly motivated by recent killings of law enforcement officials.

    House Bill 569 was discussed in a subcommittee Thursday morning, where it passed 2-1 along party lines and will be now be heard by a full House committee.

    The bill would make the death penalty an option for anyone who is convicted of first-degree murder.

    As KCCI’s Alyx Sacks reports, Iowans who attended the subcommittee meeting were passionate about the subject.

    http://www.kcci.com/article/bill-to-...ances/15958152
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    Death penalty bill advances: Senate subcommittee voices support

    By Rod Boshart
    Quad City Times

    DES MOINES — A Senate subcommittee voted 3-2 Monday to support reinstating a limited death penalty in Iowa after an hour-long debate of Biblical proportions.

    And there were indications the debate would become even more expansive if the issue progresses to the Senate floor. Proponents and opponents alike used references from the Bible and religious doctrine to argue in favor of and against Senate Study Bill 3134, a measure designed to provide a limited deterrent in situations in which someone aged 18 or older kidnaps, rapes and murders a minor or kills a peace officer in the line of duty.

    Under current Iowa law, criminals convicted of a Class A offense is sentenced to life in prison without parole, which Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller argued is “a de facto death sentence” in a statement read by a spokesman.

    “Defendants convicted of first-degree murder in Iowa die in prison,” Miller said.

    But Sen. Dan Dawson, R-Council Bluffs, said “there has to be a higher penalty” for perpetrators who commit heinous crimes for which they show no remorse and who continue to be a threat while they’re held in custody or prison.

    Sen. Julian Garrett, R-Indianola, who chaired the five-member subcommittee, said he is bothered that — without the threat of capital punishment — there is nothing to deter a perpetrator who kidnaps and rapes a minor from killing the victim to cover the crime and the absence of a death penalty almost is an incentive for murder.

    “There needs to be something more,” Garrett said.

    However, Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, who also served on the five-member subcommittee and managed a death penalty bill in 1992 that failed to gain Senate approval, said the issue is too important to be rushed through the process during “funnel week” and will undergo considerable work if Republicans choose to move it forward this session.

    “This is not the bill to rush,” Bisignano said in an interview. “I will do everything I can to slow the bill down so that people truly have the opportunity to understand what they’re voting for.”

    If the bill does advance, Bisignano, an opponent of the legislation, said he would attempt to broaden it into a full-blown death penalty that would be fairer rather than a limited option.

    He also would push for a requirement that the governor be present when a convicted person is executed, saying “if they’re the person signing the death warrant, then they’re the person who should witness the death, and if you don’t have the courage to do that, then that’s like hiring a hit man and then it becomes a political document.”

    The bill calls for a two-tiered process whereby an accused perpetrator deemed mentally competent is tried before a jury or judge. If convicted of a capital offense eligible for the death penalty, a second, separate review would be conducted to determine if the person should be put to death via a lethal injection.

    The bill has enough votes to advance in the Senate. The overall fate of the death-penalty issue, however, is uncertain given that a broader reinstatement bill has stalled in the House.

    “I was hoping that we would wait for House action — which looks like there’s not going to be — and, if not, I don’t understand why the Senate would want to waste the time and the energy that comes with that type of a bill,” Bisignano said.

    Garrett said he expected the full Senate Judiciary Committee would take up the bill yet this week, given the Friday deadline for non-money bills to clear at least one standing committee in the House or Senate to remain eligible for consideration for session.

    “We’ll see where it goes from here,” he said.

    http://qctimes.com/news/state-and-re...93088dd64.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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