For Iowa prisoners serving life sentences, there is no clear path to clemency

A good bill to modernize commutation requests for Iowa prisoners serving life sentences will fall victim to the legislative funnel deadline this week.

After today, most bills that haven’t received approval from a House or Senate committee will be ineligible for consideration for the rest of the session. That’s bad news for House File 2191, which would provide clarity to Iowa’s process of reviewing prisoners’ life sentences.

It is an unusually bipartisan proposal at a moment of bitter partisan division in Iowa politics, boasting 15 Democrats and 26 Republicans as sponsors, including some of the most tough-on-crime lawmakers and a few of the most progressive reformers in the chamber. It probably has plenty of support to sail through a full House vote and earn serious consideration in the Senate, but the Republican-controlled House Public Safety Committee declined to take it up.

That’s how it goes under one-party control of the Iowa Legislature. Even overwhelmingly popular bills can be killed by a few influential holdouts in the majority party. They can hide behind the process and avoid having to make a vote on a tough topic.

What’s maddening here, though, is that this isn’t even a tough vote. It’s a common sense bill to provide some needed legislative oversight to the clemency system.

Gov. Kim Reynolds — who has criminal charges in her past and has talked about the power of second chances — has not granted any commutation requests since taking office in 2017.

Under Iowa Code, a person sentenced to life imprisonment can apply to the governor to have their sentence commuted, which if granted would make them eligible for parole. The law directs the Board of Parole to review the requests but gives no guidance on what factors the board should consider.

In other words, the Legislature has provided for commutation but has never said how it should work.

“When it comes to adults, basically our state code is blank. This [bill] filled that in in a really responsible, compassionate way. It says the Legislature has their back if they commute someone,” said Rep. Terry Baxter, R-Garner, lead sponsor of the bill.

The bill calls for officials to consider the applicants’ participation in rehabilitation and vocational programs, their disciplinary records in prison and victim impact statements among other circumstances. It sets clear expectations for lifers who hold out hope of someday being released.

Only inmates who have already served at least 35 years of a life sentence would be eligible to apply. The bill also would allow those inmates to make requests every five years instead of every 10 years, and allow for majority support from the parole board instead of unanimous support.

The people this would affect are most often old men who are in prison for killing people when they were young adults. They are model inmates and often have support systems on the outside. Every indication from the research is that offenders like them have “aged out” of criminality. They are extremely unlikely to reoffend.

Gov. Kim Reynolds — who has criminal charges in her past and has talked about the power of second chances — has not granted any commutation requests since taking office in 2017.

There is no risk that this bill would unleash a mob of murderers onto the streets. The governor would still have the final say on commutation requests. There is no guarantee of release when commutation is granted and even then there are severe restrictions over where offenders can live and what they can do.

Commutation would remain a rare remedy but at least there would be a clear path where none currently exists.

(319) 339-3156; adam.sullivan@thegazette.com