GOP state Senators seek to reinstate limited death penalty

DES MOINES - Nine Senate Republicans want to reinstate a limited death penalty in Iowa that would be available to a judge or juries in cases where a perpetrator is convicted of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering a minor.

Senate File 239, which was filed Monday, would reinstate capital punishment effective Jan. 1, 2016, as a means of deterring an adult offender who kidnaps and rapes a victim under the age of 18 from killing the victim, proponent said.

'This is the sickest of crimes,” said Sen. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, one of the bill's co-sponsors. 'There's got to be some reason for a person to stop.” Fear of being put to death could be that incentive to make an offender think twice before murdering the victim to silence possibly the only witness to a crime, he said.

'If there's capital punishment, you might have the opportunity where the person just stops at kidnapping and rape,” said Feenstra, who noted that no such deterrent currently exists in the Iowa criminal code where the maximum penalty for committing one or more Class A crimes is life in prison.

'The intent is to discourage the type of heinous crime that's described” in S.F. 239, added Sen. Dennis Guth, R-Klemme. 'We have a very narrowly defined situation here. I don't think there's just any way that we should let people off in that particular case.”

Democrats who control the Iowa Senate with a 26-24 majority said the issue has been raised in the Legislature before and has failed to gain support even when Republicans had control of both House and Senate chambers and the governorship in the 1990s.

'It's not a deterrent,” said Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'It's a bad piece of legislation. It's been tried in the past. Iowans don't want this and so we're not going to bring it up. It's not an issue for the Judiciary Committee this year.”

Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a similar measure was filed in the 85th General Assembly and failed to gain support.

'The last time the death penalty was voted on in the Iowa Senate, a majority of both parties opposed it,” he said.

'I haven't seen anything that says that a death penalty is needed in Iowa,” Hogg added, saying he would rather see the governor, legislators and policymakers put limited resources toward prevention and solving murders that already have been committed.

'I'd be shocked to see any action on this in either chamber,” Hogg added. 'I don't think that there's any realistic chance that that legislation will move forward.”

Jimmy Centers, spokesman for Gov. Terry Branstad, said the six-term governor supports reinstatement of a limited death penalty in Iowa. Branstad supported efforts in the 1990s to apply the death penalty to anyone aged 18 years or older who commits first-degree murder and another Class A felony, such as rape or kidnapping, or who already had been convicted of a class A felony and then commits a subsequent murder - such as an inmate serving a life term who kills a correctional officer.

'Should Senate File 239 pass both chambers of the Iowa Legislature, the governor will carefully review it before taking action,” Centers said.

Senate File 239 would apply to offenders at least 18 years of age who committed the multiple offenses of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual abuse of a minor. No method of execution was specified in the legislation.

A death penalty hearing could take place no sooner than 24 hours after a conviction on the Class A offenses. If a convicted offender was pregnant, capital punishment would not take place until the convicted offender had given birth.

The bill includes provisions for an insanity defense and an indigent defendant. In cases where a jury could not unanimously agree to a death-penalty sentence for a convicted offender in a follow-up proceeding, the offender automatically would receive a sentence of life in prison without parole.