Iowa court decisions, legislative inaction create judicial “limbo”

DES MOINES - Iowa prosecutors worry that a lack of legislative action this year to clarify the state's sentencing law for juveniles convicted of homicides could lead to a disparity of punishments by judges that likely will trigger even more legal challenges and create uncertainty for families of murder victims.

Iowa has been in a sort of judicial 'limbo,” said Corwith Ritchie, executive director of the Iowa County Attorneys Association, since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that issuing sentences of life in prison without a chance for parole to juvenile offenders who committed heinous crimes when they were under the age of 18 violated the Constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices, while preserving some state discretion, determined that when minor teens are sentenced as adults, the sentence must take into account numerous factors. Those include the youth's age and maturity, along with the nature of the offense and the youth's amenability to rehabilitation.

The Iowa Supreme Court concluded the federal decision was a substantive change and in Iowa would apply retroactively.

There have been no legislative changes to the Iowa Code in response to the court findings. But Gov. Terry Branstad in July 2012 commuted the sentences of 38 inmates in Iowa serving life without parole for a homicide offense committed while they were a youth to a term of 60 years before they could be considered for parole or work release with no credit for earned time.

The combination of court decisions, the governor's commutation order, subsequent resentencing hearings and new court cases involving homicides committed by juveniles have set the stage for a number of legal challenges concerning the sentences of inmates serving prison terms or offenders awaiting sentencing for crimes committed before the age 18.

'Really it's a case-by-case application of the law in those counties before those District Court judges,” said Iowa Assistant Attorney General Kevin Cmelik, the office's director of criminal appeals. 'There is no clear answer as to what is required by the law right now because we don't have a statute that's applicable anymore.”

Cmelik said the current circumstances are fairly unusual because normally there hasn't been 'this kind of wholesale rejection of the status quo.”

Prosecutors such as Black Hawk County Attorney Tom Ferguson tried to get lawmakers in the just-ended session to set a mandatory minimum of at least 35 years for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder. They pointed to a Story County case in which Yvette Louisell, 43, was resentenced to 25 years in prison - a decision that is being appealed - for a 1998 first-degree murder conviction in a man's stabbing death as an example of why solely giving judicial discretion could be problematic.

'I'm disappointed that the issue wasn't addressed. The fallout will be that we don't have any clear guidance from the Legislature on what the scope of the penalties are for juveniles who commit the most egregious crimes that we have,” said Ferguson, whose county has four juvenile murder convictions that are affected by the court rulings.

'The courts will fill in what those penalties will be. That's where we're at.

'We will continue unfortunately to have juveniles that commit first-degree murder cases so this is not an issue that's going away,” he added. 'We're disappointed and frustrated because it's an issue that can be addressed by the Legislature. Right now we're just in a state of flux because we have people interpreting things differently and applying things differently.”

Prosecutors said judges should still have the discretion to reimpose a life sentence with or without parole, but they worried that lesser penalties potentially could create a situation in which someone sentenced for second-degree murder could be facing more prison time that an offender found guilty of a Class-A crime.

However, Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed concern that various proposed sentencing schemes would not pass constitutional muster. He said the House and Senate were unable to find common ground on how best to proceed and will leave it to the judicial system to interpret what is constitutional and impose appropriate sentences.

'So far the courts have said juveniles are entitled to an individualized determination, so I don't think that having a statute or not having a statute is going to make much practical difference,” he said.

'I think the Iowa Supreme Court is pretty clear that juveniles are entitled to an individualized determination, so I think that's what the judges will do,” Hogg added. 'I think it's pretty much in the court's hands right now.”

Rep. Chip Baltimore, R-Boone, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said lawmakers are struggling to decide the best approach given the 'hodgepodge of judicial rulings” that have left in question what is the minimum number of years a juvenile who commits first-degree murder should be required to serve in prison before being eligible for parole.

'It's a situation that we're trying to deal with the amorphous concept of cruel and unusual punishment - not only as it's interpreted through the federal constitution, but the Iowa Supreme Court has decided that the cruel-and-unusual punishment provision in the Iowa Constitution means something different than what it means at the federal level,” he said.

'We're just sitting here struggling to figure out what's the best approach,” Baltimore added. 'I think at the end of the day it may take another year or two to get that done.”

Data compiled by the Iowa Department of Human Rights's Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning division indicates there have been 48 youth in Iowa who have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole since 1964.

Seven of those sentences were for convictions on non-homicide offenses, and the remaining 41 were for murder in the first degree - with two inmates released from prison, two who died in prison, one case that was overturned and one inmate who was released on parole.

Thirty-seven inmates are serving time in Iowa's prison convicted of first-degree murder committed when they were youths. The average number of years served for these 37 inmates is just short of 20 years.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa's Rita Bettis said the court's requirement for proportionality in sentencing for juvenile offenders goes beyond just Class-A felony cases to ensure that lengthy mandatory-minimum sentences are not imposed without some judicial discretion to provide a meaningful opportunity for reform in cases in which crimes are committed at a young age.

Without a sentencing statute, sentencing courts basically are left to their own devices. The likely result will be different outcomes within different judicial districts, Ritchie said.

'Where do the courts get their authority for imposing any kind of a sentence? So we're just in limbo,” he said. 'All of those issues are going to be litigated.

'I don't have any idea what the answers will be other than we have disparate sentencing because there is a lack of direction and a lack of statutory authority.”