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NewsIowans Against the Death Penalty Newsletter 2025 March 2025 Vol. 5 Issue #4 It was a mild threat
Senate File 320 is a bill that would reestablish capital punishment in Iowa whenever a person “intentionally kills a peace officer, who is on duty, under any circumstances, with knowledge that the person killed is a peace officer.” It was introduced this year by seven Republican senators. The bill was introduced at the request of a northwestern Iowa family whose son, a police officer in Algona, was shot while attempting to arrest a man who had an active warrant for his arrest from a neighboring county.
Prior to the subcommittee meeting the legislators asked the participants present to be respectful toward the family, who was scheduled to speak via Zoom at the meeting. Unexpectedly, the father of the slain officer passed away a day or two earlier, and the family was not represented at the subcommittee hearing. Nonetheless, everyone who spoke was respectful, as is usually the case in the Iowa Capitol.
Several people spoke against the bill; no one in the committee room, other than two legislators, spoke in favor of the bill. A Zoom participant spoke in support of the death penalty, but did not support SF 320 as it was written.
On Thursday, March 6, 2025, the Senate Judiciary Committee met for the final time this year prior to the Legislature’s self-imposed limits on when bills must be moved from a committee in order to stay eligible for debate during the remainder of the session (funnel deadline). SF 320 was not brought up for consideration. In other words, like many sessions prior, the death penalty is dead for this year.
What you can do
Talk to your legislators. It’s as simple as clicking here and calling them, sending them an email or letter, or better yet, arrange a meeting with them. Truly, they will want to hear what you have to say. Please share any information on your legislators’ positions with IADP.
Although the death penalty should not be a threat for the rest of the 2025 legislative session, an overwhelming tragedy in Iowa could prompt a bill that is an exception to the funnel deadline. IADP takes nothing for granted.
Iowans Against the Death Penalty (IADP) prides itself on being fiscally responsible, relying on passionate and dedicated volunteers to continue its singular mission.
Membership in IADP helps pay for the everyday, increasing costs of stationery, copying when it cannot be done in-house, our website, and office supplies in our continuing effort to successfully lobby Iowa legislators from reinstating the death penalty. IADP is operated entirely by volunteers; we have no expense for salaries or other financial burdens that many other nonprofits experience.
Your membership in IADP
Many individuals receiving this newsletter are current with their annual membership. Send an email to info@iowansagainstthedeathpenalty.org to find out the status of your membership. Thank you!
Membership in Iowans Against the Death Penalty is $15 annually. We encourage you to join us by submitting a check for $15, along with your name, address, zip code, and email address to:
IADP PO Box 782 Des Moines, IA 50303
Or, by joining online at: http://www.iowansagainstthedeathpenalty.org/join-our-mailing-list
IADP is a section 501(c)(4) organization which uses some of its funds for lobbying. Membership contributions to IADP are NOT tax deductible.
Iowans Against the Death Penalty FUND is an IADP sister organization which can accept tax deductible gifts and grants since it is a section 501(c)(3) organization with the Internal Revenue Service. Making a tax-deductible gift to the IADP FUND does not mean you are an IADP member.
Iowans Against the Death PenaltyNewsletter 2025
February 2025 Vol. 5 Issue #3
Notice of a change
In the previous newsletter, we announced that the subcommittee on Senate File 320, a bill that would reestablish capital punishment in Iowa whenever a person “intentionally kills a peace officer, who is on duty, under any circumstances, with knowledge that the person killed is a peace officer,” consisted of Senators Scott Webster, chair (R-Bettendorf); Tony Bisignano (D-Des Moines); and David Rowley (R-Spirit Lake). Since we sent that newsletter, a change has been made in the makeup of the subcommittee. Senator Janice Weiner (D-Iowa City), the Senate Democratic Leader, will replace Senator Tony Bisignano on the subcommittee.
A subcommittee meeting has not been scheduled at the time of this mailing, but a brief note will be sent to subscribers as soon as we are aware of a meeting, the location, and the time.
Does this seem fair? Or just insane?
This article was printed at SCOTUSBlog on February 24, 2025 By Amy Howe
Supreme Court divided over death row right to DNA evidence testing
The Supreme Court on Monday was divided over whether a Texas man on death row has a legal right to sue, known as standing, to bring federal civil rights claims challenging the constitutionality of the Texas laws governing DNA testing. Ruben Gutierrez is trying to obtain DNA testing of evidence that he says would clear him, but it was unclear whether a majority of the justices agreed that his challenge should be allowed to move forward.
Gutierrez was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison in Brownsville, Tex. Gutierrez concedes that he was involved in a scheme to rob Harrison of $600,000 in cash that she kept in her home, but he insists now that he never entered Harrison’s home and did not participate in her murder.
Gutierrez contends that DNA from several pieces of evidence — such as a hair and nail scrapings from Harrison’s finger and blood stains — would prove that he never went into Harrison’s home. And if that DNA evidence had been available, he argues, the jury would not have sentenced him to death.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest court for criminal cases, in 2011 upheld a state trial court’s denial of Gutierrez’s request for DNA testing. It ruled that the Texas law governing requests for DNA testing does not allow testing when the results of the testing would only affect the sentence that a prisoner received, rather than the determination of guilt or innocence. In other words, the Texas law would only allow Gutierrez the DNA testing if he could prove that, with that evidence, he wouldn’t have been convicted at all.
Several years later, Gutierrez filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Luis Saenz, the district attorney who prosecuted him, and Felix Sauceda, the Brownsville police chief. He challenged the constitutionality of the state’s DNA testing procedures, arguing that they violated his right to due process – that is, fair treatment by the government.
A federal district court in agreed that the Texas scheme governing DNA testing and post-conviction relief violated his constitutional right to due process. Although Texas law gives prisoners the right to file a second request for post-conviction relief if they can provide “clear and convincing” evidence that they should not have been sentenced to death, Senior U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle explained, the state’s DNA testing laws take away a prisoner’s ability to obtain that evidence.
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit threw out that ruling last year. It held that Gutierrez did not have standing to bring his lawsuit because the state court of criminal appeals had held that even if DNA testing showed that Gutierrez never went inside Harrison’s house, he still would have been eligible for the death penalty because of his role in the robbery scheme that led to her murder. Therefore, the court of appeals concluded, prosecutors would not be likely to order DNA testing, and so the courts cannot provide him with any relief – one of the criteria for standing.
The Supreme Court once again put Gutierrez’s execution on hold in July 2024, just 20 minutes before he was scheduled to be executed, to give the justices time to consider his petition for review of the 5th Circuit’s ruling. The justices agreed in October 2024 to take up his case.
At the Supreme Court on Monday morning, Gutierrez’s lawyer, Anne Fisher, told the justices that his injury – the denial of evidence for DNA testing – can be addressed through a ruling in his favor because a ruling “that finds certain procedures in” Texas law unconstitutional “eliminates those statutory procedures as a lawful reason” for state officials to bar the testing.
On the other hand, William Cole, a deputy solicitor general from Texas, countered that the district court’s ruling did not provide relief for Gutierrez’s injury. Under the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing Rodney Reed’s challenge to the state’s DNA testing law to move forward, the question whether a lawsuit will provide a remedy hinges on whether the ruling in the defendant’s favor will “eliminate the state prosecutor’s justification for denying the testing and thereby … significantly increase the likelihood that the prosecutor would hand over the evidence.” But here, Cole said, the prosecutor has relied on “several independent” reasons to reject Gutierrez’s request for access to the evidence.
Some of the court’s conservative justices were skeptical that a ruling in Gutierrez’s favor would actually make a difference. Justice Neil Gorsuch referred to a ruling by the state court of criminal appeals indicating that even if the DNA testing law does apply to the death penalty stage, Gutierrez still would not receive relief. It was, Gorsuch suggested, effectively “harmless error.”
Fisher pushed back, arguing that the courts should take a broader look at the evidence to determine whether Gutierrez should still be subject to the death penalty.
But Chief Justice John Roberts was skeptical of that contention, asking how much more evidence would be required to tip the scale in Gutierrez’s favor. Is it, he queried, “a tiny thimbleful of additional evidence? I mean, how is a court supposed to figure that out?”
Justice Samuel Alito expressed frustration more generally, noting to Fisher that “this litigation has been going on for more than 25 years. I just am interested in knowing whether it’s going anywhere.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh was more sympathetic to Gutierrez. He resisted the suggestion that Gutierrez lacked standing to sue because prosecutors, even in the face of a ruling in Gutierrez’s favor, might not turn over evidence for testing. “I just don’t see,” Kavanaugh said, “how we can say something’s not redressable just because the prosecutor is going to say I’m not going to comply with a court order. You know, if President Nixon said I’m not going to come turn over the tapes no matter what, you wouldn’t say, oh, I guess we don’t have standing to hear the executive privilege case.”
Justice Elena Kagan was unconvinced that Gutierrez was not entitled to testing because, even if the evidence were tested and were helpful to him, he would still be eligible for the death penalty. A state court made “the identical backup argument in” Reed’s case, she observed, but the Supreme Court “clearly did not care about” it – and instead ruled that Reed’s challenge was allowed to move forward.
For her part, Justice Sonia Sotomayor also appeared frustrated – but with the state’s failure to order the testing, rather than the length of the litigation. “It seems odd to be fighting it tooth and nail,” she told Cole, particularly when there is more evidence about the “potential culpability” of the victim’s nephew. “Don’t you want to know,” she asked Cole, “you’re convicting the right person for the right thing?”
A decision in the case is expected by summer.
This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.
What you can do
Talk to your legislators. It’s as simple as clicking here and calling them, sending them an email or letter, or better yet, arrange a meeting with them. Truly, they will want to hear what you have to say. Please share any information on your legislators’ positions with IADP.
If you believe that only God can create a soul, shouldn’t you believe that only God can take a soul?
Your membership in IADP
Many individuals receiving this newsletter are current with their annual membership. Send an email to info@iowansagainstthedeathpenalty.org to find out the status of your membership. Thank you!
Membership in Iowans Against the Death Penalty is $15 annually. We encourage you to join us by submitting a check for $15, along with your name, address, zip code, and email address to:
IADP PO Box 782 Des Moines, IA 50303
Or, by joining online at: http://www.iowansagainstthedeathpenalty.org/join-our-mailing-list
IADP is a section 501(c)(4) organization which uses some of its funds for lobbying. Membership contributions to IADP are NOT tax deductible.
Iowans Against the Death Penalty FUND is an IADP sister organization which can accept tax deductible gifts and grants since it is a section 501(c)(3) organization with the Internal Revenue Service. Making a tax-deductible gift to the IADP FUND does not mean you are an IADP member.
Iowans Against the Death Penalty Newsletter 2025
February 2025 Vol. 5 Issue #2
Déjà vu
Senate File 320 is a bill that would reestablish capital punishment in Iowa whenever a person “intentionally kills a peace officer, who is on duty, under any circumstances, with knowledge that the person killed is a peace officer.” The bill was introduced on Monday, February 17, and was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On Wednesday, February 19, the bill was assigned to the subcommittee of Senators Scott Webster, chair (R-Bettendorf); Tony Bisignano (D-Des Moines); and David Rowley (R-Spirit Lake). This is the same subcommittee as last year’s death penalty bill, Senate Study Bill 3085. As a matter-of- fact, this year’s bill is last year’s bill with a tweak. Last year’s bill had a serious flaw that was never amended before it reached the Senate Judiciary Committee. The flaw allowed the death penalty for “any” first-degree murder. This year’s bill is altered to address the first-degree murder of a peace officer, only.
This is taken from last year’s IADP Newsletter regarding last year’s bill:
Senator Tony Bisignano (D-Des Moines) made a point to prove that the bill would call for the death penalty if a police officer was killed in the line of duty rushing into a school with an active shooter. However, the death penalty would not be considered if a child in that school was a victim of the active shooter. To paraphrase Senator Bisignano, are police officers, who willingly choose an occupation that they know is dangerous more valuable than our children in schools?
Myth one
Of course, you will hear that this is a “limited” bill. No bill is limited! Once an issue has made it into the Iowa Code, it comes up yearly in efforts to add to the limitations. A bill enhancing the penalty for assault upon a peace officer or fire fighter, Senate File 443, passed unanimously in the House and Senate in 1995. It was considered a limited bill. Since then, the title of the Code section has been amended to “Assaults on persons engaged in certain occupations,” and jailers, correctional staff, employees of the board of parole, health care providers, employees of the Department of Human Services, and employees of the Department of Revenue have been added. Based upon this example, there is no telling where it will stop if it stops at all.
Myth two You may also hear that this bill will protect peace officers. No bill can guarantee protecting anyone. If a person is intent on killing someone, they will murder. Not one person killing a peace officer, or most anyone else for that matter, possesses a state of mind that can be comprehended by rational people. To understand the criminal mind, you must realize that murder is not a rational act.
What you can do
Talk to your legislators. It’s as simple as clicking here and calling them, sending them an email or letter, or better yet, arrange a meeting with them. Truly, they will want to hear what you have to say. Please share any information on your legislators’ positions with IADP.
What to say
Here is a list of reasons why the death penalty is bad public policy:
If you believe that only God can create a soul, shouldn’t you believe that only God can take a soul?
Why do people kill?
Most murders are committed because of the following four categories: In the heat of passion Under the influence of drugs or alcohol Evidence of a serious mental health condition The perpetrator does not believe he will be caught
Your membership in IADP
Many individuals receiving this newsletter are current with their annual membership. Send an email to info@
Membership in Iowans Against the Death Penalty is $15 annually. We encourage you to join us by submitting a check for $15, along with your name, address, zip code, and email address to:
IADP PO Box 782 Des Moines, IA 50303
Or, by joining online at: http://www.
IADP is a section 501(c)(4) organization which uses some of its funds for lobbying. Membership contributions to IADP are NOT tax deductible.
Iowans Against the Death Penalty FUND is an IADP sister organization which can accept tax deductible gifts and grants since it is a section 501(c)(3) organization with the Internal Revenue Service. Making a tax-deductible gift to the IADP FUND does not mean you are an IADP member. Iowans Against the Death Penalty Newsletter 2025
January 2025 Vol. 5 Issue #1
No bill, YET
Iowa legislators have gaveled in for the 91st General Assembly and have completed the tasks of determining parking slots, seats, and mileage allowance. The busy part comes next.
As bills are introduced and committees are meeting to determine the fate of hundreds of bills yet to be read into the chambers, Iowans Against the Death Penalty is waiting for the ball to drop into the Senate Judiciary Committee. That ball, or bill, would be a legislative proposal that would suggest Iowa reinstate capital punishment into the criminal code.
Over the past twenty years, fourteen bills calling for reinstatement have begun in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Two have passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and made it to the floor of the Senate for debate. However, that’s as far as each bill survived.
What you can do
Talk to your legislators. It’s as simple as clicking here and calling them, sending them an email or letter, or better yet, set up a meeting with them. Truly, they will want to hear what you have to say.
What to say
Here is a list of reasons why the death penalty is bad public policy:
Why do people kill?
Most murders are committed because of the following four categories: In the heat of passion Under the influence of drugs or alcohol Evidence of a serious mental health condition The perpetrator does not believe he will be caught
But my legislator said . . .
“I don’t think a bill will be debated this year.” That is not what I asked. Do you oppose capital punishment? “I am for the death penalty under certain circumstances.” Today’s certain circumstances become next year’s several circumstances. “There are studies that say the death penalty is a deterrent.” Those studies are skewed. “DNA will make sure we get the right person.” No, DNA can eliminate a suspect, but it cannot definitively determine that a defendant is guilty. “Forensic investigators take many precautions to prevent mistakes, but human error can never be eliminated.” “DNA can be accurate “only if the biological evidence is properly collected, preserved and kept from contamination. And only if the analysis is done correctly.” “I do not find the death penalty to be un-Biblical, un-Christian,” or, “I believe that it doesn’t matter if it is a deterrent or not, there are some crimes for which you simply must be removed because they are so heinous and opposite the culture in which we live.” “’There are crimes so heinous, that only proper justice is to have their life taken.” Two words that always pop up are “heinous” and “justice.” A heinous crime is a phrase used often by proponents of capital murder. But just what does the word “heinous” mean? Merriam-Webster defines the word as “enormously and shockingly evil.” Are not all murders heinous?
Exactly what is justice?
Everyone seeks justice and knows what it means to themselves. Proponents of the death penalty claim to seek justice for the victim and the victim’s family. Opponents also seek justice for the condemned. Can they both have justice? An attempt to define justice has come from numerous sources throughout the history of the world. Plato, Confucius, and Immanual Kant have all taken a stab at defining justice.
Justice is an abstract noun. Because we can’t visually see it, touch it, or pick it up, it remains like beauty; it’s in the eye of the beholder. Justice should not be mistaken for revenge, hate, or anger. Justice should not benefit one philosophy over the other, but should bring everyone together. It’s embodied in the Pledge of Allegiance – “With liberty and justice for all.” Justice for some should not carry unfair consequences for others.
Your membership in IADP
Many individuals receiving this newsletter are current with their annual membership. Send an email to info@iowansagainstthedeathpenalty.org to find out the status of your membership. Thank you!
Membership in Iowans Against the Death Penalty is $15 annually. We encourage you to join us by submitting a check for $15, along with your name, address, zip code, and email address to:
IADP PO Box 782 Des Moines, IA 50303
Or, by joining online at: http://www.iowansagainstthedeathpenalty.org/join-our-mailing-list
IADP is a section 501(c)(4) organization which uses some of its funds for lobbying. Membership contributions to IADP are NOT tax deductible.
Iowans Against the Death Penalty FUND is an IADP sister organization which can accept tax deductible gifts and grants since it is a section 501(c)(3) organization with the Internal Revenue Service. Making a tax-deductible gift to the IADP FUND does not mean you are an IADP member.
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