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.
Senate Republican 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.
"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.
Source: SiouxCityJournal, Feb. 7, 2012
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