A Taxing Dilemma

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Marty Ryan

Saturday and Sunday, August 7th and 8th, is the tax-fee weekend in Iowa for purchases of clothing and footwear.  What that means is that there is no addition of sales tax, state or local, on purchases of certain cloths or shoes, boots, sandals, etc.  As with just about everything, there are exceptions.

If one item of clothing or footwear exceeds one-hundred dollars, the entire item is taxed at the usual rate.

Clothing does not include: “watches, watchbands, jewelry, umbrellas, handkerchiefs, sporting equipment, skis, swim fins, roller blades, skates, and any special clothing or footwear designed primarily for athletic activity or protective use and not usually considered appropriate for everyday wear.”  Question.  Does that now include face masks in the exemption?  Hmmm.  Although face masks are designed for protective use, it is now considered appropriate for everyday wear.

What is “athletic activity?”  Is Yoga considered to be an athletic activity?  “In the West, yoga is less understood for its spiritual component and more commonly known as a physical workout of specific poses, or asanas.”  Merriam-Webster defines “athletics” as 1: “exercises, sports, or games engaged in by athletes. 2: the practice or principles of athletic activities.  Using these definitions, are yoga pants excluded in the tax-free sales?  The administrative rule on this section of the Iowa Code specifies that “jogging suits” would be included in tax-exempt clothing, but what about jogging shorts, sweat pants, and sports bras?  Why would a sports bra be taxable but not a regular bra?  Does this tax-free exercise include purchases at Victoria’s Secret?  Furthermore, who in government is going to determine that a person is wearing a swim suit (tax-exempt) for everyday use and not used by a member of the swim team(taxable)?

As you can tell, I have never liked this law.  At the time it was first enacted, I saw many parents running out to buy school clothing and shoes.  One month later, JC Penney had a weekend sale with ten percent off.  You can do the math.  The sales tax was 5 percent at the time.  Today, it is seven percent in most areas of Iowa.

No longer do I pay much attention to clothing sales, but perhaps Penney’s and several other stores have finally offered their sales on the tax holiday weekend.

Items sold as a unit must remain a unit.  “A suit is normally priced at $125.00 on a single price tag. The suit cannot be split into separate articles so that any of the items may be sold for under $100.00 in order to qualify for the exemption.”  First of all, I don’t necessarily want to see a suit that sells for $125.  Here’s the loophole:  Buy a sports coat and a few pairs of pants.  But once again, can you even buy a decent sports jacket for less than $100?

If the store doesn’t have what you want during this holiday, and you request a rain check, the item is taxed when you pick it up after the holiday is over.  That doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Layaway – This is a strange exception.  If you place an item on layaway on the first day of the sales tax holiday, and the item is priced under $100, you will not have to pay a sales tax on any portion of the costs of the item if you pick it up on day two of the holiday, but if you pick it up on any other day after the holiday, you must pay sales tax on the entire price of the item.  Who places something on layaway for one day?

There are quite a few other exemptions in Iowa.  You can find the entire list here.  It also spells out what to do about tailoring, rentals, refunds, etc.

Fifteen other states also have this silly promotional ‘holiday’.  You’ll have to check out your state’s Department of Revenue website to discover what is acceptable or not in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.  Some of these states have more than one weekend.  A few states include school supplies such as pencils and paper tablets, and a couple include backpacks and computers.

Iowa’s silly holiday began in 2000.  The law’s intent was twofold.  It was supposed to give an incentive to businesses and promote economic growth locally and throughout the state.  Also, it was sold as an “effective tool for providing relief to low-income individuals.”  Neither goal was obtained, yet Iowa and other states hang on to these scams.  The District of Columbia and a few states have suspended or entirely dropped the schemes since they began in 1980.  “Ohio and Michigan enacted the first sales tax holidays in 1980 when they offered one-time tax holidays for automobile purchases. But it was New York that sparked the modern trend, with the first sales tax holiday for clothing in 1997. New York’s objective was to tackle cross-border shopping, the phenomenon of residents traveling to nearby states to take advantage of lower sales tax rates (particularly clothing purchases in New Jersey).”  The Tax Foundation.

The Tax Foundation cites a 2017 Federal Reserve study that claims some retailers raise prices during the tax-exempt holidays, and that there is no significant increases in consumer spending during these holidays.  Although sales taxes are regressive, and low-income people may reap a benefit, the tax-exempt holiday also applies to those with large financial resources.  In effect, it once again gives those that got – more.

You can check out the links above and here to see what is available for a tax-free shopping weekend.  Or, you can go to a neighboring state, such as Minnesota, where clothing and footwear is non-taxable all year long.  Either that, or wait for quarterly sales, either in-store or online.

 

 

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Trumped-Up Executions

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Patti Brown

Dustin Honken is set to be executed July 17 at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, for two of five murders he committed in Iowa 27years ago.

This case is of particular interest to Iowans because while Iowa does not have the death penalty for crimes prosecuted in its state courts, the federal government has retained the death penalty. Honken was sentenced to death in federal not state court because his crimes involved manufacturing, trafficking, and the distribution of methamphetamine across multiple state jurisdictions.

In 2004, a federal jury in Sioux City convicted him on 17 counts including witness tampering, soliciting the murder of a witness, drug conspiracy murder, and the murders of Iowa drug dealers Greg Nicholson and Terry DeGeus, Nicholson’s girlfriend, Lori Duncan, her two young daughters, Kandi, who was 10, and Amber, who was 6. He was sentenced to death for the children’s murders, life imprisonment for the adults’ murders, and terms of imprisonment for the remaining counts.

There has not been a federal execution since 2003. Between 1963 and 2003 there were only three—Timothy McVey and Juan Raul Garza were executed in 2001, and Louis Jones, Jr. was executed in 2003—all of which were carried out during the George W. Bush administration.

Prior to those, the last federal execution was of Victor Fegure who was hung at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison in 1963 for the kidnapping and murder of Dr. Edward Bartels, a Dubuque physician. Because Fegure kidnapped Bartels and took him across the state line into Illinois, the case fell into federal jurisdiction. Two years later, Iowa rescinded the use of capital punishment.

Last year, at the urging of President Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice announced plans to resume the practice of executing people sentenced to death in federal cases.

Trump has long been a supporter of the death penalty. In 1989 he spent $85,000 to take out full-page ads in four New York newspapers calling for the state to reinstate its death penalty when a group of five teens were charged with beating and raping a woman who was jogging in Central Park. The teens, who came to be known as the Central Park Five, were convicted and sentenced to five to fifteen years. After the confession by the individual who committed the crime, which was corroborated by DNA evidence, the sentences of the five defendants were vacated by the New York Supreme Court.

Additionally, Trump called for the death penalty to be used against Sayfullo Saipov, who killed eight people with a truck in a 2017 attack on a New York bike path, and in 2018 Trump called for the execution of drug dealers as a way to fight the war on drugs.

Last fall dates were set for four federal executions, including Honken’s, which was originally calendared for January 15. A U.S. District Court judge issued a stay to provide time for a long-running legal challenge to the DOJ’s lethal injection protocol to be resolved.

The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 requires that federal executions be carried out “in the manner prescribed by the state” in which the prisoner was convicted. But Iowa doesn’t have the death penalty. In an act of federal overreach, the DOJ decided that since more than 20 U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies have limited the availability of the chemicals for executions, the DOJ would just use pentobarbital, a chemical used to euthanize pets.

A three-judge panel in a federal appellate court reversed the stay in April clearing the way for the executions to go forward. On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Honken and three other federal prisoners who are set be executed in the next few weeks.

There are currently 62 federal prisoners sentenced to death, including Dylann Roof, who killed nine parishioners at a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who participated in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Of those prisoners, 41 percent are black, 43 percent are white, and 14 percent are Latino, Asian, or other.

Iowans rejected the death penalty in 1962 for many reasons. Sentencing has proved to be arbitrary, racially biased and motivated by vengeance. The death penalty has not been found to be deterrent, and there have been too many cases of wrongful convictions. In Iowa, a conviction of first-degree murder results in a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Iowans Against the Death Penalty opposes the July 17 execution of Honken and the other three men who set to be executed this summer.

Make no mistake, Honken is a dangerous criminal who has admitted his guilt for his heinous crimes. In addition to the crimes he has been convicted of, Honken expressed intent to escape from incarceration and kill additional people including accomplices in methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution, law enforcement investigators, and a federal prosecutor. Honken should be incarcerated for the rest of his natural life. But no one should be put to death by the government. No one.

Iowans have rejected vengeance.  The federal death penalty should be abolished as well.

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What a MESS!

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Marty Ryan

Our Army company was a unit called permanent party, which meant that the company’s headquarters were stationed permanently at Fort Lee.  Most of the companies at Fort Lee, while I was there, were teaching units, and they taught quartermaster and cooking.  Our company was a quartermaster (supply) company that supplied petroleum.

While I was there, our mess hall was named “Best Mess on Post” for eleven out of thirteen months.  Record-keeping, cleanliness, dining hall ambiance, and, of course, the taste of food, plus a few other criteria, were the determining factors.  I was proud of my record-keeping.

As the mess hall clerk, I had told the mess sergeant, Sgt. Bush that I had difficulty working during the day when everyone wanted to sit in the mess hall office and talk.  The office was air-conditioned (I got that AC from the supply sergeant Gonzalez, as well as the one in the dining room, each for a 30-lb can of coffee).  Eventually, Sgt. Bush agreed that it might be easier for me to work nights and get some paperwork done and give up my seat in the daytime to one of the assistant mess sergeants.  We had so many of them, and they didn’t do anything.  They didn’t have to do anything; we had two E-6 cooks who were chefs in real life.  One was a chef in Boston; the other in Baltimore.  So, I worked nights with the night bakers – Jack and a guy who reminded me of Louie Armstrong.  I remember him only as Sarge.

Sarge was a short black man with a noticeable limp and a continuous smile.  I doubt it was a war injury, but he really waddled more than limped anyway.  He could bake some amazing pies, cookies, and cakes.  Jack was more of a bread expert.  Both could bake with their eyes closed.  They did – figuratively.  Jack was stoned most of the time, and I think Sarge was waiting to get off work so he could mix the milk he took from the mess hall with his Scotch at home.  That’s the first time I had ever heard of that concoction.

Jack and I would give Sarge a ride home after we shut the place down.  Sarge would sit in the back seat of Jack’s car and smile, holding on tight to his milk.  Jack and I would sit up front and smoke a joint.  Jack was, without a doubt, the most professional pot smoker I have ever seen.  He could roll a joint with one hand, drive with his knee, and fiddle with the buttons on the dash.  He wouldn’t let me roll the joint.  He actually did better with one hand than I did with two.  He was also one of those drivers who have to look at you while talking.  I hated it when he turned to talk to Sarge in the back seat,  while still rolling that joint, or smoking it.  Jack and Sarge were the two happiest people I have ever known.

Jack was from Omaha.  He spent part of his time in San Diego before being drafted. He married a Southern California blonde, both with heavy dependencies on drugs.  I had smoked pot before, but Jack introduced me to hashish, LSD, Ecstasy, methamphetamine (yes, in 1970), THC tablets, black beauties, mescaline, reds, phenobarbital, magic mushroom, Quaaludes, and probably several other narcotics that I can’t remember.  Jack could only get little amounts and if we were getting addicted, there was no more of the particular drug to keep up with the addiction.  It was after Jack was discharged (honorably as a sergeant) that I was introduced to heroin.  I snorted it once and had a doobie laced with it another time.  I refused to shoot anything into my veins.  I did not like heroin one bit.  Notice that I have never tried cocaine.

It’s possible that someone knew we were a disaster waiting to explode, so Jack and I were sent out to the edge of the post and told to clean mobile cooking equipment in a Quonset hut.  For the first few weeks we didn’t clean a thing.  We smoked some pot and drank some Boone’s Farm Apple or Strawberry Hill.  Occasionally, we would Ripple wine (87¢) instead of the more expensive Boone’s Farm ($1).

One morning, we drove into town to get a bottle of wine.  When we got back there were all sorts of vehicles surrounding our Quonset hut.  The area where we were located was also a place where soldiers were taught to drive all kinds of vehicles.  A trainee drove a deuce and a half (a two-and-a-half-ton vehicle that looks like a truck, but technically, there is only one truck on base, and that’s on top of the flagpole at headquarters) straight through our Quonset hut.  Had we not gone to town; we would have been killed.  The Quonset hut was demolished and there was field cooking equipment scattered over hundreds of square yards of the area.  At this point, no one could tell if the equipment had been cleaned or not.

Jack’s time in the service had run out and he was sitting for a week or two to transition out of the Army.  I was sent to the commissary to learn how to cut meat.  I still had about 10 months before my discharge date came around.  I just know that they tried their best to hide me, and I didn’t mind.

Previously posted related blogs:

https://iowappa.com/?p=1816 Order Up; May 3, 2020

https://iowappa.com/?p=1700  A Pattern Begins to Develop; August 28, 2019

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Symbolic Law

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Marty Ryan

On Monday, June 29, Governor Kim Reynold (R-Iowa) signed into law Senate File 526, a bill “creating a blue alert program within the department of public safety for the apprehension of a person suspected of killing or seriously injuring a peace officer in the line of duty or due to safety concerns for a peace officer missing while on duty.”

The bill is not necessary; it’s symbolic.  What the bill allows can be done already without statutory approval.  No entity opposed the bill.  Why would they?  The bill is sort of a non-starter.  However, it is the epitome of what law enforcement lobbyists can accomplish in the Iowa Legislature, and probably throughout the nation.

The power of law enforcement at the Iowa Capitol can be overwhelming.  On any given day from Monday through Thursday, you can’t help but notice a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, or municipal police officer in uniform wearing a weapon on the side.  Often, the officer is accompanied by their respective lobbyist.  My question has always been: If they’re acting on behalf of the nonprofit law enforcement organization of which they are a member, why are they in uniform?  Why are they being paid?  Stew Barnes, Senior Des Moines Police Officer and representative of the Des Moines Police Bargaining Unit usually wore civilian clothes when attending meetings at the Capitol.  On the other hand, if they are on duty, is the employing agency allowing them to lobby on behalf of the nonprofit organization?  We need some ethics here.

Many of the laws passed pertaining to cops are for the special benefit of those occupations. Law enforcement has one of the best retirement plans in the state.  Many are with Iowa Public Employees Retirement System [IPERS], but some have a much better plan.  The Municipal Fired & Police Retirement System of Iowa is “66% of high three-year salary average (not including overtime). Members are eligible at age 55 with 22 years of service. Additional 2% per year beyond 22 years of service, not to exceed 30 years of service, for a maximum benefit of 82% of a member’s high three-year average salary.”

Government employees, local, state, or federal, have added protection in the form of the federal Bill of Rights.  A government employee is provided due process of law, the right to confront witnesses, and all the other protections usually offered to criminal defendants.  What you may not know, is that in Iowa, anyone with a law enforcement certification is provided with an additional set of protections.  Robert Rehkemper of the Law Firm Gourley, Rehkemper, and Lindholm, wrote an article four years ago on the matter of the “Officer’s Bill of Rights”, which is embedded in section 80F.1 of the Iowa Code.  I beg you to read Law Enforcement Bill of Rights – Special Privileges or Necessary Protection on the GRL website <www.grllaw.com>

The second subsection of 80F [80F.2] provides that a peace officer shall be reimbursed the costs of a defense for a charge which “was without probable cause . . . was filed for malicious purposes, [or] was unwarranted in consideration of all of the circumstances and matters of law attending the alleged offense.”  You are not provided with that equal protection.  See State v. Mathes, and State v. Mathes (Criminal case was dismissed.  However, Mathes was required to “reimburse the state for her court appointed fees.”)

When it comes to criminal law, cop lobbyists have been known to say that police don’t like to arrest someone for a simple misdemeanor because it’s not worth their time.  And a police chief once remarked that anything less than a felony is not worth the time or money.  If someone fights it, the officer has to go to court.  If that’s the case, how come young black men are being pulled off to the side of the road because a license plate light is not shining brightly?

For years, there has been an effort to pass a law that would require police to record custodial interviews.  It has never passed because police don’t want it passed.  One of the excuses includes the costs.  However, most law enforcement officials now wear cameras.  There are numerous grants out there, most of them from gambling receipts.  Gambling receipts are doled out to cities and counties in which there is no casino.  In Greene county, the fire department in Churdan received $3175 in 2012 for a thermal imaging camera.  Today, Jefferson, in Greene County, has a casino.  Any law enforcement facility can obtain equipment to record custodial interviews if it was mandated by law.  But recorded custodial interviews are still not the law.

Yes, police have a hazardous job, but so do packinghouse workers.  More packinghouse workers in Iowa have died this year because of their occupation than have police.   Don’t feel too sorry for the police.  Their collective interests are overly represented at the Iowa Capitol.

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Minority Impact Statements: History and Continuing Efforts

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Marty Ryan

The Iowa quarter, printed in the latter part of 2004, is based upon a Grant Wood painting depicting a group of students and their teacher planting a tree outside of a county school.  The statement on the coin says, “Foundation In Education.”  For many decades, Iowa was noted for its first-in-the-nation education status.  Likewise, Iowa has been a consistent leader in civil rights.

The first written opinion handed down by the Iowa Supreme Court was In Re: Ralph, decided in 1839, before Iowa was officially a state.  In Re: Ralph held that “no man in this territory can be reduced to slavery.” A slave owner from Missouri sent bounty hunters to Iowa to capture Ralph and bring him back to Missouri because Ralph defaulted on a loan to the slave owner, which was overdue.  The loan was to purchase Ralph’s freedom.

The U.S. Supreme Court faced a similar question 18 years later when it decided the infamous Dred Scott (1857) case. However, unlike the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in Ralph, the U.S. Supreme Court decision maintained the rights of the slave holder and ordered the slave returned. The issue of slavery would not be settled until the Civil War.

In 1868, the Iowa Supreme Court decided the landmark Clark v. The Board of Directors. The case involved a 12-year-old girl who had been denied admission to her neighborhood school because of her race. The court held that segregated schools were inherently unequal when it stated that “the law makes no distinction as to the right of children … to attend the common schools.” To do otherwise, the court held, would violate the spirit of our laws and perpetuate racial strife. It took 85 years for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against segregated schools– which it did in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

In 1873, the court heard Coger v. The North Western Union Packet Co. This case centered on a woman who, because of her African descent, was forcibly removed from the dining car of the steamboat on which she was traveling. The woman had an unrestricted meal ticket. The Iowa Supreme Court held that the woman was entitled to the same rights and privileges as white passengers. The same conclusion was not reached by the U.S. Supreme Court until Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), a case that upheld the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Iowa Supreme Court website:  https://www.iowacourts.gov/for-the-public/iowa-courts-history/civil-rights

Iowa was also first in the nation when Arabella A. Mansfield was the first woman anywhere in the United States admitted to practice law.

Iowa has often been the first in the nation to accomplish civil rights issues, long before the federal government or other states.  Because of that fact, it’s shameful to say that Iowa once led the nation in an area of civil rights that is not flattering.  The Sentencing Project, an internationally known nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, had concluded in a 2007 report by Marc Mauer and Ryan S. King, that Iowa placed first among all states exhibiting “substantial variation in the ratio of black-to-white incarceration, ranging from a high of 13.6-to-1 in Iowa to a low of 1.9-to-1 in Hawaii”.

# # #

Part of the solution; not the problem

This statistic bothered State Representative Wayne Ford (D-Des Moines), and he set out to do something about it.  Ford visited The Sentencing Project to learn more about its research and what he, as a legislator, could do about it.  Collaborating minds came up with a possible solution.  Minority impact statements, modeled after environmental impact statements and correctional impact statements, could serve as a warning to legislators that they might be enacting legislation that could increase the number of minorities incarcerated in Iowa’s correctional facilities.

In 2008, Ford, authored House File 2227.  Ford recruited Rep. Kurt Swaim (D-Bloomfield), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mark Smith (D-Marshalltown), the chair of the House Human Resources Committee, to assist him in working on a bill “requiring a minority impact statement.”  The bill passed out of the Committee and was renumbered as House File 2393. The final bill consisted of language requiring impact statements attached to legislation affecting minorities whenever a law “creates a public offense, significantly changes an existing public offense or the penalty for an existing offense, or changes existing sentencing, parole, or probation procedures.”  The bill passed unanimously in the Iowa House of Representatives.

The bill was sent to the Iowa Senate, vetted through the Senate Human Resources Committee, and was placed on the floor for debate.  It passed the Iowa Senate with only two nay votes (Sen. Brad Zaun (R-Urbandale) and Jerry Behn (R-Boone)).

Governor Chet Culver (D) signed the bill, HF 2393, into law on April 17, 2008, at the inner-city YMCA, making Iowa the first state in the union to implement an historic statute requiring a minority impact statement on a criminal justice bill before a measure can be debated on the floor of either chamber.  Once again, Iowa became first in the nation on a civil rights matter.

Since 2008, Connecticut, Oregon and New Jersey have implemented similar legislation.  In fact, in one of his final acts as governor, “Chris Christie signed a law requiring justice reform proposals to be accompanied by racial and ethnic impact statements. Passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, the bill mandates such statements for legislative and administrative rule changes for adult and juvenile criminal justice practices”.

A report issued by The Sentencing Project in June 2016 found that New Jersey [had] the largest gap between black and white incarceration rates of any state in the country. While New Jersey [had] been a national leader in reducing its prison population generally, the report found that black residents are still incarcerated at 12 times the rate of white residents. Additionally, the report highlighted that, while New Jersey’s overall population is less than 15 percent black, its prison population is more than 60 percent black.

https://www.njsendems.org/rice-turner-bill-providing-ethnic-and-minority-impacts-of-legislation-now-law/

Compare New Jersey’s 12:1 ratio with the 13:1 ratio Iowa had nine years earlier.  Iowa no longer has the widest gap between white and black prisoners, but it still remains high.  Minority impact statements are intended to lower that gap further.

Minnesota and Florida have added procedures, not necessarily through the legislative process, but by rule or commission, that address a process for considering racial impact statements.

Several other states have introduced legislation to require racial impact statements.  Some of those states include:  Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.  This year, Arizona and Maryland have joined the ranks of introducing legislation.  And the movement continues.

A minority impact statement is a significant portion of a fiscal note prepared by the Fiscal Division of the nonpartisan Iowa Legislative Services Agency.  In cooperation with the Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning of the Department of Human Rights, the Fiscal Division analyzes legislation to determine if the legislation will have any impact on minorities (negative or positive).

Because Iowa has a staggering racial disparity in incarceration rates (as mentioned previously, a 2007 report from the Sentencing Project rates Iowa as the state with the “highest racial disparity in incarceration”), it is important for legislators to take the time to look at these fiscal notes.  Placing an emphasis on the minority impact statements, legislators should examine whether there might be a better method of achieving the same goals while reducing the imbalance of disproportionate incarceration.

# # #

Is anybody listening?

In 2015, Wayne called me to ask if anyone was paying any attention to minority impact statements.  The short answer:  No.

Stephanie Fawkes-Lee and I, Fawkes-Lee & Ryan, visited with Rep. Chip Baltimore (R-Boone), the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.  These pre-session meetings with committee chairs are designed to discuss particular legislation and the lobbyists’ arguments about why such legislation should pass.  We asked for one thing during the half-hour meeting with Rep. Baltimore.  We would like to see a non-partisan person speak to the members of the House Judiciary Committee, hopefully with lobbyists and staff present, about the appropriate use of Fiscal Notes, and in particular, Minority Impact Statements.

Rep. Baltimore brought up a very good argument when he said that Fiscal Notes have the ability to be used to shame legislators into opposing otherwise good legislation.  Yes, we agree.  That is why it would be a very good idea to have a committee meeting dedicated to explaining their usefulness and proper place in the legislative process.

After giving it some thought, Rep. Baltimore decided it would be a good idea given the number of newly elected legislators slotted to serve on his committee.  Likewise, we discussed the idea with Rep. Clel Baudler (R-Greenfield), chair of the House Public Safety Committee.  He was warm to the idea of a presentation for his committee, as well.

We also met with Sen. Steve Sodders (D-State Center) who took to heart our request to hold a meeting on minority impact statements.  He invited three presenters: Beth Lenstra, from the Legislative Services Agency (LSA), Fiscal Services Division; Sarah Johnson, a Justice System Analyst from The Division of Criminal and Justice Planning (CJJP) of the Iowa Department of Human Rights; and Lettie Prell, Research Director for the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC).  Beth Lenstra started the presentation with a similar overview that was given in the House Public Safety Committee and House Judiciary Committee.  She had been told by the House to keep the presentation short.  There was no restriction set in the Senate.

Sara Johnson followed with a handout explaining what CJJP does and how they can help with: data; prison population forecasting (is it projected to grow or decline based on facts and projections); and correctional/fiscal impact statements.  There are simulation tools that are used if a person wants to see what happens when penalties are increased or decreased.  She also discussed the Public Safety Advisory Board and its purpose [Note:  The Public Safety Advisory Board has merged with two other councils and is now the Justice Advisory Board] .

Lettie Prell finished the presentation with a handout that was presented at the Iowa Summit on Justice and Disparities the previous fall.  She stated that 2011 showed the highest number of African American inmates.  On the day she spoke, there were 2,118 African Americans incarcerated in the Iowa correctional prison system.  That was 26% of the prison population and since only 3.1% of Iowa’s population is African American, this was a huge disproportion.  Prell stated that the two crimes that are leading to this problem are drug offenses and robbery, both carrying mandatory minimum sentences.

There were a number of good questions from the senators following the presentations.  We have no answers to these questions, and perhaps it’s time again to have someone research these questions to find answers to some of the most pressing.

Sen. Janet Peterson (D-Des Moines) asked if there was any data on African Americans hiring an attorney.

Sen. Rob Hogg (D-Cedar Rapids) wanted to know if they were tracking data on other risk factors such as education level and mental illness.  Sen. Hogg pointed out that the previous statement about the peak of African Americans in 2011 was inaccurate.  People were not being paroled at that time and the numbers in prison were in excess of 9,000 compared to approximately 8,000 now.  In reality, it was not proportional, the number of African-Americans has gone up.  It seems that 26% has been the steady disproportionate number for the last 3 or 4 years.

Sen. Sodders wanted to know if CJJP could break down the data from the handout on felony convictions.  Were these violent felonies?

Sen Herman Quirmbach (D-Ames) wanted to know if they ever went back to check the accuracy of the prison forecasts.

Sen. Sodders asked Prell, “What is causing the disparity?” She said it was drug trafficking. Specifically, marijuana.  They found that African Americans are more likely to go to prison for possessing less marijuana than whites. This created a moment of shocked silence.

Sen. Kevin Kinney (D-Oxford) asked about the criminal history.

Sen Julian Garrett (R-Indianola) asked if the differences in sentences could be attributed to other factors.  For example, jurisdictions?

Sen. Brad Zaun (R-Urbandale) brought up an issue that his constituents are concerned about.  A particular fellow that had been in the news over repeated OWIs only got his hand slapped because he had more resources.  It bothers the senator that people are treated differently.

Last Question:

 What can they do as a legislative body to address the disproportionate incarceration?

Prell responded by say that she had been doing this since 1981.  Iowa could do what Minnesota was doing for sentencing guidelines, but Iowa probably was not ready.

Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines:

 

“The Sentencing Guidelines embody the goals of the criminal justice system as determined by the citizens of the state through their elected representatives. This system promotes uniform and proportional sentences for convicted felons and helps to ensure that sentencing decisions are not influenced by factors such as race, gender, or the exercise of constitutional rights by the defendant. The Guidelines serve as a model for the criminal justice system as a whole to aspire to, as well as provide a standard to measure how well the system is working.”

Are sentencing guidelines really necessary?  Of course, the answer came from a bureaucrat.  The obvious answer to this question is to look at minority impacts statements; pay attention to the statistics and determine if the proposed legislation is the only way to address a problem; or more importantly, is the legislation necessary.  Is the proposed legislation the result of a knee-jerk reaction to one or two cases?  Is the legislation redundant?  Is it going to be used for the practice of plea bargaining?  The statistics and projections in a minority impact statement are more important than persuasive argument by county attorneys, law enforcement, and yes, victims.

Lobbyists need to step up, also.  When legislators reject an argument about minority impact statements, and they do – often – lobbyists need to refuse to back down.  For some legislators, the concept of a minority impact is foreign to them.  Many will argue that justice is blind; the law is designed without color of skin in mind; that “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”  Legislators need to understand the reasoning behind minority impact statements, and a lobbyist can and should explain that impact statements do not mean that you scrap a bill or an idea.  It means that you have to get out of the box and explore why more people of color commit certain crimes.  Are there statutes in the Code that address the issue already?  What alternatives are available to prevent the disproportionate incarceration of minorities?  It’s a conversation starter; not a death warrant to the bill.

The important answer to addressing disproportionality in the criminal justice system has been the elephant in the room for far too long.  Why is it that young African-American men (and women now, too) are disproportionately facing prison terms more than their white counterparts?  Why?  Let’s do something about that.

# # #

Is it working?

 In 2014, the Sentencing Project cited an Associated Press finding that minority impact statements in Iowa “appear to be having a modest effect”. A review of 61 impact statements issued since 2009 suggests that the policy has been “helping to defeat some legislation that could have exacerbated disparities and providing a smoother path to passage for measures deemed neutral or beneficial to minorities.” https://apnews.com/d320d9fdb9794d71b8b6436b808e0b16

It’s difficult to assume that any one factor has a stronger effect on legislation than any other.  However, twenty-three percent of bills in which a minority impact predicted a negative impact on people of color became law.  Minority impact statements in which the projection of having a neutral or positive impact on people of color were more likely to be enacted than not.

While “lawmakers underuse these impact statements, legislators say that this tool has shaped their debates.”  Former Rep. Wayne Ford, the law’s author, said, “What we started years ago has begun a movement.”

Based on an analysis of four states currently conducting racial impact analysis (Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, and Oregon), Jessica Erickson’s comment in the Washington Law Review makes three recommendations for states considering such legislation. First, criminal justice bills should automatically trigger racial impact statements, as states where this is not the case produce fewer impact statements. Second, states should more clearly define the scope and categories of analysis to be included in the impact statements. Finally, states should impose procedural requirements, such as public comment or comparison with alternatives, to encourage lawmakers to preempt new sources of racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Jessica Erickson, Comment, Racial Impact Statements: Considering the Consequences of Racial Disproportionalities in the Criminal Justice System, 89 Wash.L. Rev.1425 (2014). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol89/iss4/12

 There is a fourth recommendation from those of us in Iowa.  Iowa has one thing that no other state has.  Iowa has what is called a Justice Data Warehouse.  “The Justice Data Warehouse (JDW) is a central repository of key criminal and juvenile justice information from the Judicial Branch Case Management System and information from the Iowa Correctional Offender Network (ICON) system.”  Much of the data used in preparing Minority Impact Statements is stored in the JDW.  The history of knowing what sort of crimes are committed by certain segments of society is essential to determining how a related crime may affect those particular portions of the population.  It’s more than race; the JDW can also sort information by age, gender, and location.

Other states considering the implementation of a law requiring minority impact statements must design and use a system similar to the Iowa JDW.  Otherwise, the process may fall to guesswork, innuendo, or worse yet, a lack of trust in information.

A minority impact statement attached to a fiscal note can be a curse as well as a blessing.  Law enforcement lobbyists will downplay the usefulness of a minority impact statement or a fiscal note.  To them, it is a curse.  Because there are so many associations and organizations represented in the Iowa rotunda, the combined voices of those entities carry a lot of weight.  Barely, will law enforcement even bring up a minority impact statement if it estimates that there is no impact.  They would rather ignore them, altogether.  They are consistent in this respect.

Debate on the chamber floor, when the minority impact statement is brought up, can be heart-wrenching or encouraging.  Lawmakers who insist that a piece of legislation is important to cut down crime, close loopholes, enhance penalties to serve as deterrents, and give law enforcement more “tools” at its disposal to use as leverage have political intentions.  Legislators who know how to use the power of the minority impact statement can be very effective spokespersons in persuading colleagues about the effects of passing legislation that may increase the disproportionate rate of minorities in the correctional system.  It does come down to a them versus us situation in many instances.  However, the sooner a minority impact statement can be produced prior to debate, the better equipped the advocates of justice will be able to prevail.

“Even with the current flaws that exist today in this legislation, Iowa’s statute on minority impacts statements is still the best model in America.”  Wayne Ford, the legislation’s author.

# # #

Fix the law, not the punishment

For over thirty years, I have been reading Iowa Supreme Court opinions as they have been handed down.  I can predict, with pretty good accuracy, which statutes will be amended or created in the near future based upon the State losing a case.  No county attorney would admit that the prosecution was flawed.  Media reporters are told that a person got off on a technicality, or that the law is not strong enough.  Never will a prosecutor admit that the defendant was charged with the incorrect crime, or that the defense attorney had done a better job of preparing for the trial, or that the case should have been settled or dropped before going to trial.  Unfortunately, the answer to losing cases often seems to be enhancing a penalty or creating a new law.

A technicality can be the absence of a comma, a misplaced comma, or any other piece of punctuation that makes a statute mean something different from what legislators intended. It can be that law enforcement or prosecutors violated a fundamental constitutional right. Or, it can mean that a procedural error existed; such as not following a specific provision of the Rules of Evidence, the Rules or Criminal Procedure, or any other aspect of the judicial system.

https://iowappa.com/?p=1607

When ordinary citizens claim someone got off because of a technicality, the technically is often poorly worded laws.

https://iowappa.com/?p=1791

But time and again, the Legislature is the first and last stop on justification.  Legislators respect law enforcement and county attorneys, as we all should.  That’s not a problem, but they can be fallible.  Too many criminal statutes are the result of court cases that were lost.  There are laws in the Code that have never been used.  They exist because of the lost case syndrome.  However, enhancing a penalty because of a lost case is a different matter.

Enhancing penalties is one of the biggest red herrings in the lawmaking business.  It looks like the legislature is doing “something” to prevent crime from occurring, but it does absolutely nothing to prevent crime.  It only places a defendant in prison or jail for a longer period of time.  That’s all it can do.

Enhancing penalties will not prevent crime because the crime will still be committed.  Criminals do not research consequences before committing a crime because that would imply that they intend to be caught.  That scenario might play out only if an ex-felon could not live outside the walls of confinement and wanted to go back to prison.

Crimes are committed under an umbrella of five factors:

  • The perpetrator believes he or she will not get caught;
  • The crime is committed in the heat of passion;
  • The perpetrator is under the influence of drugs or alcohol;
  • The perpetrator is mentally ill;
  • The perpetrator is acting under duress or fear of harm or death.

What does the enhancement of a penalty do to deter a criminal act when considering the factors above?  Enhancing penalties is the most ineffective manner in which to control crime, or prison population, for that matter.  Unfortunately, minorities appear to be the overwhelming subjects of enhanced penalties.

Rather than creating new crimes or enhancing the penalties of laws already on the books, legislators need to look at the current law instead of the punishment.  What is it that is not working?  Is the punishment too harsh for the offense?

“[T]he Eighth Amendment’s protection against
excessive or cruel and unusual punishments flows
from the basic ‘precept of justice that punishment for
[a] crime should be graduated and proportioned to
[the] offense.’” Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407,
419, 128 S. Ct. 2641, 2649 (2008) (quoting Weems v.
United States, 217 U.S. 349, 367, 30 S. Ct. 544, 549,
54 L. Ed. 793, 798 (1910))(Holding that capital murder
is not proportional to rape of a child).

Many criminal laws are created with punishments that seem to have been pulled out of a hat.  Legislation creating criminal statutes, or enhancing current statutes, appear to develop rather quickly.  A few legislators do not want “their bill” watered down.  And that goes for particular organizations, also.  The Iowa County Attorneys Association had a bill introduced that became Senate File 2275, a bill enhancing penalties for eluding law enforcement officers.

On June 1, 2020, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (R) signed into law Senate File 2275.  It is evident that the governor received bad information, or no information at all about the projections of the bill’s Fiscal Note.  Within the fiscal note is the minority impact statement that projects a “racial impact if trends remain constant”.  The most recent statistics show that “African Americans comprised 3.6% of the adult population of the State in FY 2019 and 19.6% of the convictions for Iowa Code section 321.279 offenses in FY 2019.  It is obvious that the governors, as well as legislators, need to pay attention to the minority impact statements that are available to them in contemplating legislation with high rates of projected disproportionate rates of incarceration.

According to the Iowa Bar Association, which opposed this bill, the provisions of the bill are redundant, unnecessary, and will do nothing to protect further the safety of Iowa citizens.

The process of developing criminal laws should be thoughtful and logical.  They should not be something that is introduced, debated, and enacted within a short period of time.  Research, fact-gathering, and an extended period of hearings should precede any significant change in the law – not just for enhancing the law, but also for changing elements of the law.

Possession thresholds for possession of crack cocaine were not based on any scientific research or logical reasoning.

Racial impact statements are particularly important for criminal justice policy because it is exceedingly difficult to reverse sentencing policies once they have been adopted. The classic example in this regard is the federal crack cocaine mandatory sentencing policies. Adopted in 1986 and 1988, at a time of widespread concern about this new form of cocaine, the laws were hastily passed by Congress with virtually no discussion of their potential racial impact. Two decades later, the results are in and they are very sobering. More than 80 percent of the prosecutions for crack (as opposed to powder cocaine) offenses have been of African Americans, far out of proportion to the degree that they use the drug, and there is broad consensus that the penalties are overly punitive. (U.S. Sentencing Commission, Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy, May 2007.)

https://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/upload/2009/01/second_state_to_approve_racial/ABA_article_-_09.pdf Mauer, Marc. Racial Impact Statements. Published in Criminal Justice, Volume 23, Number 4, Winter 2009. © 2009 American Bar Association.

# # #

Conclusion

 Minority impact statements, or racial impact statements, are excellent guidelines to use in developing, improving, and understanding laws that have a negative impact on a certain class of citizens.  Racial impact statements are more specific in focus, since they pertain only to a classification of people based upon race.  Minority impact statements are broader.  Minority may include women, persons with disabilities, and other classes of people who have been ignored, or otherwise treated differently in the criminal justice system.

Minority impact statements should be automatically attached to any legislation that effects minorities, whether criminal laws, housing, transportation, grants, and other areas of government, local, state, or federal benefits or regulation.

We will never become equal using the scales of justice if laws continue to be made based upon knee-jerk responses.  The Iron Chancellor Otto Von Bismark said: “Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made.”

As a former sausage maker, I can tell you that Bismark’s quote is dated.  Sausage made today is a clean process; the final product is much more appetizing than it was in the Nineteenth Century; and there are no ugly hidden ingredients, they are made in strictly sanitized facilities, and are the product of years of research and improvement.  As a former lobbyist, I can tell you that laws are still being made in the dark.  That needs to change.  Sausage making did.

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Sweet, Sweet Summertime

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Marty Ryan

We ate our first garden-raised tomato ten days ago.  I’m not kidding.  It came from Stephanie’s garden.  We also ate our first strawberries of the year, also from Stephanie’s garden.  Radishes are the only thing we’ve eaten so far from my garden.

It’s not a competition.  Our gardening styles are different, and some of the things we grow are different.  She’s not growing radishes; I am.  We’re both growing tomatoes, but even though we bought some similar plants, not all of the plants were from the same flat.  When you have a mixed marriage like ours (everything’s different – politics, rural v. urban, age, etc.) you have to accept the other’s idiosyncrasies and choices.   

Stephanie bought an Early Girl plant with a tomato about the size of a golf ball on it.  I have purchased plants with blossoms showing, but never with an actual fruit on it.  I’m always cautious.  That one fruit can damn the whole plant, in my nonfactual opinion.   However, this one particular tomato turned out perfect.  As a matter-of-fact, we have eaten the second tomato off that plant and have another sitting on the window sill waiting to ripen.  Ripe tomatoes in June is a rarity.  I guess she showed me.  That’s all right.  My garden will produce bushels of produce once it gets going.  I learned patience from a prayer I made up.  “God, grant me patience, and grant it to me NOW!”

Our garden plots are in different locations.  Stephanie’s garden is in Pleasant Hill (a house we own jointly with her eldest); my garden is in Des Moines.  Because we live close to the Des Moines River, you would think the soil would be black river bottom dirt.  No, it isn’t.  Two inches deep and you run into clay.  Less than a mile from the Des Moines home is a former brick factory, which explains why we have so much clay.  The soil at Pleasant Hill is much better. 

Both gardens are threatened by the usual pests.  I get more deer.  These guys will eat right through the deer repellant.  I have even used hot sauce without having any sort of effect.  The deer in this area must be from a country in which the cuisine is known to be hot.  We do provide water.  Since the back yard here is a “Certified Wildlife Habitat” by the National Wildlife Federation, founded by Iowa’s Pulitzer Prize Cartoonist Ding Darling, we’re going to get critters.  We expect them, and we get them.  It’s not good for the lettuce, cup plants, or lilies, but they don’t seem to bother the radishes or onions, or especially the hemlock plants that grow wild.

Yesterday, I made strawberry salsa for the first time.  I have made tomato salsa and peach salsa, but this strawberry salsa has a separate taste of its own (I leave out cilantro).  It has inspired me to make as many salsas as I can.  Not to sound like Bubba on Jenny (Forest Gump’s shrimp boat), but you can make salsa out of just about anything: cherry salsa; corn salsa; beet salsa; apple salsa; and orange salsa.  Don’t try to make cabbage salsa; but I suppose you could.

I began gardening when I was a young boy.  My garden was one of the best in town, especially because Mom told me she didn’t want weeds.  If it was going to go to weeds, she would plant grass back in the garden plot.  That was enough of an incentive to keep everything that looked like a weed from growing within six inches of the garden.  I was so excited when Howdy Lindberg came up the alley with his little Ford tractor with a plow on the back and plowed up a 15’ x 30’ section of the yard.  Mom wasn’t home.  I’m the one who told Howdy how much land needed to be tilled.  I guess it was too much – at first!  End results were enough to keep it up for years.  My brother Joe took over after I couldn’t take care of it anymore (got a real job during the summer and after school).

That first year I grew radishes, onions, carrots, peas (which didn’t pan out), tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and Zinnias.  Mom said I couldn’t grow corn because it would bring rats to the yard.  I believed her.  No green beans!  I like them now, but despised them as an adolescent.

I was also delivering the Omaha World-Herald evening newspaper about that time.  One of the first customers on my route was the Vail Independent Telephone Company.  I had to walk up about 20 stairs to get to the lobby of the office.  In the lobby there was a door with the top half open and the bottom half closed so that people could pay their telephone bill without mailing it.  It was also where I left the newspaper.

If the switchboard wasn’t too busy, one of the nice ladies would chat with me, unless it was Louise.  Louise, the owner, didn’t chat with anyone.  But Stacia Robinson, Bonita Gallagher, and Marg Adams, the other operators, were charming.

Marg knew I had a garden and often asked how things were growing.  “Pretty good,” I would say.  “Got my first cucumber today.”  “No, Marty,” Marg responded.  “You cannot have a cucumber in June.”  The next day, I brought her a cucumber out of my garden.  If she were still alive, she might still be skeptical.  And I started the cucumbers by seed. 

It may have been one of my sisters (CFR) who told me she couldn’t grow cucumbers because they didn’t have a hill.  Maybe it was someone else who told me that.  I’m not sure.  I shouldn’t pick on my older sister like that.  I hope I don’t have to explain this. 

Growing fruits and vegetables is one of my favorite pastimes.  Actually, it can be a lot of work.  But what other job gives you so much pride and happiness, and something to eat!  The end result is always rewarding. The sad part of gardening today is that climate change may have us rotating our crops to cacti next year.

My garden is growing in raised boxes.  Stephanie’s garden is fenced in to protect it from the bunny living under the deck.  Harvesting veggies is a process in which whatever you’re craving is just about ready.  Whether it comes from Stephanie’s garden or my garden, we enjoy it thoroughly.   

We don’t compete; we eat!

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