{"id":175,"date":"2010-09-02T14:52:46","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T19:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=175"},"modified":"2010-12-06T13:59:29","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T19:59:29","slug":"a-must-do-for-the-iowa-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=175","title":{"rendered":"A Must-Do for the Iowa Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Associate Justice Kennedy identified \u201cretribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation\u201d as \u201cthe goals of penal sanctions that have been recognized as legitimate.\u201d\u00a0 Graham v. Florida<\/em>.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/09pdf\/08-7412Modified.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

The majority opinion in Graham<\/em> discovers that \u201cjuveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of \u2018irretrievably depraved character\u2019 than are the actions of adults.\u201d\u00a0 Sentencing a juvenile to life in prison without the possibility of parole is counter conducive to all goals of penal sanctions.\u00a0 Juveniles who commit serious crimes must be appropriately sentenced to pay for the consequences of their criminal activity, but, as Justice Kennedy cited from Roper <\/em>and Thompson <\/em>v. Oklahoma<\/em> \u201c\u2019juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.\u2019 A juvenile is not absolved of responsibility for his actions, but his transgression \u2018is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

The problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Iowa Legislature must conform to the holding in Graham<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cThat for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide the Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole.\u201d Justice Kennedy expounds:<\/p>\n

There is a line \u201cbetween homicide and other serious violent offenses against the individual.\u201d Serious nonhomicide crimes \u201cmay be devastating in their harm . . . but \u2018in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public,\u2019 . . . they cannot be compared to murder in their \u2018severity and irrevocability.\u2019\u201d This is because \u201clife is over for the victim of the murderer,\u201d but for the victim of even a very serious nonhomicide crime, \u201clife . . . is not over and normally is not beyond repair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iowa law provides for a life sentence under several circumstances.\u00a0 The most obvious, murder in the first degree is punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Court has made it clear that certain sanctions must be removed from the options of a sentencing court in Iowa when applied to a juvenile defendant.\u00a0 Those sanctions include:<\/p>\n