{"id":705,"date":"2011-08-03T19:44:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T00:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=705"},"modified":"2011-08-03T19:45:03","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T00:45:03","slug":"anderson-v-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=705","title":{"rendered":"Anderson v. State"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week, I came face to face with a great example of why our prisons are bulging to the point of needing elastic.\u00a0 A Des Moines Register article quoted Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, saying that he is going to ask the Iowa County Attorneys Association to lobby for a change in the law that will alter the way \u201ctime served\u201d credit is given to probationers who violate the terms of their probation.\u00a0 Depending upon what specific change Sarcone is seeking, it\u2019s either benign or very bad. \u00a0The effect of the amended change that Sarcone might like to see could very well swell the prison walls beyond the point of bursting.\u00a0 Here is the problem, the knee-jerk reaction, and a sensible solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>Anderson v. State<\/span><\/a>, the Iowa Supreme Court was faced with the question of whether the defendant, Michael Anderson, should receive credit for time served after his probation had been revoked.\u00a0 At the time, he was on house arrest and being monitored with an ankle bracelet.\u00a0 Anderson\u2019s probation was revoked after a naked 16-year-old girl was found under a bed in his home.\u00a0 Anderson was on probation because he pled guilty to enticing a minor away back in 2004 and was sentenced to two consecutive 5-year terms.\u00a0 The sentences were suspended and he was placed on probation for five years on each count.<\/span><\/p>\n

After his sentence was handed down in 2004, Anderson spent a year undergoing sex offender treatment while residing at a treatment facility.\u00a0 There were several conditions of his probation, one of which required him to stay away from children age sixteen or under.\u00a0 A year after his release from the treatment facility he had contact with a sixteen-year-old girl, which eventually led to the revocation.\u00a0 Anderson sought credit for the time served while on house arrest.\u00a0 The district court allowed for the time served while in the treatment facility, but not while he was on house arrest.\u00a0 The Iowa Supreme Court disagreed and held that the \u201cplain language of Iowa Code section 907.3(3) entitles Anderson to sentencing credit for the period of time he was committed to the DCS [Department of Correctional Services] for electronic monitoring and home supervision.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re not sure about what changes in the law Sarcone might be seeking. The newspaper article also referred to a statement made by Kevin Cmelik, the director of the criminal appeals division at the Iowa attorney general\u2019s office.\u00a0 Cmelik believes that the \u201cruling could result in county attorneys recommending less probation and more prison time, and longer probation periods for offenders.\u201d\u00a0 This is the knee-jerk reaction.\u00a0 Changing an entire sentencing scheme based upon the actions of one bad actor is not an appropriate manner of addressing faults in the criminal justice system.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Electronic monitoring of convicted sex offenders who have a history of offending children has never been an advisable sentence.\u00a0 Uncle Bob may be at home wearing his ankle bracelet, but that might be all Uncle Bob is wearing.\u00a0 I\u2019ve said that many times over the course of lobbying these issues.\u00a0 Evidently, no one listened.\u00a0 But the problem is not with electronic monitoring, nor is the solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is calling for more prison time and less probation time, which Cmelik mentioned.\u00a0 We can work with the county attorneys if they address the specific issue in Anderson and refrain from seeking solutions that go beyond the minor repair that needs nothing more than a tiny plug.\u00a0 What goal would be obtained by closing the opportunity for probation for many offenders based upon the stupidity of one?\u00a0 Last week in this space, Stephanie Fawkes-Lee made the satirical statement of \u201c<\/span>better to lock up a hundred innocent people rather than let one guilty person go free<\/span><\/a>.\u201d \u00a0The satire continues.\u00a0 They may not be innocent, but there are offenders who feel remorse, who feel guilt, and who feel abandoned by society because of the \u201clock \u2018em up and throw away the key\u201d mentality.\u00a0 Is it better to lock up a hundred offenders rather than place one on probation?<\/span><\/p>\n

We believe that time served should be credited to those who spent time in a treatment facility, a jail, or other detention facility, whether it\u2019s presentence, pre-trial, or post sentence.\u00a0 Time served should stop the minute a person on probation violates the provisions of the probation.\u00a0 That\u2019s all that needs to be amended.\u00a0 This is not a time for grandstanding and placing an enhanced burden on our state prisons.\u00a0 That is, unless the counties prefer to help pay for the cost of incarceration in our already overcrowded prisons.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anderson\u2019s probation was revoked after a naked 16-year-old girl was found under a bed in his home. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,17],"tags":[258,144,81,41,257,260,261,262,259],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-issues","tag-anderson-v-state","tag-des-moines-register","tag-iowa-county-attorneys-association","tag-iowa-supreme-court","tag-john-sarcone","tag-kevin-cmelik","tag-stephanie-fawkes-lee","tag-uncle-bob","tag-iowa-department-of-correctional-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}