Call On Gov. Culver To Veto SF Bill 139

Senate File 139 is a bill that eliminates the availability of post-conviction applications if the conviction is a simple misdemeanor.  The ACLU of Iowa encourages you to contact Governor Culver within the next 3 days [the governor has 3 days after receiving the bill to sign it or veto it] and urge him to veto this particular piece of legislation.  It¹s as easy as can be.  Call (515) 281-5211 with the following message:

³Governor Culver, I am urging you to veto SF 139, a bill eliminating the availability of post-conviction applications for the conviction of a simple misdemeanor.  SF 139 will undercut a precious and historical part of our justice system ­ the writ of habeas corpus.  Please correct this legislative oversight by vetoing the bill and restoring justice for all.²

SF 139 passed the Iowa Senate and the Iowa House without a dissenting vote. No lobbying interest, including the ACLU of Iowa, has been registered in opposition to this bill.  Like many lobbying interests, we had not registered in opposition to this bill because the bill moved so quickly that we were unable to research the matter properly. Nonetheless, the bill will create an unnecessary void in the process of dispensing justice.

SF 139 is a bill that was originally introduced by the Attorney General [Senate Study Bill 1007].  The matter of post-conviction relief upon conviction of a simple misdemeanor may be one of inconvenience for some county attorneys, but it may result in being a very serious matter for a common citizen of Iowa.  It may be the only avenue of relief for someone who has a legitimate complaint with the manner in which a simple misdemeanor case was adjudicated.

A simple misdemeanor can result in incarceration.  Even the slightest amount of jail time can result in a person losing a job, putting a financial strain on the family, or lead to a marital rift.  

Many employers are now scanning the Iowa Courts website and viewing Online Court Records to weed out anyone with a conviction of any degree.  This screening process by employees can affect a person for the remainder of his or her life.  For instance, a wrongful conviction of public intoxication may lead a potential employer to inaccurately believe that a prospective employee has a drinking problem.

A deferred judgment is not available for conviction of a scheduled violation, and a scheduled violation is also a simple misdemeanor.  In this case, it is imperative that a procedure such as post-conviction relief be available.  Many status crimes, those crimes committed only by juveniles [curfew violation, possession of tobacco, etc.], are scheduled fines.  In order to provide a fair chance to our Iowa youth, we must make it possible for them to clear up their record if justice was not otherwise obtained in a regular court procedure.

Phil Mears, an Iowa City lawyer specializing in post-conviction relief cases, emphasizes the following:

³Often, indigent defendants are convicted and/or plead guilty and are placed in jail without a lawyer. This often happens with a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication or interference with official acts. It is not supposed to happen but it still does. Post conviction may be the only recourse available.    

³Immigrants can experience deportation consequences as a result of simple misdemeanor. If there was a language problem with the early morning guilty plea post conviction may be the only way to correct the error.     

³There are very few successful post-convictions for almost any level of crime.  The post-conviction applicant faces both procedural as well as substantive law hurdles.  If a person has a genuine claim, he or she ought to have at least some opportunity to raise the complaint.  If he or she has had a bad lawyer that resulted in ten days in jail, that person is probably not going to know about the fact that he or she had a bad lawyer in time to raise the matter on appeal.²      

The legislature, several years ago, recognized that direct appeals were not a good place to raise complaints of bad lawyering.  For that reason, the legislature provided that a person could raise a claim of ineffective counsel in post-conviction proceedings without having raised the matter first on appeal.      

The enactment of Senate File 139 would essentially eliminate any judicial oversight of the quality of legal representation for indigent persons in simple misdemeanor cases.

Simple misdemeanants do not get an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. Any limited appeal is to District Court.  Therefore, post conviction may be the only way to challenge something that is very serious and may be very wrong.

The post conviction statute was enacted in the early 1970's to codify the historical writ of habeas corpus. Allowing post-conviction applications in simple misdemeanor cases may somehow inconvenience county attorneys to some small degree, but we should not take away the right of a wrongfully convicted person to challenge a simple misdemeanor conviction simply because some government lawyers don¹t care to deal with such appeals.

For all the reasons mentioned above, we strongly encourage you to contact Governor Culver and urge him to veto Senate File 139.