Capital punishment has been abolished in Iowa since 1965. Forty-five men were executed by hanging in Iowa between 1834 and 1963 for crimes including murder, rape, and robbery.
The first time that Iowa abolished the death penalty was in 1872, as a result of anti-death sentiment in the state, much due to
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
Presbyterians
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
and
Congregationalists
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
advocated the retention of capital punishment, on biblical grounds. Anti-death penalty sentiment had been present in Iowa from its beginnings – first territorial Governor of
Iowa Territory
The Territory of Iowa was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1838, until December 28, 1846, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Iowa. The remaind ...
, Robert Lucas, at his first message to the Iowa Territorial Assembly in November 1838, advocated that capital punishment should be abolished. However, despite his advocacy, the Assembly passed legislation providing the death penalty for murder, to replace the existing legislation inherited from the
Territory of Michigan
The Territory of Michigan was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 30, 1805, until January 26, 1837, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Michigan. Detroit w ...
providing for the same.
In 1846, the Chief Justice of the Iowa Territorial Supreme Court,
Charles Mason
Charles Mason (April 1728
The 1872 abolition was triggered by the case of George Stanley, who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang; Catholics and Quakers lobbied Governor Cyrus C. Carpenter to grant clemency. Carpenter expressed personal opposition to the death penalty, but said that it would be improper for him to grant clemency based on his personal feelings. Four days before Stanley's scheduled execution, both houses of the Iowa State Legislature passed resolutions requesting clemency, on the grounds that they planned to legislate the abolition of the death penalty; the Governor responded to this with a reprieve of execution. Following this, legislation to abolish the death penalty was passed by the House and presented to the Senate; in the Senate, it encountered difficulty, and was rejected twice before finally being passed.
However, subsequent to the abolition there was an increasing incidence of
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
, which was widely blamed on the abolition, and led to its reinstatement in 1878. Iowa was the first ever state to reinstate the death penalty having previously abolished it.
The last execution to take place in Iowa was on March 15, 1963, at
Iowa State Penitentiary
The Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP) is an Iowa Department of Corrections maximum security prison for men located in the Lee County, Iowa, community of Fort Madison. This facility should not be confused with the Historical Iowa State Penitentiary, w ...
, when
Victor Harry Feguer
Victor Harry Feguer (1935 – March 15, 1963) was a convicted murderer and the last federal inmate executed in the United States before the moratorium on the death penalty following ''Furman v. Georgia'', and the last person put to death in ...
was hanged for murder and kidnapping; however, Feguer's execution was under federal law; Feguer's execution was the last federal execution until
Timothy McVeigh
Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third o ...
's in 2001. The last person to be executed in Iowa under Iowa state law was
Charles Kelley
Charles Burgess Kelley (born September 11, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter and lead singer and founding member of the country music trio Lady A, which was formed in 2006 and are signed to Big Machine Records.
Early life and career
Kelle ...
on September 6, 1962.
Iowa abolished the death penalty for a second time in 1965, with a bill signed by Governor
Harold Hughes
Harold Everett Hughes (February 10, 1922 – October 23, 1996) was the 36th Governor of Iowa from 1963 until 1969, and a United States senator from Iowa from 1969 until 1975. He began his political career as a Republican but changed his affil ...
. Since then, there have been repeated attempts to reinstate the death penalty, but none have managed to pass both houses of the
Iowa State Legislature
The Iowa General Assembly is the legislative branch of the state government of Iowa. Like the federal United States Congress, the General Assembly is a bicameral body, composed of the upper house Iowa Senate and the lower Iowa House of Repres ...
.
Then-Governor
Terry Branstad
Terry Edward Branstad (born November 17, 1946) is an American politician and former diplomat. A member of the Republican Party, he served three terms in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979 before serving as governor of Iowa fro ...
made reinstatement of the death penalty a central focus of his 1994 re-election campaign; however, despite successfully being re-elected, he was unable to implement this policy due to opposition from Democrats in the
Iowa State Senate
The Iowa Senate is the upper house of the Iowa General Assembly, United States. There are 50 seats in the Iowa Senate, representing 50 single-member districts across the state of Iowa with populations of approximately 60,927 per constituency, . ...
.
In 2006, a
Des Moines Register
''The Des Moines Register'' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa.
History Early period
The first newspaper in Des Moines was the ''Iowa Star''. In July 1849, Barlow Granger began the paper in an abandoned log cabin by the junction ...
poll found 66% of Iowa adults favored reinstating the death penalty, while 29% opposed it.
While the death penalty is abolished at a state level in Iowa, the death penalty applies throughout the United States, including Iowa, under federal law. In 2005, a federal court in
Sioux City
Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Iowa. The bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, ...
handed down the first death sentence in Iowa since the 1960s, to Dustin Honken and Angela Johnson. Johnson's death sentence was overturned on appeal in 2012, and she was re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Honken was executed on July 17, 2020, at
United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute
The United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute (USP Terre Haute) is a maximum-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute (FCC Terre Haute) and is operat ...
, becoming the third death row inmate to be executed since the Trump administration's resumption of federal executions.
List of people executed in Iowa
The following is a list of people executed by the U.S. state of Iowa from 1834 to 1963.
Capital punishment in Iowa, Capital punishment was abolished in Iowa in 1965. 45 people were executed in Iowa from 1834-1963, all by hanging. In 2020, a man ...