New Jersey has been in the news lately, with legislation to ban the death penalty. Most of these stories claim that it is the first state to ban the death penalty since it was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976.
Didn't Iowa ban the death penalty in the 1980s? I thought that Minnette Doderer led the charge on that. I wasn't living in the state at the time, so I don't know all the details. Can anyone fill me in?
3 Comments
I thought we never brought the death penalty back
after the Supreme Court ruling allowing it in the 1970s.
Republican candidates used to use the death penalty as an issue every election year, but it was never enacted during the 1980s.
desmoinesdem Tue 11 Dec 8:36 PM
Repealed in the 70s?
Hmm. You’ve got me thinking. Maybe Iowa actually removed its death penalty language during the interregnum of the 1970s, and what I remember is the battle to keep it banned that ocurred later on.
corncam Wed 12 Dec 8:46 AM
there were two Supreme Court rulings
One said capital punishment was unconstitutional because of the eighth amendment, and another not many years later saying capital punishment was ok.
Terry Branstad was the master of using the death penalty as a bogeyman issue to run against Democrats every four years. Then he barely lifted a finger to get the legislature to reinstate the death penalty. The issue was more useful for him than executing a few criminals.
desmoinesdem Wed 12 Dec 10:30 AM