Iowa Supreme Court upholds life term for sex crime

4-9-2012 Iowa:

Iowa Supreme Court justices on Friday declared life in prison to be an acceptable punishment for repeat sexual abusers of children but ordered a trial court to take another look at the appropriateness of such a sentence for a 17-year-old murderer.

Justices rejected arguments by Charles James David Oliver, a Guthrie County man convicted twice of third-degree sexual abuse in separate incidents, roughly 10 years apart. The incidents involved two females — one 14, the other 13. The most recent incident occurred in 2009, when Oliver was 33. He was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to life without parole under an Iowa law that elevates second offenses of certain sex crimes to Class A felonies.

Oliver argued on appeal that such a sentence is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. But justices ruled in an opinion issued Friday that “based on the facts of his case, life without parole does not strike us as a grossly disproportionate punishment to his crimes.”

“Our role is not to determine what the proper sentence for a crime should be,” justices wrote. “Instead, we are to review the sentence mandated by the Legislature to ensure that it is within the protections ensured by the state and federal constitutions. In this case, the Legislature has chosen to permanently confine those who have shown, on multiple occasions, that they are unwilling to follow society’s restrictions regarding sexual contact between children and adults. We see no constitutional infirmity in that decision.”

In an unrelated case, justices ruled that a Pottawattamie County murderer should have another chance to argue the propriety of his life sentence.

Jeffrey Ragland, then 17, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1986 after Timothy Sieff died when Ragland’s co-defendant struck Sieff once in the head with a tire iron.

Ragland, who was convicted under Iowa’s felony-murder rule, has repeatedly appealed, arguing that the conviction is invalid under a subsequent Iowa Supreme Court decision involving Milo farmer Rodney Heemstra.

Those arguments have been rejected, however, because justices declared that changes made to the felony-murder rule in the Heemstra case were not retroactive.

Friday’s opinion again rejected Ragland’s challenges to the felony-murder conviction. But justices ordered the case sent back to Pottawattamie County for further proceedings on whether life without parole is a cruel and unusual sentence when imposed on a juvenile. The opinion notes that “the controlling authority has changed since Ragland challenged his sentence as cruel and unusual punishment in his original appeal.” ..Source.. by JEFF ECKHOFF