State reworks criminal procedures

After years of back-and-forth, Iowa now awaits legislative approval to formalize new criminal procedures at the start of the next fiscal year, the first comprehensive rework of the rules since 1978.

“With the revisions, the rules were streamlined, simplified, and updated to reflect court decisions and legislation while eliminating outdated language,” a news release from the state’s judicial branch said. “There is approximately a 20% reduction in the word count. The supreme court also approved new and updated court forms.”

District 8 Judge Myron Gookin, of Fairfield, served on the task force of judges, attorneys, and other legal experts that drafted the changes.

Gookin said the project was a monumental undertaking.

“The goal was to try and reach consensus on how the rules could be more internally consistent, modernized, and better conform to the statutory and case law that has developed over the years,” he said. “It took a tremendous amount of time, effort, reading, debating and writing to reach the final draft approved by the Supreme Court and now awaiting Legislative Council approval.”

Senior Court of Appeals Judge Michael Mullins said the changes, while years in the making, were a somewhat routine practice.

“We’ve got 20 or 30-some chapters of state law, and periodically rules are reviewed just to ensure that current practices are coinciding with the effect of the rules … and current technological developments.” he said. “There are reviews going on with regard to other chapters as well right now, some provisions concerning family law cases, provisions concerning appellate procedures and so forth. It’s really an ongoing maintenance issue.”

Many of the changes are “based on experience during the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to public summary documents. Examples include provisions that will allow written pleas for certain felonies and video appearances in pretrial proceedings.

"Primarily what happened with COVID, especially the restrictions that were necessary early on, on in-person contact and so forth, it really caused the courts to take a look at various electronic video conferencing options,“ Mullins said. ”As restrictions loosened up and we started to get back to closer-to-normal court activities, those emergency provisions were reviewed to determine … whether some of those should be adopted or specifically allowed in the future.“

Washington County Attorney John Gish said the changes would have minimal impact outside of the courtroom.

“I think the general public will notice some differences, but not to a great degree,” he said. “The changes by the Iowa supreme court address how cases are managed, how cases are tried, and the paperwork that’s needed for those cases. The rules don’t address how people are sentenced.”

Still, Mullins said they would still have a drastic impact on the judges and attorneys working with the system every day.

“Most of these rules are very practical and applicable to the lawyers and the parties to the cases,” Mullins said. “They set up various deadlines and timelines for certain types of procedures … those have a direct impact on the users in the court system. They’re administrative from the standpoint making sure the court system can administer justice fairly, but the rules are designed to protect due process rights, both substantive and procedural.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com