Attorney General discusses legislation in Henry County

MT. PLEASANT — Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird stopped by Henry County Sheriff’s Office last week to hear from local law enforcement officers and leaders in government. She gave an update from her first year as Attorney General and discussed some moves happening in Iowa legislation.

Henry County Sheriff Rich McNamee told Bird he appreciated her visit.

“Tom Miller [former Iowa Attorney General], I don’t believe in my 30 year career, has ever been around our local sheriff’s office,” McNamee said. “So, to see you here in the beginning of year two is amazing.”

Henry County Supervisor Marc Lindeen echoed this sentiment as a small group of local government officials, attorneys, and law enforcement officers met with Bird at the Henry County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday afternoon, Feb. 15.

“Thank you for the chance to be here. I just finished last year, you know, my first year in office and it kind of went fast,” Bird said to begin the conversation.

According to Bird, her first year in office focused a lot on building relationships with law enforcement and supporting county attorneys, “So, we’re doing a good job of backing the blue here in Iowa.”

“We want to have safe communities and a good criminal justice system,” Bird said. “So, we have been working on that in our office, working on being accessible so that when things come up, people are getting called back and we're doing what we can do in our office to serve.”

“Then I’d say the third thing, is sometimes we’re also pushing back against the federal government when they go too far of different things,” she said.

As conversation turned more toward the specific interests of those in the room from Henry County, McNamee asked Bird about legislation pertains to defense attorneys applying for subpoenas for law enforcement.

“This is an important one because the Supreme Court changed some of the rules for criminal procedures that we have worked with as prosecutors that govern how criminal cases work,” Bird said. “One of the things they did was give defense attorneys, criminal defense attorneys or maybe pro se, too, the power to issue certain subpoenas.”

According to Bird, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office was able to work with the Supreme Cout to make some protections for victims.

“I think people know this, but I just like to point it out,” Bird said. “The job of a prosecutor is to pursue justice, and you know, to work hard at that, but the job of a criminal defense attorney is to basically try to get the person not convicted of that charger or of a lesser charge. It’s very different from truth and justice, which is the prosecutors duty.”

Bird gave examples of exploitation of the subpoenas by the defense. She mentioned situations she called “fishing expeditions,” where a defense team subpoena for a county attorney’s spouse had a subpoena of records or a law enforcement officer had one on their personal phone for unrelated material.

“That becomes abusive and can really be a huge problem,” Bird said. “It doesn’t, at the end of the day, move justice forward and we’re seeing problems around the state and it’s just going to get worse over time.”

“I’d be really surprised that we have that kind of problem around here,” Henry County Attorney Darin Stater said. “But you don’t want to give them that chance.

While Stater said he had not seen any issues with this legislation in the county yet due to good working relationships with other attorneys, but still agreed that it was an important issue to keep on top of.

“It's important because yeah, you can get on those are those defense counsel's that will stop at absolutely nothing,” Stater said. “They don’t stop. They don’t care who it is and they are going to get their person off by all means knowing what they’re doing is really irrelevant to the real case at hand. It’s basically just we’re going to make this as painful as possible for you.”

In response to this, Bird says a bill was introduced to place some protections around these types of scenarios.

“So that a law enforcement officer or your spouse doesn't have to worry that your phone company's going to get a subpoena for all your text messages or phone records,” she said. “So, It’s a very good thing.”

According to Bird, this bill made it through the committee in the House and is continuing to move forward.

Additional legislation Bird has worked on includes increasing penalties for assaults against those in protected professions.

“We're talking about deputies, police officers, firefighters, folks working in the jail or prisons, all of those, bringing them all up one level, basically,” Bird explained. “So, they're treated more seriously, making sure that if someone intentionally spits, for example, on a law enforcement officer, that that's treated at the level that it should be treated.”

According to Bird this type of assault, including spitting on a person, is only a misdemeanor. The proposed bill, however, includes spitting along with other gross assaults with feces, blood, and urine already in Iowa Code.

“Because in some areas, it’s being seen as a freebie, you know,” Bird said. “Some of the protests that happened in Des Moines, law enforcement would go out to, you know, protect businesses and you know, just provide order, and they would just get spit on, then they have to come home and take a shower to get the spit off, and that’s just wrong.”

Bird told the room of law enforcement officers, governing officials, and attorneys of specific instance of an Iowa State Tropper being spit on as he pulled someone over for operating while intoxicated.

“It was during COVID When nobody knew what COVID was going to be and law enforcement was still working and she spit on him,” Bird said. “It was really gross and on purpose, and she said ‘I hope you get COVID.’ And you know, then of course, his wife was pregnant at home and the trooper got COVID and so did his wife at a time when nobody really knew what would happen if you were pregnant and got COVID.”

“I just thought that never should have happened,” she said. “That never should have happened, and that penalty was just a small slap on the wrist. So, I’m really glad legislature’s been supportive of that.”

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com