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State & Federal

Iowa

History of the Death Penalty

Iowa car­ried out 46 exe­cu­tions between 1834 and 1965. All of those exe­cut­ed were men; 43 were exe­cut­ed for mur­der and 3 were exe­cut­ed for rape.

Notable Cases

On July 15th, 1845, Mormon broth­ers William and Steven Hodges were hanged togeth­er for mur­der. Both broth­ers died pro­claim­ing their inno­cence, blam­ing the ver­dicts on anti-Mormon prejudice.

The 1858 hang­ing of William Hinkle drew a crowd of 15,000 peo­ple. The Ottumwa Courier called it the largest gath­er­ing for any event west of the Mississippi.

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

Iowa’s orig­i­nal death penal­ty statute remained active until 1872. Governor Cyrus Carpenter, spurred by an active anti-death penal­ty Quaker and Unitarian pop­u­la­tion, signed the first leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the death penal­ty in Iowa. The abo­li­tion did not last long how­ev­er, as a nation­al eco­nom­ic depres­sion and a wave of crime swept over Iowa in the years short­ly after. Mobs began tak­ing what they saw as jus­tice into their own hands, lynch­ing sev­er­al accused or con­vict­ed defen­dants in the six years after abo­li­tion. The lynch­ings were blamed large­ly on the absence of a death penal­ty. In 1878, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed by the Iowa leg­is­la­ture in order to bring an end to lynch­ings and to attempt to stem the flood of crime that had hit the state.

1964 brought the most suc­cess­ful elec­tion year for Democrats in the his­to­ry of the state of Iowa, paving the way for pas­sage of anoth­er abo­li­tion bill in 1965. Governor Harold Hughes signed the bill that abol­ished Iowa’s death penal­ty a sec­ond time. Since then, numer­ous attempts have been made at rein­state­ment. The most seri­ous of these rein­state­ment efforts came in the wake of the kid­nap­ping, sex­u­al assault, and mur­der of nine-year old Anna Marie Emry in 1994. Although Governor Terry Branstad made rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty cen­tral to his 1994 reelec­tion cam­paign, none of the pro­posed mea­sures were able to pass both hous­es of Iowa’s state leg­is­la­ture. (Gov. Branstad held office from 1983 – 1999, and was re-elect­ed in 2011.)

Cornfield, Newton, Iowa. Public domain photo.

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News & Developments


News

Mar 09, 2018

Attempts Both to Repeal and to Restore Death-Penalty Statutes Fail in Legislatures Across the Country

In Washington and Utah, bipar­ti­san or Republican-led efforts at death-penal­­ty repeal fell short, a month after death-penal­­ty pro­po­nents aban­doned efforts to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in New Mexico and Iowa. In Washington, a bipar­ti­san push to replace the death penal­ty with life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of release was intro­duced at the request of Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson with…

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News

Jun 14, 2011

IN MEMORIAM: David Baldus

On June 13, 2011, law pro­fes­sor and not­ed researcher David Baldus died in Iowa City, IA. Professor Baldus had been a pro­fes­sor at the University of Iowa since 1969 and taught crim­i­nal law, anti-dis­­crim­i­­na­­tion law, and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and fed­er­al crim­i­nal law. He was nation­al­ly rec­og­nized for his research on the death penal­ty. Professor Baldus con­duct­ed many stud­ies regard­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States.

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Additional Information


  • Death Penalty: No
  • Number of Executions Since 1976: 1 fed­er­al execution
  • Number of Executions Before 1976 (may include fed­er­al and military executions): 45
  • Current Death Row Population: 0
  • Women on Death Row: 0
  • Number of Innocent People Freed From Death Row: 0
  • Number of Clemencies Granted: 0
  • Date of Reinstatement (fol­low­ing Furman v. Georgia): N/​A
  • Date of Abolition: 1965
  • Location of Death Row/​Executions: N/​A
  • Capital: Des Moines
  • Region: Midwest
  • Population: 3,190,369*
  • Murder rate (per 100,000 population): 1.90
  • Is Life Without Parole an Option?: Yes
  • Method of Execution: N/​A
  • Clemency Process: N/​A
  • Governor: Kim Reynolds
Upcoming Executions

Upcoming Executions

Information about scheduled executions around the country

Innocence

Innocence

For every 8.2 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in the Unit­ed States in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty, one per­son on death row has been exon­er­at­ed.

State-By-State

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DPI Fact Sheet

DPI Fact Sheet

PDF handout with facts about the Death Penalty

More Information


Innocence Database

Execution Database

Death Penalty Census Database

Death Penalty Information Center
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