The Iowa House has passed a bill (HF 2787) to ban events aimed at resolving Iowans’ arrest warrants without sending them to jail.
Earlier this month Polk County held Iowa’s first-ever warrant resolution clinic, where people with warrants for low-level offenses could meet with a judge and schedule a new court date. A week later, one of the people who had a warrant recalled was charged with the murder of Ashley Marie Hall.
Tawnya Swanson is Hall’s mother.
“She’s looking down on us now and she’s thankful that we’re all here and making sure that this doesn’t happen again to another family.”
Swanson thanked lawmakers for passing the bill and said county officials should’ve looked more into the alleged murderer’s criminal history. Last week, Hall’s father told reporters he doesn’t believe the warrant clinic was connected to his daughter’s murder.
Rep. Mary Madison, D-West Des Moines, said lawmakers should pass requirements for warrant resolution clinics instead of banning them. She said the clinics could help people if officials are more strict about who can have an arrest warrant recalled.
“They could have done better. They should have done better,” Madison said. “This was our system that should’ve worked. It didn’t work for her. But the program would’ve worked had they done what they were supposed to do.”
Republican lawmakers have blamed the clinic and Polk County prosecutors for not properly considering the alleged murderer’s extensive criminal record. And they said warrant resolution clinics wrongly treat warrants as the problem.