(Radio Iowa) – A bill in the Iowa House would ban warrant resolution clinics after a participant in Polk County was charged with first degree murder a week later. Representative Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison, led debate of the bill in the House Oversight Committee.
“Warrant resolution clinics, if they’re going to do it the way they did this one, should never happen again in the state of Iowa,” Holt said. The clinic let people with warrants for low-level crimes like traffic violations pay a fine, avoid arrest and set a court date for their case. Holt says prosecutors and the judge who set aside the warrant for Sharmeeka Evans didn’t properly consider her criminal history — which he cited.
“In 2003, domestic abuse assault with a general display of a weapon….in 2020 she struck a man over the head with a glass bottle. In 2021 she pushed a woman down two flights of stairs,” Holt said. “…In 2023 she struck her live-in boyfriend with a wooden pole used as a bat.” Seven days after getting her arrest warrant cleared, Evans was arrested for shooting a 36-year-old Des Moines woman to death.
To add to the growing lack of accountability in our criminal justice system we now have a warrant resolution clinic that withdraws the warrant of a career criminal with a violent history who seven days later has allegedly shot and killed a mother of three…This is inexcusable,” Holt said. Ralph Hall, the father of Ashley Marie Hall — who was shot to death earlier this month, spoke with reporters after the meeting.
“What did happen with my child was very, very tragic,” Hall said, “but I honestly feel like it didn’t have any direct connection to the warrant clinics or how the warrant clinics should be used or not used.” Polk County Attorney Kimberly Graham says the warrant resolution clinic helped get about 50 people back into contact with the justice system to face their charges.
If the bill becomes law, organizers of programs that dismiss outstanding arrest warrants could be charged with a crime and be fined up to 10-thousand dollars. House Speaker Pat Grassley says the full House will debate the bill next week.
