DES MOINES – Late last week, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who commit sex crimes can’t have those deeds held against them as adults.
The ruling came in an appeal from a 20-year-old former Clinton man who has been institutionalized since he was 14 years old. Anthony Geltz was prosecuted as a juvenile and adjudicated delinquent for sexual abuse in the second degree in 2007. After Geltz turned eighteen, the State petitioned on June 7, 2011, to have him declared a sexually violent predator. The district court ruled Geltz’s juvenile adjudication constituted a conviction and found he is a sexually violent predator. The district court therefore ordered him committed to the Cherokee Mental Health Institute for sexual predators. Geltz appealed that decision.
According to background in the case, Geltz was born in 1993. As a child, he was sexually abused by his mentally handicapped sister and by two adult men, one of whom lived in the family home. Geltz in turn abused his stepsister and other neighborhood children. At age twelve, Geltz was sent to live at the Annie Wittenmyer Home in Davenport, Iowa. Two years later, Geltz escaped from Wittenmyer and went to a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant, where he sexually abused a child in a game room. Geltz was prosecuted as a juvenile and adjudicated delinquent for sexual abuse in the second degree. He was placed in the State Training School for Boys in Eldora and has remained institutionalized. At Eldora, he was disciplined a dozen times for infractions involving sexual misconduct.
In their ruling, the justices said that “We must apply unambiguous operative statutory language as written without second-guessing the policy choices of the legislature. Iowa Code section 232.55(1) expressly provides that a juvenile adjudication “shall not be deemed a conviction of a crime.”
The Iowa Attorney General’s Office, arguing against reversal of Geltz’s classification as a predator, noted that Geltz is now an adult and the sexually violent predator definition is based on behavior and mental state rather than age, and predicted that upon his release from his current detention, Geltz will promptly reoffend.
“We share that concern,” the Justices wrote, “but are constrained by the language of the statutes. “ ‘Ours not to reason why, ours but to read, and apply. It is our duty to accept the law as the legislative body enacts it.’”
