Court upholds restitution challenge in Iowa case

DES MOINES, Iowa — District courts may review requests for restitution to crime victim compensation programs to ensure the amount requested is directly caused by a crime, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The court ruled in a 2008 kidnapping case out of Webster County where the defendant, Jeremy Jenkins, was ordered to pay about $950 for payments made from the county's Crime Victim Compensation Program to the victim for time missed from work because of the crime and subsequent trial.

It was later determined the victim had taken unpaid leave from work after Jenkins' threatened her but before the crime occurred. Jenkins challenged the restitution order claiming some of the victim's lost wages were not the result of the crime. He also argued that the victim's work schedule — from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. — would have allowed her to attend trial during the day and still work from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., missing only 15 hours of work and not an entire week.

Jenkins, who was convicted of third-degree kidnapping and assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, also was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

The district court rejected Jenkins' challenge, saying it didn't have discretion to review the amount of restitution sought, but the Supreme Court disagreed and ordered the district court to review the restitution to determine if the amount ordered was caused by the crime.

A telephone message left for the Iowa attorney general's office was not immediately returned. Jenkins' attorney, state appellate defender Mark Smith, said the court's decision will "direct more focus on the amount of restitution defendants are required to make in regard to the Crime Victim Compensation Program."

"This ruling said the trial court should have made a determination whether or not all payments made by the program were related to this particular crime," Smith said.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Kevin Cmelik said the ruling affords district courts authority it did not have under prior Court of Appeal decisions that said the lower court lacked authority to review amounts paid.

"This decision says it does have authority to determine what the amount would be," Cmelik said.

He said the attorney general's office argued against expanding the authority.

"We defended the rulings of the court of appeals that once amounts are expended it's the defendant's responsibility to reimburse them," Cmelik said.