Benjamin E. Schreiber, Gentric Hicks, Bobby Smith, and Archie Bear v. State of Iowa

Summary

The Iowa Supreme Court upheld Iowa Code section 13.10, which requires certain offenders to provide DNA specimens for profiling, against ex post facto and equal protection challenges. The court concluded that the statute is remedial and intended to promote public safety rather than impose additional punishment. The petitioners' First Amendment and federal religious-freedom claims were deemed waived because they were not raised below, and the dismissal of their petition was affirmed.

Holdings

1. Iowa Code section 13.10 is remedial and nonpunitive; applying it to inmates incarcerated before its enactment does not violate the ex post facto clauses of the United States or Iowa Constitutions.
2. The petitioners' equal-protection challenge fails; the court rejected the argument and noted that rational-basis scrutiny had been applied by other courts to comparable DNA-testing classifications.
3. The petitioners waived their First Amendment and federal statutory religious-freedom arguments by failing to raise them in the district court.

Questions Presented

1. Whether applying Iowa Code section 13.10 to inmates who were incarcerated before the statute's enactment violates the ex post facto clauses of the United States and Iowa Constitutions.
2. Whether the DNA-testing statute violates equal protection.
3. Whether the petitioners' First Amendment free-exercise and federal statutory religious-freedom arguments were preserved for appellate review.

Disposition

affirmed