Des Moines, Iowa — The Iowa Supreme Court says an Alton man who is serving a life sentence for a 1976 murder will have the opportunity to be re-sentenced again.
In August of last year, the Iowa Court of Appeals denied the appeal of John Walter Mulder, who is now 57 years old, after having a birthday on Thursday.
In 1979 a jury convicted Mulder of First Degree Murder in the shooting death of 55-year old Jean Homan in her Alton bedroom in April 1976. Immediately before firing at Homan, Mulder had aimed his rifle at her husband, Carl, but the rifle misfired. Following his conviction, Homan received a mandatory life sentence. He was 14 years old at the time of the murder.
A 2015 Supreme Court decision allowed Mulder to be resentenced since it was determined by the court that a mandatory life sentence for a juvenile amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Following that ruling, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad commuted Mulder’s sentence to life with the possibility of parole after 60-years.
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the Governor’s blanket commutation was not right because each case required an individualized sentencing hearing. As a result, Mulder was resentenced in Sioux County in May 2016, to a term of life with the possibility of parole after 42-years. Mulder appealed that sentence, asserting that the 42-year minimum amounted to a life sentence.
The Iowa Court of Appeals denied his appeal in a decision issued in August (2017) and affirmed Mulder’s sentence of Life with the possibility of parole after 42 years. Mulder appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court.
The Iowa Supreme Court said that they didn’t have to rule on whether the latest sentence amounted to life without parole, but they did rule that the resentencing failed to meet the standards set in a similar case. They vacated the decision of the court of appeals, reversed the decision of the district court, and remanded the case for resentencing.
Those standards they referred to said that the Iowa Constitution does not “categorically prohibit the imposition of a minimum term of incarceration without the possibility of parole on a juvenile offender, provided the court only imposes it after a complete and careful consideration of the relevant mitigating factors of youth.” The opinion of the Supreme Court was that the consideration these factors was not up to the standard.
If the same sentence is again imposed after careful consideration, Mulder would be eligible for parole in two years. Otherwise, he may be eligible sooner.
