Des Moines, Iowa – Governor Kim Reynolds was sent HF2697 for her signature this week, a bill that violates the Fines and Fees Justice Center’s (FFJC) work. In response, Sarah Couture, regional director at FFJC, issued the following statement:
“Iowa legislators recently passed HF2697 which allows courts to order costs in cases that are dismissed. This was a direct response to an opinion from the Iowa Supreme Court in State v. Pagliai, 30 N.W.3d 22, (2026) where they concluded that the district court was without statutory authority to assess costs in criminal cases that are dismissed. If enacted, this new law is unconstitutional—under both the Iowa and United States Constitutions because it violates due process rights by allowing fees to be charged to people who haven’t been found guilty.
“The Court’s concurring opinion, written by Justice Matthew McDermott, expressly laid out how charging fees in dismissed cases is unconstitutional: ‘The claim that courts may impose a criminal punishment in the absence of a criminal conviction defies fundamental notions of due process. The Due Process Clauses of both the United States and Iowa Constitutions protect a defendant’s presumption of innocence. Imposing court costs on a defendant whose charges were dismissed is functionally identical to imposing a punishment on a person who is, by law, presumed innocent.’ (Id. at 15).
“The United States Supreme Court has also ruled on this issue in Nelson v. Colorado (2017) where they said a state ‘may not presume a person, adjudged guilty of no crime, nonetheless guilty enough for monetary exactions.’ They further stated that ‘once a conviction is invalidated, the state has “zero claim” to the money and may not impose “monetary exactions” on a person “adjudged guilty of no crime.”’ (Id. at 136, 139).
This bill violates Iowa’s constitution, is an assault on the principles of fairness and due process, and will cost Iowa families real dollars—both in the costs of litigating to realign the law to the constitution, and in fees that are unjustly extracted from families. That leaves Governor Reynolds with just one choice: veto this bill.”