Grant Rodgers

The Des Moines Register

Iowa's new "stand your ground" law could have its first test in the murder trial of a Des Moines woman accused of shooting and killing her stepfather this month.

Defense attorney F. Montgomery Brown confirmed at a court hearing Wednesday that he plans to invoke the controversial law in defending Sera Alexander, who is accused of shooting her stepfather, Anthony Hartmann, several times in the basement of her family's south Des Moines home May 8.

The Republican-backed legislation, which was signed into law by Gov. Terry Branstad in April, says that "law abiding" people who are in a place legally do not have a duty to retreat before using deadly force to defend themselves if they believe their life is in danger. Brown told a judge that change made Iowa law "vastly more favorable" to a defendant like Alexander, 29.

"She has substantive defenses that, on their face, could very well be successful,” Brown said.

The announcement came during a request from Brown to have Alexander's bail reduced from $1 million so she could be released from Polk County Jail ahead of her trial. Judge Robert Hanson granted the reduction, allowing Alexander to be released on a $100,000 cash or surety bond.

Susan McCall Hartmann, Alexander's mother, said she expected her daughter would be released from jail sometime Wednesday. McCall Hartmann sat in the courtroom alongside another daughter, Amanda, through the 20-minute hearing.

"She's got a job, she's got things to do. She will have some restrictions of course, but minor compared to what we've been through in this past week," McCall Hartmann said. "We're going to try to keep things as normal as possible."

In granting the bond reduction, Hanson noted that Alexander has no past criminal history and called the shooting an "aberration." "It doesn’t look like the defendant is a flight risk, it doesn’t look like she is a danger to anybody else,” he said.

McCall Hartmann told the Register in a Friday interview that Hartmann, 49, abused her throughout their 19-year marriage. Brown told Hanson at the hearing that Alexander in recent years sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder related to violence Hartmann brought into the home.

Hartmann was not living at the family home due to a no-contact order that was put in place after he grabbed his wife by the hair and pushed her into a car window in November, according to court records. McCall Hartmann began divorce proceedings that month.

But the no-contact order was lifted May 2 so that Hartmann could return to the Southwest 17th Street home to retrieve some tools and other belongings.

McCall Hartmann told the Register that her daughter had been out of town and was not aware her stepfather was allowed in the home. The mother believes that Hartmann must have done something to make Alexander feel in danger, even though police have said he did not threaten or assault his stepdaughter before the killing.

Court papers filed by prosecutors claim that Alexander retrieved the gun from an upper level of the house before going back down into the basement where her stepfather was shot.

Brown outlined his "stand your ground" defense at the hearing as part of his arguments that Alexander's bond should be lowered. Brown argued that the new law allows a person who uses deadly force to be mistaken about whether his or her life is threatened. The person would be covered if there was a "reasonable basis" to believe the threat was real and the person acted reasonably, he said.

Brown noted several instances in which Hartmann reportedly threatened the family, including a situation in which he threw a "heavy object" that broke his wife's hand and a prison sentence he received in 2001 for stabbing her in the arm.

Alexander legally obtained the handgun that was used in the shooting and had the proper permit to acquire the gun required by Iowa law, Brown said.

The law also presumes that lethal force is reasonable if the person killed unlawfully entered a house or building through "stealth," Brown said. Though Hartmann may have been allowed inside temporarily, Brown said that section of the law will be central to the case.

"From the defendant's perspective, she did not know Anthony Hartmann would be entering the house," he said. "He entered the house without her knowledge, so that presumption appears to apply."

Brown said in an interview after the hearing that he does expect litigation with prosecutors over whether the new law will even apply to the case. The "stand your ground" portion of the new law takes effect July 1.

As part of the request for a bond reduction, Brown said that Alexander would be willing to undergo electronic monitoring using an ankle bracelet, be subject to a curfew and remain at her house when not in court or at work.

Shannon Archer, an assistant Polk County attorney prosecuting the case, opposed the motion for bond reduction. Alexander should be considered a flight risk because she faces a first-degree murder charge that would carry a mandatory life-without-parole prison sentence if convicted, she said.

"Obviously, I am not unsympathetic to the violence that may have occurred in their home," Archer said. "As a seven-year domestic abuse prosecutor, I understand domestic abuse and what it can do to a family. But what we are dealing with here is an isolated incident where ... this defendant, without justification, went up, grabbed her firearm and shot Mr. Hartmann multiple times. In no way was Mr. Hartmann threatening her or assaulting her at the time that that happened."

Archer also countered the defense attorney's portrayal of Hartmann as a violent drug abuser. "The law protects every victim equally and Mr. Hartmann should be entitled to the same protection of the law as any victim," she said.

An obituary for Hartmann said he graduated from Carlisle High School before finishing an electrician apprenticeship. McCall Hartmann has declined to tell the Register how the two met, but her husband was an Iowa Hawkeyes football fan with a "beautiful" singing voice, according to the obituary.