Polk supervisors to vote on naming justice center after retiring prosecutor John Sarcone
Polk County supervisors plan to vote Tuesday on a proposal to rename the Polk County Justice Center after John Sarcone, who is retiring after 32 years as county attorney.
A resolution to rename the building at 222 Fifth Ave. the John P. Sarcone Polk County Justice Center says Sarcone “exercised the authority entrusted to him by the residents of Polk County to enforce the laws of the State of Iowa with the utmost integrity.”
Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Angela Connolly said Monday she initiated the resolution with Ralph Marasco, an assistant county attorney who works in Sarcone's office on county legal business.
"It's not too often you have a county attorney who has done what John's done," Connolly said. "He's got victims on his side. He's a former public defender. ... He's a true public servant."
Connolly said she’d like to see the building renamed before Sarcone officially leaves his post at the end of the year.
In a statement, however, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the supervisors to vote against the resolution. Supervisor Matt McCoy also objected, saying no one consulted the public before plans to rename the building were announced at a retirement party for Sarcone last week.
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“Had they sought input from residents, I think they would have heard an outcry," McCoy said. "Sarcone has a bad reputation with black and brown communities, and I think to take a building that was built with a referendum to improve justice in our community sends a message to those communities that when they walk into that building, they are going to get that history of his form of justice.”
The ACLU in its statement made a similar argument, saying there are cases daily that show the role racial disparities, assumptions that government is always right, and excessive deference to the police play in Iowa's justice system.
“Nowhere are these problems more evident than in Iowa’s largest county and specifically in the office of the Polk County Attorney," the statement said. "Let’s be clear: This is not simply naming just any public building after a former elected official because this is no ordinary public building. This building houses the very courtrooms where Iowans will defend their rights against the government. This is where judges will sentence people. And, without some real changes in our criminal justice system, this is the very place where racial disparities in law enforcement and sentencing will continue to happen."
McCoy said he also strongly objects to renaming the building after a living politician. He pointed to the ongoing controversy in the city of Des Moines over a movement to rename George Flagg Parkway, named in 2002 for a retired but then still-living City Council member who had been accused of racism.
McCoy, who has sparred heavily with other supervisors and county officials since joining the board in 2019, noted that there was no move to name a building after long-serving county Treasurer Mary Maloney, who died unexpectedly in 2021.
“Nobody is saying (Sarcone's) public service isn’t valuable, but I think it’s a mistake to name buildings after living politicians,” McCoy said. “Give him a pocket watch.”
Sarcone, a Democrat who intensified criminal prosecutions in Iowa's largest county after he was elected in 1990 during a period of elevated crime, enjoyed wide respect from his peers in the legal profession during much of his tenure and was unopposed in all seven of his reelection bids.
But Sarcone also faced periods of intense public criticism, most recently after his office's prosecution of protestors and then-Des Moines Register journalist Andrea Sahouri in the wake of unrest sparked by the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody and a national outcry for racial justice.
Sahouri, while covering a protest, was arrested for allegedly failing to obey a police order to disperse. A Palestinian-American, she said after her acquittal she believed race played a part in the charge against her and the decision to take her case to trial, where a jury acquitted her after hearing testimony she was doing her job as a journalist as she followed the protesters.
Other cases also ended in acquittal or dismissal, and defendants and their supporters alleged police in some cases used excessive force and made arrests without sufficient cause.
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Sarcone's announcement in 2021 that he did not intend to run again kicked off the first contested campaign for the position in three decades and the possibility of a generational shift in law enforcement priorities for Iowa's most populous county.
Democrat Kimberly Graham, 58, will face Republican Allan M. Richards, 68, for Polk County attorney in the general election.
Richards said Monday he thinks the effort to rename the building is a nice gesture, given Sarcone's service to the county. Graham, who has run on a platform of ending racial and income disparities in the county’s justice system, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Lee Rood's Reader's Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at lrood@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Polk justice center could be named after retiring county attorney
