An overhaul of the D.C. judicial system is being proposed under the new legislation.
The Washington, DC Council gave preliminary approval to a major revision of the district’s criminal code, despite resistance from certain high-ranking officials.
The Council unanimously passed the law on Tuesday (with one member abstaining). The latest update to the statute did something about some of the problems, but it didn’t fix everything.
To paraphrase Public Safety Committee Chair Charles Allen, as reported by the Washington Post: “I don’t think that the ultimate result for any stakeholder is going to represent every single fear, but they have signaled they feel it should move forward.” The statement alludes to objections to the bill voiced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Several parts of the proposal have been strongly opposed by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves. Special Counsel to the U.S. Attorney Elana Suttenberg testified in December 2021 before the Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety and argued against numerous aspects of the reform measure.
In October 2022, Graves’ office issued a statement in which they said they acknowledged the “sorely needed” nature of reform but “still have concerns with multiple aspects of this bill and believe that some provisions, while well-intentioned, could undermine community safety and impede the administration of justice in our courts.” They said that Suttenberg’s evidence included “provisions with which we fundamentally disagree.”
The death penalty has been reduced, the number of years a person must spend in prison has been cut in half, and the concept of accomplice liability in criminal murder has been done away with.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office reiterated its concerns about these matters in October and encouraged the Council to “continue to listen to our concerns.”
To some extent, that’s true. The Council approved a revised version of the statute that included the prosecutor’s requested exception for first-degree murder charges. An earlier version of the measure would have done away with all bare minimums. Representative Graves’ staff pushed to get the maximum punishment for first-degree burglary raised from four to six years.
Some have voiced concern that additional reforms might lead to an overburden in the criminal justice system. Most crimes entail jail sentences of more than 60 days. Therefore the measure guarantees a right to trial by jury rather than a judge-only “bench trial” in those cases.
“the idea we’re not opposed to,” Mayor of Washington, D.C. Muriel Bowser reportedly told lawmakers in October, according to DCist.com: “but we are opposed to laying that weight on our courts, which are experiencing a vacancy issue.”
Allen provided justification for the regulation.
Allen was quoted as saying to the Post, “We need a full complement of judges, but it’s equally vital that individuals have the right to a jury.” “It’s clear that Washington, D.C., is an outlier. Only nine other countries in the world deny their people the right to a trial by jury, making the United States the only country that does not.”
Bowser was also against the part of the bill that would have permitted any prisoner to petition the courts for an early release from their sentence. You must be under 25 and have served no more than 15 years in jail to qualify under the law. People above the age of 25 would just need to put in 20 years of service under the new guidelines.
The mayor stated it best when he said this should be its own law.
It was reported by the Post that Bowser had said, “We think that new policy ideas should and should be handled apart from the criminal code change.”
Despite opposition from Bowser and D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III, several sentences were lowered under the plan.
If we reduce a sentence from 10 years to 5 years, it makes the city less safe,” said Contee in October. Bowser argues that this “sends the wrong message to our neighborhoods” since “we are leveraging every resource in government to bring down crime.”
It is anticipated that the whole Council will vote on the bill sometime in late November or early December. Once that is complete, it will be submitted to the desk of Mayor Bowser for signing before being sent to Congress for final approval.