DC criminal code overhaul is ghastly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any person facing potential jail time SHOULD be able to demand a jury trial.

This proposed law is not the problem; putting people in jail for up to a year for minor offenses is the real problem.

The US incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world.

Jailing people for minor offenses is expensive to taxpayers and dangerous for the individuals placed in jail or prison.

Poor people go to jail for misdemeanors. This is wrong & unfair. We need better ways to handle minor offenses.

So the only possible alternative is simply not to prosecute or enforce those laws?

Clearly, you do not understand the criminal justice system. There are several alternatives. Plea deals; bench trial; defendant can just plead guilty; alternative sentencing that may or may not include jail time (weekend in jail so defendant can continue to work; community service; monetary fines; probation; and some accused of crimes may not be guilty/have a legal defense.

Interesting. Since there is a possibility someone might be not guilty, we shouldn't prosecute. Good to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trial by jury is in the constitution.

Not for misdemeanors. Not the worst idea, but it needs to be separated out from the rest of the legislation and then phased in over a period of years to allow for the courts to build up their capacity with more judges more personnel and a bigger jury pool to allow for additional jury trials.

In Washington State, you can request a jury trial for misdemeanors. The system works fine, but because that's been the rule for years, there are enough prosecutors, judges, etc., to handle it. You can't just flip that switch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any person facing potential jail time SHOULD be able to demand a jury trial.

This proposed law is not the problem; putting people in jail for up to a year for minor offenses is the real problem.

The US incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world.

Jailing people for minor offenses is expensive to taxpayers and dangerous for the individuals placed in jail or prison.

Poor people go to jail for misdemeanors. This is wrong & unfair. We need better ways to handle minor offenses.

It's funny how this is basically the opposite of how DC handles traffic offenses.

The penalties for speeding and other infractions are pretty stiff and keep getting stiffer. When people say they're disproportionate to the offense, the response is invariably, "don't speed -- obey the law and you have nothing to worry about."

But here, with penalties for real actual crimes like violent assaults, the attitude is never "if you don't commit crimes, you have nothing to worry about." The attitude is always "can't we go easier on people who commit violent assaults?"

Are "violent assaults" misdemeanors ?

Yes, sometimes they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any person facing potential jail time SHOULD be able to demand a jury trial.

This proposed law is not the problem; putting people in jail for up to a year for minor offenses is the real problem.

The US incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world.

Jailing people for minor offenses is expensive to taxpayers and dangerous for the individuals placed in jail or prison.

Poor people go to jail for misdemeanors. This is wrong & unfair. We need better ways to handle minor offenses.

So the only possible alternative is simply not to prosecute or enforce those laws?

Clearly, you do not understand the criminal justice system. There are several alternatives. Plea deals; bench trial; defendant can just plead guilty; alternative sentencing that may or may not include jail time (weekend in jail so defendant can continue to work; community service; monetary fines; probation; and some accused of crimes may not be guilty/have a legal defense.

Those don't seem like good alternatives for people who are not guilty. It looks more like the system will threaten to prosecute for high jail times and lots of crimes, or you can plea down to a little bit of jail time for a single charge, and the innocent are advised to take the plea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trial by jury is in the constitution.

Not for misdemeanors. Not the worst idea, but it needs to be separated out from the rest of the legislation and then phased in over a period of years to allow for the courts to build up their capacity with more judges more personnel and a bigger jury pool to allow for additional jury trials.

In Washington State, you can request a jury trial for misdemeanors. The system works fine, but because that's been the rule for years, there are enough prosecutors, judges, etc., to handle it. You can't just flip that switch.

Did you really just cite a system that has serial repeat offenders being temporarily picked up and immediately released right back onto the streets of seattle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trial by jury is in the constitution.

Not for misdemeanors. Not the worst idea, but it needs to be separated out from the rest of the legislation and then phased in over a period of years to allow for the courts to build up their capacity with more judges more personnel and a bigger jury pool to allow for additional jury trials.

In Washington State, you can request a jury trial for misdemeanors. The system works fine, but because that's been the rule for years, there are enough prosecutors, judges, etc., to handle it. You can't just flip that switch.

Yeah, isn’t Superior Court down something like 14 judges already? The volume increase that this would represent for judicial, prosecution, and defense resources would have to be millions not currently budgeted. Has the Council identified the funding or is the intent to make this an u funded mandate, essentially ensuring misdemeanors don’t get prosecuted?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any person facing potential jail time SHOULD be able to demand a jury trial.

This proposed law is not the problem; putting people in jail for up to a year for minor offenses is the real problem.

The US incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world.

Jailing people for minor offenses is expensive to taxpayers and dangerous for the individuals placed in jail or prison.

Poor people go to jail for misdemeanors. This is wrong & unfair. We need better ways to handle minor offenses.

It's funny how this is basically the opposite of how DC handles traffic offenses.

The penalties for speeding and other infractions are pretty stiff and keep getting stiffer. When people say they're disproportionate to the offense, the response is invariably, "don't speed -- obey the law and you have nothing to worry about."

But here, with penalties for real actual crimes like violent assaults, the attitude is never "if you don't commit crimes, you have nothing to worry about." The attitude is always "can't we go easier on people who commit violent assaults?"

How is granting one the option of a right to a trial by jury going easier on a defendant ?

Because people who commit crime know ahead of time that the justice system will be completely overwhelmed with trials. Anyone caught committing crime will just demand a trial and get released because the trial won't occur until 2-3 years from now. In all likelihood, the charges will even be dropped because of a backlog in the courts. In essence, there will be no punishment for crime, so watch thefts, property damage, stealing, etc. skyrocket.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most misdemeanors plead out anyway now, jury trial or not. Not sure how this changes anything.

There is truth in the history of over criminalizing young Black men for petty stuff like loitering, small amounts of marijuana, etc. And those charges often do get dropped.

But there is a need to address the decline in quality of life caused by the pervasiveness of these petty infractions. They really do damage communities. Someone has to stop it when asked. And police do, and often the only tool any of government has is arrest. You can throw as many mental health workers and homelessness counselors at the problem as you want. But you can't force a person to accept housing. And there is a small but significant portion of the homeless community who wants nothing to do with housing. Same with trying to treat mental illness. So many people don't want treatment. And same with substance misuse.

So where are our society's priorities when one person's rights infringe on another's? It's not an easy problem to solve. I personally want to continue to protect the quality of life for law abiding residents who are just trying to live their lives.

Yes, you can. You just have to make living on the streets illegal. You can also change commitment laws. For example, I believe that sleeping on the street (especially when you are high or mentally ill) makes you a imminent danger to yourself. By definition, you deserve to be committed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the republicans bashing on this forum (of which most is well deserved), why are Democrats so stupid? Do they want us to lose to the republicans? It seems that we are handing them a fat W with all this insanely progressive BS that most of us don’t want.

It's about power. Many progressive politicians are capitalizing on the movement to be seen as anti-racist, gender inclusive, etc. But they are doing it to further their own careers, rather than to truly help the people they talk about.

And we feel good about that. It feels much better to vote for the antiracist than the anti-everything on the right. We are all on the correct side of history, right?

Except they make everything worse with rapid and horrific policy. Rather than sit down with experts, and methodically work through the nuts and bolts of good changes. Good change takes longer, but nobody has the patience for that anymore.

This. Same with education policy reform as well.

How? What education policy reforms are happening that are like this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the republicans bashing on this forum (of which most is well deserved), why are Democrats so stupid? Do they want us to lose to the republicans? It seems that we are handing them a fat W with all this insanely progressive BS that most of us don’t want.

It's about power. Many progressive politicians are capitalizing on the movement to be seen as anti-racist, gender inclusive, etc. But they are doing it to further their own careers, rather than to truly help the people they talk about.

And we feel good about that. It feels much better to vote for the antiracist than the anti-everything on the right. We are all on the correct side of history, right?

Except they make everything worse with rapid and horrific policy. Rather than sit down with experts, and methodically work through the nuts and bolts of good changes. Good change takes longer, but nobody has the patience for that anymore.

This. Same with education policy reform as well.

How? What education policy reforms are happening that are like this?

Let’s see. Progressive education policy is as hamfisted as progressive criminal justice policy, just in different ways. It’s all about style and less about substance.

Ending gifted and talented classes and ap classes and placing remedial learners with advanced learners out of “fairness”. This only harms the most advanced students who will one day be our engineers.

Ending neutral testing for entrance to schools like TJ. Don’t even get me started on this, but I guess taking the top 10% from other schools is how it is supposed to work now…we’ll see in the long run if those students who normally couldn’t pass an entrance exam for entrance can thrive or whether the school has to bend and water down its curriculum to accommodate these students.

Or how “the right answer” to a math equation is not as important as how you show your work. I guess I just a lot of progressive policy as making things easier in order to get better statistical outcomes. Even if these stats mean things are actually getting better and communities are any safer or on a macro level if students in America are getting smarter.

[Anonymous]

The progressive city counsel wants to turn D.C. into San Francisco.

[Anonymous]

The Council needs to stop focusing on keeping people out of jail and focus on putting resources towards developing truly rehabilitative youth facilities which will actually try to reform (and to a large extent "re-parent") youth offenders. (and that means everybody under age 26). But do not leave the violent to continue walking around with the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any person facing potential jail time SHOULD be able to demand a jury trial.

This proposed law is not the problem; putting people in jail for up to a year for minor offenses is the real problem.

The US incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world.

Jailing people for minor offenses is expensive to taxpayers and dangerous for the individuals placed in jail or prison.

Poor people go to jail for misdemeanors. This is wrong & unfair. We need better ways to handle minor offenses.

So the only possible alternative is simply not to prosecute or enforce those laws?

Clearly, you do not understand the criminal justice system. There are several alternatives. Plea deals; bench trial; defendant can just plead guilty; alternative sentencing that may or may not include jail time (weekend in jail so defendant can continue to work; community service; monetary fines; probation; and some accused of crimes may not be guilty/have a legal defense.

Interesting. Since there is a possibility someone might be not guilty, we shouldn't prosecute. Good to know.

I think that you misread the post that you quoted as you clearly misunderstood it. Do you understand that prosecution of an alleged offense is necessary before for a sentence to be imposed and that plea deals contain sentences. All , are of sentences. Sometimes one is given the opportunity to enter a diversionary program--but even these involve sentences of required counseling, community service, maybe a fine, or whatever the prosecution and the court approve under the legal framework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any person facing potential jail time SHOULD be able to demand a jury trial.

This proposed law is not the problem; putting people in jail for up to a year for minor offenses is the real problem.

The US incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world.

Jailing people for minor offenses is expensive to taxpayers and dangerous for the individuals placed in jail or prison.

Poor people go to jail for misdemeanors. This is wrong & unfair. We need better ways to handle minor offenses.

So the only possible alternative is simply not to prosecute or enforce those laws?

Clearly, you do not understand the criminal justice system. There are several alternatives. Plea deals; bench trial; defendant can just plead guilty; alternative sentencing that may or may not include jail time (weekend in jail so defendant can continue to work; community service; monetary fines; probation; and some accused of crimes may not be guilty/have a legal defense.

Interesting. Since there is a possibility someone might be not guilty, we shouldn't prosecute. Good to know.

your reading comprehension skills are ghastly.

[Anonymous]