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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is a great piece! Just a few excerpts below make me dislike the council and their idiotic childish decisions without any regard for the longer term.

https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-im-worried-about-dcs-criminal

I really started paying attention to this process when the U.S. Attorney for D.C. raised objections to a small number of the rewrite’s provisions. I assumed that either the Council would address his concerns or else there would be a huge high-profile political fight about it. But neither of those things happened, and the Council proceeded full-steam ahead, even as the mayor and the chief of police joined the U.S. Attorney in raising red flags.

Suffice it to say, though, that I hope rational people can agree that Mayor Muriel Bowser, Police Chief Robert Contee, and U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves are not right-wing media personalities or dilettante pundits. Running through advocates’ side of the argument over this, it seems to me that they can’t decide whether they’re dispelling the myth that this is a soft-on-crime, anti-carceral measure or motivated by the fact that that’s exactly what it is.

the biggest issue with this legislation without explaining why it’s controversial: the Revised Criminal Code Act is going to require either a large expansion in the number of jury trials held in the city or else a significant reduction in enforcement of the law against people who commit misdemeanor offenses.

the Council actually can’t provide the resources in question due to the unusual constitutional status of the D.C. legal system.

[/quote]

Matt makes a solid argument. Reinstating the right to jury trials for misdemeanors is a nice idea in a world without resource constraints, but will likely have adverse consequences given prevailing realities. That doesn’t change the fact though that key provisions of the RCCA have been blatantly mischaracterized by politicians and pundits seeking to score cheap political points from credulous constituents.[/quote]

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