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.

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.

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.

For instance David Krucoff in the ward 3 council race is running away with this issue by opposing the dangerous reforms in the criminal code revision such as elimination of the felony murder rule, restricting mandatory minimum sentencing etc. Charles Allen has endorsed his opponent.

Felony murder is a BS law that is very much abused by prosecutors and amazingly doesn't get much attention. But I 100% agree with your larger point.

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.

For instance David Krucoff in the ward 3 council race is running away with this issue by opposing the dangerous reforms in the criminal code revision such as elimination of the felony murder rule, restricting mandatory minimum sentencing etc. Charles Allen has endorsed his opponent.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:Trial by jury is in the constitution.

So are guns.

Trial by jury is in the constitution.

Anonymous wrote:It will create a decline that will take decades to remedy.

Um, isn’t this exactly what residents voted for? Why act surprised now??

It will create a decline that will take decades to remedy.

Agreed. This is so disheartening and infuriating. I tried to engage Allen over email in a kind way expressing my concern and he was completely dismissive. He actually seems to believe he is tough on crime. I gave up. I would vote for anyone else.

Anonymous wrote:I hate that Charles Allen is trying to rush this through before the House flips to the Republicans. The first vote is on Friday afternoon.

I also feel like the public has zero idea of what is actually in this bill. There is no summary. The hearings have not been well publicized.

Very, very shady.

Oh good, another progressive tidbit to sour independents and moderates right before midterms

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

I hate that Charles Allen is trying to rush this through before the House flips to the Republicans. The first vote is on Friday afternoon.

I also feel like the public has zero idea of what is actually in this bill. There is no summary. The hearings have not been well publicized.

Very, very shady.

Look, I get that aspects of the criminal code need overhaul, but the geniuses running the city council now want to modify the code so that anyone charged with potential for jail time will be able to demand a trial by jury. This should send shivers down the spine of each and everyone law abiding citizen in DC. We all know what will predictably happen, which is that any criminal committing any offense will just demand a trial because courts will be backed up for years. They will let criminals go with absolute zero punishment. All misdemeanors will now require trial by jury, which is patently absurd.

https://wtop.com/dc/2022/10/overhaul-of-dcs-120-year-old-mess-of-criminal-laws-presented-to-council/

The issue is so worrisome that even the DoJ has explicitly warned that the DC council's ideas threaten public safety and undermine the distribution of justice:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/us-attorneys-offices-statement-dc-criminal-code-reform

To put this in perspective, look at this woman in CA who survived a horrific rape at hands of a criminal who only hours earlier had been let go by cops because no one would likely prosecute him since it required a jury trial.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/10/19/torrance-woman-recounts-harrowing-rape-by-alleged-attacker-hours-after-his-release-from-jail/

CA is exactly what will happen in DC, as the article mentions:

As of March 2017, which are the most recent statistics available, less than 1% of pretrial county jail inmates were there for misdemeanor crimes, Siddall said.

The DC council is basically telling criminals out there that all crime is not going to be punished unless it is flatout murder. Absolutely preposterous.