Criminal Justice Reform in Virginia: The Road Ahead
“Criminal Justice Reform 101”
This week, voters all across the Commonwealth of Virginia made clear that they want a change. Nowhere was this clearer than in the area of criminal justice reform. Voters in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, and Albemarle joined other jurisdictions like Alexandria, Charlottesville, and Portsmouth in choosing Commonwealth’s Attorneys who think they should be guided by more than just tough on crime policies. Additionally, many candidates for the House of Delegates and the Senate ran on platforms that included criminal justice reform. For the first time in years, our legislature will have a real opportunity to change our criminal legal system for the better.
Everyone should celebrate these outcomes, but the hard work is still to come. Our criminal legal system in Virginia is in dire need of improvement. As we have stated before, many around the country want to focus on advanced issues relating to criminal law, but in Virginia we need to start by fixing some of the low level problems – this is Criminal Justice Reform 101. This is not to say that we cannot, and will not, aim higher, but there is a lot to do, and we should start at the ground level.
Our Legislative Agenda: Pretrial Justice, Discovery Reform, Ending the Trial Penalty and More
This session, we will be focusing on issues that will make our criminal system fairer and reduce the impact of mass incarceration and racial bias (read our 2020 legislative agenda here). Last year, some members of the General Assembly convinced the Supreme Court to delay bipartisan discovery reform in Virginia. The General Assembly must act to end trial by ambush in Virginia and allow people accused of crimes to know the evidence against them.
Bail reform is also desperately needed to stop the practice of holding people in our local jails when they pose no danger and have not been convicted of a crime. Attorneys should be able to tell juries what the sentencing range is during jury selection so that they can make sure both sides have an impartial jury. Prosecutors should not have a say in whether the accused gets expert assistance. Prosecutors also should not get more money for every felony they indict. People who were young when they were convicted of a crime, or not convicted at all, should also not have to jump through hoops to get their arrest record expunged. Finally, a schoolyard fight and a violent, armed robbery are very different crimes that should not both result in the same five-year minimum sentence from a jury. All of these ought to be non-controversial changes that will make our system fairer.
Prosecutors, Defenders, Advocates and the Community: We’re All in This Together
New prosecutors who were elected to bring fairness to this system will need to be held to their campaign promises, and they will also need to be supported by the community when they push to make changes. We have already seen throughout the country, and in our own Commonwealth, that many other actors in the system will fight to preserve the status quo. New prosecutors will need support as they work to change the system.
Finally, with all of these new reform-minded prosecutors and delegates, it is important to remember that there are many groups who have been doing the day-to-day work of reforming the criminal legal system for years. Public defenders, private defense attorneys, advocacy groups, families and other directly impacted persons have all been on the front lines of this fight. These groups are critical to reform and should be included in any discussions about ways to reform the system.
The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We just might be at a point where we can start to see the bend.
Learn More About JFV’s 2020 Reform Agenda
Read more about the initiatives Justice Forward Virginia is supporting here, in our summary of 2020 criminal justice reform legislation. Included among the proposals are the following:
Eliminate Mandatory Minimums
Tell Jurors the Truth About Sentencing
Create “Degrees” of Robbery
Reform Virginia’s Arcane Discovery Rules
Stop Rewarding Prosecutors for Overcharging
Let Indigent Defendants Seek Expert Assistance Without Giving Away Trial Strategy
End Cash Bail
Fund 59 New Public Defender Positions
Legalize Marijuana
Abolish Capital Punishment
Raise the Larceny Threshold to $2000
Restore the Parole System
Expungement Reform
Raise the Age at Which Children Can Be Tried as Adults
Read more about the initiatives Justice Forward Virginia is supporting here, in our summary of 2020 proposed criminal justice reform legislation.