Author: Michael Rushford

The Washington DC City Council has unanimously passed a bill rewriting the district’s 100-year-old criminal code, as reported by Matt Pusatory and Jess Arnold of CBS News.  Supporters said that the change was “long overdue.”  Among the revisions will be the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences and enactment of early sentence review, for offenders sentenced under previous law.  The bill would also reclassify all crimes, for example; distinguishing robbery from armed robbery.  It also gives the right to a jury trial to misdemeanor defendants.  This would overwhelm the district’s court system, putting pressure on prosecutors and judges to plea bargain.  Commenting on the elimination of mandatory minimums, Councilmember Charles Allen, the head of panel which adopted the bill said, “In regards to mandatory minimums….they frequently just tie the hands of judges and juries, and treat all victims as if they were the same.”  Apparently Mr. Allen believes that convicted criminals are victims.  It is not clear that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been criticized for DC’s 18-year high in homicides and other violent crimes, will sign a bill reducing sentences.  The problem Bowser faces was highlighted hours before the bill passed last Tuesday, as ex-con Kelvin Blowe, who advocated for the shorter sentences, was fatally shot on his way home from work, as reported by Fox News.

Progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon’s effort to reduce the sentences of every murderer in the county received a setback last week courtesy of the state’s Second District Court of Appeal.  In the case of People v. Machado a unanimous panel held that a trial judge has the discretion to refuse a sentence reduction even if both the district attorney and the defense attorney request it.  The City News Service reports that convicted murderer Ernest Machado appealed a trial judge’s refusal to reduce his 25-years-to-life sentence for a 1982 conviction for first-degree felony murder.  He claimed that SB 1437, a 2018 sentencing reform law eliminating most murder convictions for accomplices, invalidated his conviction.  In this case, the evidence indicated that both Machado and his accomplice participated in the murder and robbery, allowing both to be convicted under the felony murder rule.  Machado also claimed that Gascon’s 2020 directive ordering his deputies not to oppose a murderer’s request for a reduced sentence, required the judge to grant it.

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The man who attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ‘s husband in their San Francisco home last week is an illegal alien who has been living in the U.S. since 2008, according to CNBC.  David DePape, a Canadian, crossed the southern border as a temporary visitor, which allowed him to stay in the U.S. for six months.  For the past several years he has been living in a converted bus in Berkeley.   The New York Post reports that his ex-girlfriend, who is currently in prison, said that DePape has been mentally ill for years.  The Department of Homeland Security has sent a detainer request to the San Francisco Police Department asking that they hold him for deportation after his trial.  De Pape has been charged with attempted murder and multiple other crimes related to his October 28 hammer assault on 82-year-old Paul Pelosi. Under California law, attempted murder is punishable  by 5 to 9 years in prison.  Unfortunately, because California is a sanctuary state, if and when De Pape completes his sentence, he will not be turned over to ICE for deportation.

A Southern California man convicted on 16 counts of arson in 2021 and sentenced to five years in prison, has been rearrested for setting at least eight fires in North Hollywood last Wednesday.  Eric Leonard of NBC Los Angeles reports that 35 year-old David Rivas was released from prison on October 7 after serving 1/3 (18 months) of his sentence.  Arson is considered a serious crime under California law, but sentencing reforms, including Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 57, have given the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation the authority to grant early release of criminals, even those with priors for rape and murder.  Rivas is being held without bail, and faces trial on seven counts of arson.   Anybody confused about why there is so much crime in major California cities?

The campaign to recall Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon won a ruling last week setting a December 6 hearing date for their challenge the county registrar-recorder’s refusal to allow a review of roughly 90,000 petition signatures rejected as invalid.  City News Service reports that the recall campaign had asked for an earlier hearing date than the January 26, 2023 date previously announced.  The campaign argued that the registrar’s office has not been transparent and that an injunction is necessary to provide more access and information to conduct a thorough review,

California may be the capitol of wokeness.  On almost every area of policy, be it energy, education, the economy, elections, morality, climate, jobs, health, law, religion and crime, the Golden State has set the national standard for political correctness.   The commitment to the extreme leftist narrative is so entrenched that even as the state’s policies are making life unbearable for large segments of the population, its leaders and their supporters continue to push it.  Crime and law enforcement have become dominant political issues precisely because of the government’s obsession with a reform agenda that began to be implemented by Governor Jerry Brown in 2011.  As crime and violence have increased, anyone pointing this out has been labeled a “fearmonger” or “racist” by the dominant media and both state and local political leaders.

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