Awesome job. I’ve already voted with my feet and almost never go into the city any longer, but interesting to see the details of what’s going on with my former home of 20 years.
For the big picture and comparisons between cities, the interactive dashboard at the end of this report is interesting to play with.
They have a role and have made some mistakes and here are some of the factors in play:
- DC judges sentence people within the recommended sentencing guidelines ~97%-99% of the time.
- Within those guidelines they tend to sentence within the low end of those guidelines.
- The biggest reason people get shorter sentences is that the actual offense they are convicted of is a lesser one than what they were charged with. So for example if someone is charged with Aggravated Assault and the USAO offers a plea bargain where the suspect only pleads guilty to Attempted Assault with a Dangerous Weapon then the sentence will be much less because the sentencing guidelines call for less in "Attempted ADW". This post gets into this trend. In many, many cases violent felonies are sentenced like misdemeanors because that is what the USAO offers in the plea bargain: https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/p/the-rhetoric-and-reality-of-dcs-prosecutors
- Another part of the sentencing guidelines that interacts with prosecution is that people with a higher prior "Criminal History Score" get harsher sentences (which makes sense). And DC judges comply with this; sentencing people with higher criminal history scores to longer prison terms: https://twitter.com/dccrimefacts/status/1750930794497900835
- HOWEVER, because the USAO dialed down prosecution and convictions over the last several years that means when criminal re-offend now they have a much LOWER official criminal history score than they would have if the USAO had been functioning like they were pre-2017 or so. All of those cases that were dropped or pled down to misdemeanors simply aren't increasing offenders' criminal history scores like they would have under a normal prosecutor.
What is the reason for the US Attorney not wanting to prosecute more people? If we take it as true that 67 percent or so of the arrests are viable for prosecution why do they actually want to prosecute less than that? At rate that as you've pointed out is much lower than pretty much anywhere else in the US.
We'll never get a straight answer from them but some of the reasons that tend to align with their incentives are:
- More cases = more work
- Losing a case is penalized/worse for your career than not taking a case or dropping a case
- Rhetoric from the top of the USAO that the only prosecutions that matter are the "very serious violent crimes" or ones that result in lengthy prison sentences (a very small % of their caseload). This could reduce the eagerness to take most rimes seriously (which undermines deterrence).
- No accountability for their prosecution rate, plea bargaining behavior etc. No fear of being voted out of office by the people of Washington DC
- They were doing this for years and no one said anything...so at this point low prosecutions and generous plea bargains are established norms so change requires some outside intervention
- Some unknown unwillingness to take cases to District Court
Does this seem to be the case with other US Attorney offices though? I know that others don't have the same responsibility for prosecuting local crimes, but how much of this is driven by current leadership (Graves) versus overall DOJ policy? And is any of it related to resources given that they have more cases to prosecute compared to other US Attorney offices given their local responsibilities?
And that part I also don't get is why aren't the House Republicans more worked up when it comes to Graves? Feels like an easy target in terms of Biden political appointees.
It's hard to say. The USAO in DC is truly unique in its local crime role. There is a national DOJ goal for 90% success rates for violent crime convictions which if applied to the USAO-DC's caseload would be very different from other offices' caseloads. We also have no transparency into their resourcing now or over time other than the fact that the DOJ announced in January that they are sending more prosecutors (so an implicit admission that they didn't have enough). House Republicans have been generally critical of Graves and his office's handling of local crime when they've discussed DC crime in hearings but that often gets mixed in with Republican opposition to January 6th investigations.
It's possible but they don't share any kind of staffing data (the way MPD is mandated to) for us to evaluate this. Obviously there has been a huge decrease in their local DC caseload but they are still claiming to judges that they are slammed...so maybe their workforce has shrunk?
USA Graves has only commented on this a few times: "Graves said the office temporarily had resources stretched thin in recent years, though some of those problems had abated. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, he said his office temporarily pulled about 15 prosecutors and staffers from D.C. Superior Court cases to focus on prosecuting the federal cases. Graves said all of those staffers have since returned to D.C. Superior Court side or their positions have been filled by other prosecutors." https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/29/us-attorneys-office-charges-declined-dc-police/
I don't have the exact quote but when Graves was on the Politics Hour he referenced that only a very small % of his staff was still on January 6th cases as of 2023.
I tend not to focus on that because we don't have any solid evidence...Graves doesn't want to say that local crime suffered because of January 6th for obvious reasons and they did solicit prosecutors from across DOJ to assist with the January 6th cases.
It's definitely possible but the trend in declination rates was already there pre-Jan 6 2021 and the continued drop in 2021-2022 is also probably driven by the crime lab losing accreditation as well...so it's very difficult to untangle without any transparent staffing/caseload data from the USAO.
This is EXCELLENT data. Thank you for your work on educating us on the granular nature of these issues. Chief Smith is awesome!
Awesome job. I’ve already voted with my feet and almost never go into the city any longer, but interesting to see the details of what’s going on with my former home of 20 years.
For the big picture and comparisons between cities, the interactive dashboard at the end of this report is interesting to play with.
https://counciloncj.org/year-end-2023-crime-trends/
What is the DC criminal judges’ role in all this? I feel they drive some of these slap on the wrists sentence or lack of prosecution
They have a role and have made some mistakes and here are some of the factors in play:
- DC judges sentence people within the recommended sentencing guidelines ~97%-99% of the time.
- Within those guidelines they tend to sentence within the low end of those guidelines.
- The biggest reason people get shorter sentences is that the actual offense they are convicted of is a lesser one than what they were charged with. So for example if someone is charged with Aggravated Assault and the USAO offers a plea bargain where the suspect only pleads guilty to Attempted Assault with a Dangerous Weapon then the sentence will be much less because the sentencing guidelines call for less in "Attempted ADW". This post gets into this trend. In many, many cases violent felonies are sentenced like misdemeanors because that is what the USAO offers in the plea bargain: https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/p/the-rhetoric-and-reality-of-dcs-prosecutors
- Another part of the sentencing guidelines that interacts with prosecution is that people with a higher prior "Criminal History Score" get harsher sentences (which makes sense). And DC judges comply with this; sentencing people with higher criminal history scores to longer prison terms: https://twitter.com/dccrimefacts/status/1750930794497900835
- HOWEVER, because the USAO dialed down prosecution and convictions over the last several years that means when criminal re-offend now they have a much LOWER official criminal history score than they would have if the USAO had been functioning like they were pre-2017 or so. All of those cases that were dropped or pled down to misdemeanors simply aren't increasing offenders' criminal history scores like they would have under a normal prosecutor.
What is the reason for the US Attorney not wanting to prosecute more people? If we take it as true that 67 percent or so of the arrests are viable for prosecution why do they actually want to prosecute less than that? At rate that as you've pointed out is much lower than pretty much anywhere else in the US.
We'll never get a straight answer from them but some of the reasons that tend to align with their incentives are:
- More cases = more work
- Losing a case is penalized/worse for your career than not taking a case or dropping a case
- Rhetoric from the top of the USAO that the only prosecutions that matter are the "very serious violent crimes" or ones that result in lengthy prison sentences (a very small % of their caseload). This could reduce the eagerness to take most rimes seriously (which undermines deterrence).
- Rhetoric from the top that because of court rulings they are so hamstrung that they shouldn't bother. A lot of the "why things are tough" explanations from the USAO tend to be framed in a very defeatist tone: "We lost 75% of cases where the D.C. Court of Appeals were analyzing these sorts of issues" https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/investigations/matthew-graves-us-attorney-4th-amendment-cases-lost/65-93c2162b-41f2-4caf-b37f-30d95c4a4cdf#:~:text=%22We%20lost%2075%25%20of%20cases,Constitution%20as%20they%20see%20it.
- No accountability for their prosecution rate, plea bargaining behavior etc. No fear of being voted out of office by the people of Washington DC
- They were doing this for years and no one said anything...so at this point low prosecutions and generous plea bargains are established norms so change requires some outside intervention
- Some unknown unwillingness to take cases to District Court
Does this seem to be the case with other US Attorney offices though? I know that others don't have the same responsibility for prosecuting local crimes, but how much of this is driven by current leadership (Graves) versus overall DOJ policy? And is any of it related to resources given that they have more cases to prosecute compared to other US Attorney offices given their local responsibilities?
And that part I also don't get is why aren't the House Republicans more worked up when it comes to Graves? Feels like an easy target in terms of Biden political appointees.
It's hard to say. The USAO in DC is truly unique in its local crime role. There is a national DOJ goal for 90% success rates for violent crime convictions which if applied to the USAO-DC's caseload would be very different from other offices' caseloads. We also have no transparency into their resourcing now or over time other than the fact that the DOJ announced in January that they are sending more prosecutors (so an implicit admission that they didn't have enough). House Republicans have been generally critical of Graves and his office's handling of local crime when they've discussed DC crime in hearings but that often gets mixed in with Republican opposition to January 6th investigations.
Was the USAO maybe so focused on Jan 6 (important!) that they were less focused on DC local crime or spread too thin?
It's possible but they don't share any kind of staffing data (the way MPD is mandated to) for us to evaluate this. Obviously there has been a huge decrease in their local DC caseload but they are still claiming to judges that they are slammed...so maybe their workforce has shrunk?
https://twitter.com/dccrimefacts/status/1744099350559523248
USA Graves has only commented on this a few times: "Graves said the office temporarily had resources stretched thin in recent years, though some of those problems had abated. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, he said his office temporarily pulled about 15 prosecutors and staffers from D.C. Superior Court cases to focus on prosecuting the federal cases. Graves said all of those staffers have since returned to D.C. Superior Court side or their positions have been filled by other prosecutors." https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/29/us-attorneys-office-charges-declined-dc-police/
I don't have the exact quote but when Graves was on the Politics Hour he referenced that only a very small % of his staff was still on January 6th cases as of 2023.
I tend not to focus on that because we don't have any solid evidence...Graves doesn't want to say that local crime suffered because of January 6th for obvious reasons and they did solicit prosecutors from across DOJ to assist with the January 6th cases.
It's definitely possible but the trend in declination rates was already there pre-Jan 6 2021 and the continued drop in 2021-2022 is also probably driven by the crime lab losing accreditation as well...so it's very difficult to untangle without any transparent staffing/caseload data from the USAO.