An Arlington Circuit Court Judge has recently rejected a plea deal because it “went to easy” on a defendant. The same Arlington Circuit Court Judge recently tried to limit the discretion of prosecutors to unilaterally get rid of penalties for minor drug crimes. The judge’s reasoning was that two-misdemeanor conviction under the plea deal would not adequately deter future conduct because of the amount of drugs seized (50 pounds of marijuana and 400 hash oil cartridges). The defendant was originally caught by a drug sniffing dog when he was flying into Reagan National Airport. He was subsequently charged with two felonies that carried a maximum sentence up to 70 years. Under the plea agreement though, the defendant would have two misdemeanor convictions and 200 hours of community service.
This appears to be a ramping up of the friction between the judiciary and commonwealth’s attorneys. First, the prosecutor on this case would not tell the judge the quantity of drugs seized at Reagan National Airport until the judge pressed him on the issue. Additionally, just last month, the Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney petitioned the Supreme Court of Virginia to bar enforcement of a court order that required specific reasons for motions to dismiss or reduce a criminal charge. It does appear that the Virginia House of Delegates are taking notice of the friction and are trying to remedy it. On Sept. 22 the House of Delegates approved a requirement that judges are required to grant prosecution dismissals unless there is clear and convincing evidence of “bad faith.” This need of bad faith can be directly paralleled to the Michael Flynn prosecution happening in the District Court of Washington D.C., where the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office sought to dismiss Michael Flynn’s case, which was starkly due to political reasons. The judge refused to outright dismiss the case and the D.C. Circuit said that because Flynn could not show harm by the refusal to outright dismiss the case, and thus he lost.
It does appear that when the Supreme Court of Virginia rules on this issue, they could rule more favorably toward judges. This belief is because the Supreme Court of Virginia recently ruled on a similar issue out of Norfolk, Va. that a judge has not “clear and unequivocal duty” to grant a motion for dismiss. Though with this new proposed statute from the House of Delegates it could cause the Virginia Supreme Court to choose to back down on when a judge has a duty to accept a plea agreement in order to make sure the House of Delegates do not continuously strip discretion away from the judiciary.
