COST CONCERNS DERAIL SENTENCING BILL
Delegate: Taking sentencing out of jury’s hands could cost state ‘$50 million to $100 million’ a year
Cost concerns appear to have derailed a bill to drastically revamp Virginia’s jury trial sentencing system.
Lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee voiced concern that the legislation — allowing defendants to choose to be sentenced by a judge rather than the jury that just convicted them — could lead to many more jury trials across the state.
The problem, the lawmakers said, was making sure the state has the money to cover the costs of all of the trials.
Del. Barry D. Knight, R-Virginia Beach, said that those costs — such as for new prosecutors, public defenders and jurors — “could be $50 million to $100” million a year statewide.
“That could blow a big hole in the budget,” Knight said. “We’re charged with the fiduciary responsibility here.”
Citing such cost concerns, Knight put forward an amendment to the bill saying the change to the state sentencing system must be “re-enacted” again in the next legislative session early next year before it can take effect.
That waters down the sentencing bill significantly: If it passes the legislature with Knight’s caveat, it would mean the legislative process on the change would need to start all over again in January.
Knight’s amendment passed the House Appropriations Committee on a 12-9 vote, with four Democrats crossing over to vote with Republicans.
With that change, the larger reform bill, supported mostly by Democrats, passed the Appropriations Committee on a 13-9 vote, then sailed through the full House of Delegates Friday on a 57-32 tally.
The legislation will go to a conference committee for negotiations with the Senate, which has already passed the bill without Knight’s amendment. But it’s considered a long shot that the measure would now pass the full General Assembly without a requirement that it be voted on again next year.
Those on all sides of the debate say the bill, sponsored by Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Richmond, would be one of the state’s biggest criminal justice reforms in decades.
In 44 states and in federal court, defendants who are tried and convicted by juries are then sentenced by judges at later hearings. But in Virginia and a few other states, the same jury that decides guilt or innocence then goes into an immediate sentencing hearing.
Though juries are more likely than judges to acquit defendants — given that only one juror can block a conviction — they tend to hand down stiffer punishments on the guilty.
Unlike judges, juries in Virginia don’t get discretionary state sentencing guidelines and don’t have the power to suspend time or run sentences together. And though judges have the power to reduce jury sentences later, they hardly ever do so.
Proponents say the change to all-judge sentencing will do away with Virginia’s “jury penalty” — the stiffer sentences that can result when defendants exercise their constitutional right to a jury trial.
That will make jury trials less risky, they say, causing prosecutors to offer fairer plea deals rather than holding the trial over their head as a threat. Opponents, however, contend the change will take power out of citizens’ hands and tilt the state’s jury trial system in favor of defendants. They also say it will lead to many more jury trials — leading to significant trial delays across the state — and greatly increased costs.
Morrissey pressed House Appropriations Committee members to pass his bill without the requirement that it must be considered again next session. He contends that the number of jury trials won’t spike with the change, and that the reform will actually save the state money because it will lead to shorter prison terms.
The Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys, Morrissey said, “has done a magnificent job suggesting that it’s going to implode, the system’s cost will explode, and we’re going to have an exorbitant number of jury trials.”
He asserted that the fear of increased costs is disproved by numerous other states that have judge-only sentencing. “All this will do will be to force prosecutors to give plea agreements commensurate with the charge or the offense,” Morrissey told the House Appropriations Committee. “And that’s it.”
“So congratulations to (the prosecutor’s association) for making a suggestion that we will have millions and millions expended,” Morrissey said. “It’s not going to happen. And additionally, the global savings to the Commonwealth is going to be in the tens if not hundreds of millions, because we’re not going to have the cost associated with mass excessive incarceration.”
But four of the 13 Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, including its chairman Luke Torian, D-Dumfries, crossed party lines to back Knight’s amendment.
Torian, a member of the state’s legislative black caucus, said he isn’t against the change — “not at all” — but that care must be exercised with so much at stake.
“We simply want to make sure that we’re doing the right thing financially in regard to the stewardship of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” he said.
“We have a responsibility as the House Appropriations Committee to determine how much this piece of legislation is going to cost us,” Torian added, saying the “challenge we have” is that the financial projections are so far “undetermined.”
The Virginia Crime Commission already has a study underway on what the change means for jury trials and costs. Torian said it’s better to wait until that study is concluded before adopting the change.
“This is a very serious matter on all fronts — I get that,” Torian said. “It has received a great deal of attention. But we must do our job, and we must do it right.”