The state senate is breaking from the Special Session for a long weekend. But, before they left Richmond, they moved a sentencing reform effort forward.
The right to a trial by jury is a key part of how the court system works in Virginia. But what happens after that? Virginia is one of the few states where defendants who get tried by a jury also get sentenced by a jury. Criminal justice advocates say that leads to much longer sentences. That’s why members of a Senate panel approved a bill to allow judges to sentence defendants who are found guilty by a jury.
Republican Senator Mark Obenshain of Harrisonburg says that’s a mistake.
“It says we do not trust our citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia to sit in judgement and to hand down punishment for people who are prosecuted and convicted of crimes,” he says.
The Senate passed this bill earlier this year, but it died in the House where members were concerned about the potential cost.
Senator Joe Morrissey, a Democrat from Richmond, says Connecticut and Nebraska have judge sentencing of jury trials, and they have two of the lowest percentages of jury trials in the country.
“Any suggestion that it will increase cost because you’re going to increase the number of juries is simply false, and is not borne out by the statistics,” explains Morrissey.
House members say they want to wait for the outcome of a Crime Commission study on how much this change will cost, so if senators want to make this change during the special session they’ll need to figure some way of getting House Democrats on board.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
