The Virginia House Criminal Subcommittee advanced a package of criminal justice reform bills targeting court fines, fees, and incarceration inequities — including bills limiting debt collection timelines, equalizing earned sentence credits for jail versus prison time, and restricting convictions under deferred dispositions based solely on inability to pay court costs. The most contested item, HB 26 on marijuana-offense resentencing, was carried to Friday's docket over objections from the Virginia Association of Commonwealth Attorneys about the scope of eligible offenses.
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Brian Haskins (Virginia Association of Commonwealth Attorneys) argued that paragraph B of HB 26 allows resentencing on other felonies beyond marijuana offenses as long as the date of conviction is the same, including DUI manslaughter, child abuse or neglect, and possession of child pornography, because violent offense exclusions do not cover those crimes. Delegate Henson countered that it is the circuit court's prerogative to decide whether to hear the case and that judges are not forced to reduce a sentence. Haskins noted that paragraph B was struck from a prior version that the governor still vetoed, and that VACA took no position once it was removed.
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“In jurisdictions like Charlottesville, Lexington and Warren county, judges enter convictions in these cases when a person has completed all the requirements except payment of court costs. And so this creates a two tiered system of justice, one for people who can afford to pay the cost and those who cannot.”
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Sign in to subscribeThe meeting of the court subcommittee on Criminal law will come to order. Clerk, will you please open the roll for attendance. Members, please indicate your presence on the electronic voting. Has everybody indicated their presence that is here? I believe so. Clerk, close the roll quorum is present. Even though we're a little bit late getting started for some who are expecting it, let me make first an announcement and my even though refers to, I still want to go around the committee and have each committee member introduce themselves and give us just 25 words or less your involvement with criminal law, what you have done that you look forward to serving on this subcommittee to bring forward. And with that my explanation is that particularly on Wednesdays and probably most Mondays, the flow of the meeting as long as there is a civil subcommittee meeting of courts, they will meet first after finance committee adjourns for 15 minutes so that any of us who have a bill before civil sub can be heard first. And now we can start this meeting with with full attendance a half hour after the finance full committee has adjourned. So that…
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