FOIA Questions on Gun Crimes for DC Prosecutor Matt Graves

Some Background

The nation’s capital as soon as once more has an enormous crime downside. It is a man-made problem, pushed by coverage decisions and political appointees and elected officers who merely aren’t as much as the job of conserving residents and guests secure. 

The D.C. Council, at present comprised of two independents and 11 Democrats, additionally has played a role in contributing to a tradition of violence within the metropolis. Fortunately, nonetheless, after bipartisan majorities in Congress overrode the council’s radical rewrite of the town’s legal legal guidelines, ample legal guidelines are on the books to vigorously prosecute violent gun-wielding criminals and maintain them accountable for their crimes.

Graves, like all high prosecutors, federal or state, is the gatekeeper to the legal justice system. The prosecutor decides who will get prosecuted and for what crimes.

In the District of Columbia, the prosecutor additionally will get to determine the place to prosecute the case: the native Superior Court or the federal District Court. 

After his appointment by President Joe Biden, Graves took workplace as the town’s high prosecutor in November 2021. Since he carried out his hands-off strategy, a median of 234 homicides a 12 months has occurred. That compares to an annual common of 149 homicides throughout the 17 years earlier than Graves took workplace.

 A complete of 274 homicides occurred within the metropolis final 12 months—essentially the most in over 20 years. 

Graves’ workplace, which incorporates 330 prosecutors, has an abysmal 67% declination fee, which means prosecutors decline to prosecute two-thirds of the instances delivered to them by regulation enforcement officers. That’s a coverage alternative. 

Compare this file to the San Diego District Attorney’s Office, which additionally has 330 prosecutors however solely a 22.6% declination fee for the previous 20 years in over 500,000 instances.

The distinction?  A pathetic, weak prosecutor in D.C. who doesn’t take crime severely, doesn’t prosecute felons to the fullest extent of the regulation, and hires social justice warriors as a substitute of hard-charging, fair-minded prosecutors. San Diego has an actual high prosecutor who hires different prosecutors dedicated to conserving residents of that group secure and holds criminals accountable. 

It’s that straightforward.

Graves has claimed there’s nuance in his insurance policies, however there’s not. We’ve heard sufficient from his public statements, and people of his deputies, to know that his “nuance” is to undercharge criminals.

No want for additional rationalization. The information and statistics communicate for themselves.

Felons in Possession of Firearms

Every day, regulation enforcement officers within the District of Columbia arrest felons who’re in possession of a firearm. Every day, these instances are introduced to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecution.

Under Graves’ tepid management over the previous two years, over 2,000 gun instances both weren’t prosecuted, dropped, or pled all the way down to lesser prices in D.C. Superior Court, based on the D.C. Sentencing Commission’s annual report.

Graves may order his prosecutors to take all felon-in-possession instances to U.S. District Court and indict them underneath the regulation talked about earlier, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). But he gained’t.

As said, the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s report for fiscal year 2022 discovered that 97.4% of offenders underneath this statute have been sentenced to jail for a median of 63 months.

Many of these felons in possession of a firearm would qualify as armed profession criminals, making them eligible for a sentencing enhancement underneath the Armed Career Criminal Act, or ACCA.

The common jail sentence for offenders convicted underneath part 922(g) and sentenced underneath ACCA was 186 months (or 15.5 years). 

Of course, Graves is aware of this, as does each line federal prosecutor within the nation. 

D.C. Sentencing Commission Findings

If you solely learn the letter accompanying the D.C. Sentencing Commission’s report or the manager abstract of the 71-page research, you could possibly be excused for believing that the U.S. Attorney’s Office within the nation’s capital is doing a very good job at defending the general public and that extra criminals are going to jail for extra crimes. 

But while you learn the actual report, it’s tough to disregard how abysmally Graves has dealt with instances, particularly gun instances. 

Highlights (or lowlights) of the report, as detailed in a radical report by an nameless D.C. crime blogger, embody:

• 2,262 gun instances over the previous two years weren’t prosecuted or have been dropped or pled all the way down to lesser prices.
• 79% of adults arrested with an unlawful gun in D.C. get away with no felony conviction.
• Felony convictions fell, with a 3% discount in legal prices and a 12% discount in each instances and people sentenced.
• Compared to the span of 2014 by way of 2018, his workplace secured 36% fewer felony counts.
• Even although the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department has ramped up gun possession arrests, the U.S. Attorney’s Office secured 39% fewer felony convictions per gun possession arrest.

As the nameless D.C. crime blogger wrote, that is the Matt Graves “filter” for gun possession instances:

• Declined to prosecute 33% of arrests for felony gun possession.
• Eventually dropped 37% of initially charged instances with out acquiring a conviction.
• Pled down 50% of convictions to misdemeanors as a substitute of felonies.
• Achieved felony convictions for solely 21% of adults arrested for having an unlawful gun.

As if that’s not unhealthy sufficient, this identical blogger factors out the next:

• In 2018, over three years earlier than Graves took workplace, the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted 85% of gun instances, with  the usual cost being “Carrying a Pistol Without a License,” or CPWL.

• In 2022, underneath Graves, the workplace prosecuted solely 53% of such instances. That quantity went as much as 68% final 12 months, however solely after Congress and the general public began placing stress on Graves to do his job.

• In 2018, 71% of convictions for carrying an unlicensed pistol have been for felony convictions.  In 2023, that fell to 40%, with 60% of convictions for the lesser misdemeanor. 

An Abject Failure

Defense legal professionals within the District of Columbia name these sweetheart offers the “golden ticket.”

Here’s the worst a part of these offers: Matt Graves claims to the general public that his workplace “earned” a conviction, however in actuality, the legal will get no jail time. 

By any affordable measure, Graves has been an abject failure because the chief prosecutor in Washington, D.C. His lenient insurance policies on the charging and plea-bargain levels have enabled profession criminals and violent, gun-wielding gang members to roam the streets and shoot, kill, and rob with reckless abandon. 

And after we get the data on how few instances involving felons in possession of a firearm he has despatched to federal District Court throughout his tenure, it is going to be much more apparent that the nation’s capital wants an actual prosecutor.

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Here are the questions submitted Wednesday by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia underneath the Freedom of Information Act. We count on a solution in brief order, since this info is available and simple to supply.

Our questions have been calmly edited or paraphrased right here for a normal readership.

1. For the previous three years, from February 2021 till April 2024, what number of arrests has the Metropolitan Police Department, or another licensed regulation enforcement company, manufactured from convicted felons for possessing an unregistered firearm or carrying a pistol with no license? Please checklist the quantity by 12 months and month. 
2. Of these arrested in that interval for that offense, what number of have been charged in D.C. Superior Court and what number of have been charged in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia?
3. Of these charged within the native court docket moderately than the federal court docket, what number of have been convicted of the felony of carrying a pistol with no license, possessing an unregistered firearm, or possessing an unlawful weapon?  Of those that have been convicted of the felony on any of these prices, what was the sentence imposed by the decide in every case?
4. Of these listed in Question 2 who have been charged in U.S. District Court, what number of have been charged underneath any subsection of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)? Of these charged underneath that statute, what number of have been convicted? What was the sentence of every individual convicted?
5. For every query, may you please present the requested information by 12 months and break that information down by month?