Currently 72% of felonies are being dropped to misdemeanors or dismissed. This is the worst prosecution rate in the entire state by more than 20%!
Change is needed!
Despite a surplus of funds available from the Commonwealth, the County, and through federal grants, the my opponent's administration has kept the Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office drastically understaffed. According to the 2005 Virginia Crime Report assembled for the Supreme Court of Virginia, there were 33673 Category A Crimes* in Fairfax. It is impossible for Fairfax to effectively deal with that volume of crime with only 21 prosecutors in the office. In contrast, Norfolk has 41 prosecutors with less than 2/3 of the crime and less than 1/4 of the population.
My opponent's woeful understaffing and mismanagement results in prosecutors regularly showing up for court without a case file and never having spoken to the victims or the witnesses in a case. Because of this, they consistently plea-bargain away solid cases that could have been tried successfully with proper staffing, management and preparation.
* Category A Crimes Include: Murder, Arson, Kidnapping, Forcible Sex Offenses, Robbery, Aggravated Assaults, Simple Assaults, Extortion, Burglary, Larceny, Auto Theft, Forgery, Fraud, Embezzlement, Destruction of Property, Drug Offenses, Non-Forcible Sex Offenses, Pornography Offense, Gambling, Prostitution, Bribery, Weapons Violations.
As a result of my opponent's policies the Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney's Office has the worst rate of felony prosecution in the entire Commonwealth of Virginia at 28%. This means that 72% of felonies are either reduced to misdemeanors or not prosecuted at all! This is the worst rate in the state, second only to Hampton Roads which has a 49% rate, over 20% better than last-place Fairfax County.
The above statistics are from Supreme Court of Virginia's 2005 Crime in Virginia Report and the Supreme Court of Virginia's 2005 State of the Judiciary Report.
The Supreme Court of Virginia State of the Judiciary Report is the sole source "How Felonies Are Handled" statistics including both the number of felonies charged by police and the number of cases actually indicted as felonies. Under the Compensation Board Formulas, the funding for the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office is based upon the number of felonies prosecuted. Therefore the understaffing in the office is entirely due to the failure of the current administration to properly prosecute felonies.
As a result, the current administration has been mismanaged into a vicious circle, where the prosecutors are too understaffed to prosecute the felonies they need to - so they are forced to drop 72% of the felonies charged - so they lose funding for more prosecutors - so they remain understaffed... Patrick McDade will break the cycle of mismanagement and make the Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney's Office one that we can all be proud of.
