RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Gov. Terry McAuliffe wants Virginia to be more forgiving when it comes to lower-level crimes while making it easier for new DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongfully convicted.
“As I always say, second chances matter,” McAuliffe said at a news conference Tuesday in which he announced several legislative priorities aimed at overhauling the state’s criminal justice system.
They include raising the threshold for felony theft up to $500 from $200, a level that McAuliffe says hasn’t changed in nearly 40 years and is tied with New Jersey for the lowest in the country.
McAuliffe said having such a low threshold can unfairly saddle someone with a felony conviction and its associated burdens for stealing relatively minor items, such as sneakers. Instead, he said such crimes should be prosecuted as misdemeanors.
“I’m not here to excuse theft, but I am here to say that there has to be some sort of proportionality in the punishment our courts hand out,” McAuliffe said.
Similar proposals have failed in past years, and it’s unclear if McAuliffe will have enough votes to win over the Republican-controlled General Assembly.
John W. Jones, the executive director of the Virginia Sheriff’s Association, said the state’s sheriffs have been all over the map on the issue in the past. But he said the governor’s support for raising the felony threshold could provide enough momentum for the state’s law enforcement community to support a change.
McAuliffe also wants to limit the state’s ability to suspend driver’s licenses for unpaid court debts or for crimes unrelated to driving. McAuliffe said 650,000 Virginians have lost their license for not being able to pay legal fees and court costs, which hurts their ability to find and keep a job.
McAuliffe wants those who have previously pleaded guilty to crimes to be able to seek a finding of innocence should new DNA evidence become available. Currently, only those who pleaded not guilty and were convicted are able to take advantage of new DNA evidence after trial, McAuliffe said.
Republican House Speaker William J. Howell was noncommittal on the governor’s proposals, saying they will be reviewed “carefully” during the upcoming legislative session. The session is set to start next week.
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This story has been corrected to say not guilty instead of guilty in the second sentence of the penultimate paragraph.
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