Charles "Cully" Stimson is the deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, the manager of the National Security Law Program, a senior legal fellow, and a senior advisor to the president at The Heritage Foundation. Read his research.
Patrick McDonald is a member of The Heritage Foundation's Young Leaders Program.
Anyone paying attention to Washington’s criminal justice system knows that some judges on the Washington Superior Court are now so anesthetized to persistent and chronic crime that they hand out notoriously lenient sentences to recidivist and violent defendants.
According to the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission’s 2024 annual report, 88% of sentences that were outside the guidelines range were downward departures, meaning they were shorter than the recommendation. The 2023 annual report found that, by the end of 2023, only 38% of the more than 5,322 felony arrests in Washington had led to findings of guilt.
The data is even more compelling—or frightening, depending on your point of view—with respect to sentencing gun-wielding criminals to prison.
From 2018 to 2022, only 1.7% of people arrested for carrying a pistol without a license in Washington were sentenced to prison. While the percentage of prison sentences per arrest increased for 2023-2024, it remained a meager 3%, District of Columbia Sentencing Commission data shows.
In other words, you could carry an illegal gun in the nation’s capital with a 97% chance of avoiding a prison sentence—a relatively safe gamble for a career criminal.
At the same time, crime exploded. Homicides in Washington, which averaged 134 per year during the 2010s, increased to an average of 222.5 from 2021 to 2024.
Despite the combination of high crime and low sentences, prosecutors in the nation’s capital currently have no tool to effectively challenge or remove overly lenient judges from presiding over criminal cases. In other words, prosecutors have no mechanism to address judges whose pattern of decisions in criminal cases consistently undermines public safety.
Yes, you read that right: Heritage Foundation scholars are recommending a California rule. Read on.