Real Change News | Lighter sentences

September 24, 2008
Vol: 15 No: 40

Just Heard

Lighter sentences

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Fiscal necessity is bringing a kind of reform to the county’s justice system.

Starting Oct. 4, a host of defendants accused of small-time drug and property crimes are going to have the option of entering a guilty plea in King County District Court, where their felony acts will be treated as misdemeanors.

More misdemeanor guilty pleas, says County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, allows him to lay off attorneys and weather the 11.4 percent budget cut that begins in January.

The moves “are not advanced as good policy,” Satterberg wrote in a letter last week to the county’s sheriff and local police chiefs in which he outlined the changes. Instead, “they represent a realistic approach to focus our remaining personnel on the cases that are our highest priorities.”

Thefts or other property crimes where the loss is less than $1,000 will be treated as misdemeanors in municipal or district courts. If the loss was $1,001-$5,000, or the offense was a drug crime involving less than three grams of cocaine, meth, or heroin or less than 100 grams of marijuana, the defendant will be offered a plea bargain and a quick trip through District Court.

It will be “an offer you can’t refuse, really,” says Satterberg. “The misdemeanor consequences are far less. You avoid a felony record and avoid compiling felony criminal history, which is what sends you to prison eventually.”

Satterberg’s office will brace for more austerity in 2010; the county’s criminal justice budget is going to absorb a $160 million hit over the next four years, or as far into the future as budget planners have peered.

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