Please vote no on HB 394, HB 391, HB 399, HB 400, & HB 77. We no longer want to live in a state that is"tough on crime" without providing proper mental health and meaningful rehabilitation. We believe in public safety AND human rights. Virginia does NOT need the death penalty. We need reform. Focus on root causes of problems using common sense.

As a criminal defense attorney, I strongly support this bill. The reason this bill is necessary can be demonstrated by considering a hypothetical case where a person is charged with aggravated malicious wounding, grand larceny, and DUI 3rd. Each of those offenses are ones where a jury could return a verdict with multiple different grades. Aggravated malicious wounding cases could result in a verdict of malicious wounding, unlawful wounding, or assault and battery. I have seen this happen. Grand larceny could result in a verdict of petit larceny. DUI 3rd could result in a verdict of misdemeanor DUI 2nd or 1st, which is possible if there are issues with the prior convictions or if there is an issue about substantial similarity of out of state convictions. When there are multiple charges and multiple grades at which a verdict may come back, there are times when it makes better sense for the accused to ask for a jury sentencing. In my practice, I have contemplated filing complicated jury sentencing demands that account for various possible outcomes. There are two fundamental problems with this as an option -- the number of permutations increases geometrically in some situations with multiple indictments and lesser included offenses, and there are also circumstances where making such a filing that details this kind of strategy improperly reveals defense strategy to the Commonwealth. There is a reason that the defense presents evidence second, and a lot of that has to do with the sacredness of the concept that the defendant should not have to reveal his strategy prior to the Commonwealth revealing its evidence. I have personally experienced a commonwealth attorney twisting the evidence in response to defense strategy. It is not in keeping with the proper way our system works. This bill still requires a notice to be filed, and this is proper because frankly a jury sentencing is extra work for both defense counsel and prosecutor. The only thing the bill does is creates a common-sense way to deal with the issues I described and also to deal with a scenario where the accused decides even in the last minute that he feels a judge should arrive at a fair sentence for him. This is why we have judges, and I ask this body to pass this bill into law.