Paul Nguyen confronted as much as eight years in jail for allegedly assaulting a Division of Homeland Safety agent throughout President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of policing in Washington, D.C.
However like so many different felony assault instances lately introduced by Jeanine Pirro, the previous Fox Information host turned U.S. legal professional for D.C., the cost in opposition to Nguyen crumbled in lower than a month.
A prosecutor from Pirro’s workplace informed a Justice of the Peace decide on Tuesday that the workplace not plans to pursue any costs “based on current evidence,” a powerful indication that, after reviewing physique cam footage and any witness statements, it doesn’t consider it has a case. Nguyen had been accused of injuring the DHS agent throughout an early-morning scuffle alongside one of many metropolis’s nightlife strips.
The Maryland resident stated he gained’t neglect the 4 nights he spent in D.C. Jail, all for a cost that will quickly be dropped.
“It was the scariest experience of my life,” Nguyen stated, noting the ability’s well-documented cockroach and rodent drawback.
Loads of latest defendants in D.C.’s U.S. District Courtroom can relate to Nguyen’s case.
Pirro’s workplace has introduced a slew of costs accusing folks of assaulting federal officers or threatening the president, solely to have the instances go nowhere as felonies. In the meantime, defendants have spent days in jail, feared years in jail and seen their names within the information — all, it appears to protection attorneys, within the service of selling Trump’s crackdown politically.
In a number of situations, grand juries have “no billed” the instances, or declined to return indictments — a extremely uncommon incidence, since prosecutors largely management the grand jury course of. However in different instances, prosecutors have merely downgraded the cost to a misdemeanor or dropped it totally, seemingly and not using a grand jury’s rejection. Protection attorneys say the preliminary felony costs led to useless jail time and fear.
“Routinely charging felonies even in trivial cases just because you want to look tough means you are … not doing your job.”
– Randall Eliason, regulation professor and former prosecutor
The district court docket’s Justice of the Peace judges seem like dropping endurance.
Matthew J. Sharbaugh, who dismissed Nguyen’s case, requested the prosecutor in Tuesday’s listening to if he knew what number of instances Pirro’s workplace had charged up to now month after which sought to dismiss after additional reflection, typically the night time earlier than the defendant was due in court docket.
“Would it surprise you to hear it’s 11?” Sharbaugh requested, explaining such instances had change into so frequent that he had clerks compile them.
Simply an hour earlier than the Nguyen listening to, Sharbaugh had dismissed one other alleged assault case in comparable circumstances. Prosecutors had accused a D.C. man of spitting on two Nationwide Guard members whereas he handed by them on a scooter close to Union Station, however requested the court docket to dismiss the felony cost “after reviewing the evidence.” The person now faces a much less severe misdemeanor cost in metropolis court docket as an alternative.
Sharbaugh stated it appeared as if Pirro’s workplace is doing issues backward: “filing these charges and investigating them after they’re filed.”
“I have to say, this is becoming a real concern,” he chided the prosecutor.
A totally different Justice of the Peace decide has lambasted Pirro’s workplace at the least twice in latest weeks over comparable shaky instances.
Requested to reply to Sharbaugh’s considerations, a spokesperson for Pirro defended her prosecutions in the course of the D.C. regulation enforcement surge.
“U.S. Attorney Pirro and her office, in charging over 1,700 cases, follow the evidence wherever it leads, constantly evaluating each case as it develops to rigorously follow the law and to bring swift justice — including a dismissal when it is in the interest of justice,” the spokesperson, Tim Lauer, stated in an electronic mail.
A Washington Publish evaluation of 1,273 arrests throughout Trump’s D.C. takeover discovered that one-third of them concerned federal brokers, versus simply native cops with the Metropolitan Police Division. Unlawful gun possession was the commonest cost, although 1 in 8 instances revolved round minor alleged crimes, like transit fare evasion or smoking marijuana in public.
Al Drago/Bloomberg through Getty Photographs
“Many of the arrests started the same way: a group of officers from several law enforcement agencies approaching suspects for nonviolent offenses,” the Publish reported.
Trump’s assertion of federal management over D.C. regulation enforcement expired every week in the past, however he has threatened to resume it if the town doesn’t cooperate with immigration enforcement. Even when there are fewer DHS and FBI brokers enlisted in native crime-fighting efforts shifting ahead, Pirro will nonetheless be main the workplace that prosecutes a lot of the metropolis’s severe crimes.
It appears not all prosecutors are on board along with her aggressive charging technique. Previously week, HuffPost sat in on two hearings the place prosecutors made a degree of informing the decide that that they had simply inherited the case as a result of a colleague left the workplace. (Whether or not they stop or have been fired wasn’t famous.) In each instances, the federal government was in search of to have the felony costs dismissed.
Authorized consultants stated overcharging might be severely damaging — not simply to the defendants who sit in jail awaiting a listening to however to the broader group and the religion it must put within the felony justice system.
Randall Eliason, a professor on the George Washington College College of Legislation and a former prosecutor, stated pursuing inappropriate costs is “deeply unfair” to defendants and a waste of the court docket’s time. He stated a key a part of the job is “exercising prosecutorial discretion” and deciding which costs, if any, are deserved.
In his 12 years as a prosecutor in D.C., Eliason stated he by no means had a grand jury return a “no bill.”
“Routinely charging felonies even in trivial cases just because you want to look tough means you are failing to exercise that discretion properly and are not doing your job,” Eliason stated in an electronic mail.
He added that Pirro dangers “undermining her office’s credibility” by attempting to juice the numbers and make Trump’s D.C. takeover look efficient.
“If it appears prosecutors are just automatically charging felonies without regard to the facts, then juries are understandably going to be more skeptical of prosecutors even in cases where felony charges might be completely appropriate,” he stated.
Pirro’s most conspicuous instances aren’t prone to encourage the general public’s confidence.
In a single, three separate grand juries declined to indict a D.C. lady accused of shoving an FBI agent throughout an altercation with immigration officers. In one other, a grand jury avoided indicting the D.C. “sandwich guy” who allegedly struck a Customs and Border Safety officer with a hoagie. Each defendants face misdemeanor costs as an alternative.
“Everything is getting prosecuted, even the smallest cases.”
– Todd Baldwin, D.C. protection legal professional
Paul Butler, a professor on the Georgetown College Legislation Heart and a former prosecutor, stated the sandwich toss had the makings of a misdemeanor case all alongside.
“To prove [the felony], the prosecutors would have to demonstrate that he intended or attempted to inflict death or serious bodily injury,” Butler stated. “Look at the viral video and see how that could have resulted in death or serious bodily injury. It’s overcharging, and the jurors may have just thought the evidence didn’t fit the crime.”
Again within the Nineties, Butler studied the idea of “jury nullification” — that’s, jurors blocking what they see as unfair prosecutions — particularly in D.C. drug possession instances. Like on the top of the drug battle, he stated, prosecutors now run the danger of “losing the confidence of the community” below Pirro’s hard-line techniques.
“When they throw the book at people for minor crimes, it kind of maps onto this sense that a lot of people in the Black community have that prosecutors are out to lock up everybody they can,” he stated. “That the interest isn’t so much public safety as it is putting people in prison.”
Town’s protection attorneys have been overwhelmed by a surge in costs throughout Trump’s takeover, in line with Todd Baldwin, president of the trial attorneys’ affiliation at D.C. Superior Courtroom, the place native, non-federal crimes are prosecuted. He stated his typical load of 35 or 40 instances ballooned to about 75. The arraignments on Mondays — when these locked up over the weekend make their preliminary court docket look — have stretched previous midnight at occasions.
Baldwin stated many low-level drug instances that beforehand would have been turned down are actually being prosecuted. On a day final week, HuffPost witnessed a person being arraigned for possession of cannabis.
“Everything is getting prosecuted, even the smallest cases,” Baldwin stated whereas on a break from his hearings.
“Is it to swamp defense attorneys? Is it to swamp the courts? That’s what worries me,” he stated.
The pressure on court docket assets additionally worries Sharbaugh, the Justice of the Peace decide on the district court docket. In Nguyen’s listening to on Tuesday, he stated the court docket’s employees was being stretched skinny by instances being filed then dropped.
“There is a sense of frustration among those of us here,” the decide stated.
Though Nguyen’s case was dismissed, it was finished “without prejudice” — which means Pirro’s workplace is attempting to order the best to deliver a case in opposition to him once more sooner or later. That has been a standard theme within the costs dropped in opposition to a number of defendants in latest weeks. Their protection attorneys, together with Nguyen’s, have argued they don’t should have the opportunity of future felony prosecutions hanging over their heads.
Regardless, Nguyen’s time in court docket won’t be over: He stated he’s prone to file a civil lawsuit over his arrest. He appeared earlier than Sharbaugh in an arm sling as a result of an harm he says was attributable to the cops. Outdoors the courtroom, he stated he missed a number of work conferences as a result of his lockup, in addition to the anniversary of his father’s loss of life. He stated it was his solely jail keep and vowed it will be his final.
“I have PTSD like crazy,” he stated.
