If you were a victim of a crime where the person who harmed you was younger than 25 years old at the time, you may be affected by new laws that have gone into effect in DC. These laws allow the defendant to request to be released early. Victims/survivors in these cases have rights, including the right to be notified about these petitions and the right to be heard.

In March of this year, DC entered a state of emergency due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and drastically reduced or outright ceased most operations. Almost all pending cases, civil and criminal, were impacted in the form of postponed and rescheduled hearings or trials. Around the same time, criminal defendants who were detained pending trial, as well as inmates currently serving prison sentences for a previous conviction, began filing motions for release. Generally speaking, these motions based the request for release on the health risks posed by COVID-19, the risk of contagion while incarcerated, and other arguments about the specific health risks of the defendant or inmate seeking release.

As DC Superior Court began curtailing operations down to the most essential court functions, our organization worked overtime assessing the impact these changes would have on crime victim’s rights. As an organization we also anticipated that COVID-19 would affect correctional facility’s ability to safely house inmates thus requiring the release of some inmates. The challenge would be to find a way to give victims a voice balanced with the very real threat facing incarcerated men and women from this disease.