The Council of the District of Columbia on Tuesday overrode the mayor’s veto to force through a plan to fundamentally change the way the city penalizes crimes including robbery, carjacking, and home invasion burglary.
In a decisive 12–1 vote, the city council overrode Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Jan. 4 decision to veto the proposal, known as the Revised Criminal Code Act. The all-Democrat council unanimously voted to pass the bill in November 2022.
The proposed legislation offers a full rewrite of Washington’s criminal code, which has been untouched since it was first create by Congress in 1901, with changes such as eliminating almost all mandatory minimum sentences, lowering the maximum sentence possible to 45 years in prison, and allow people to demand jury trials for nearly all misdemeanor charges….