Commonwealth’s Attorneys Welcome Bipartisan Virginia Access to Justice Act

NORFOLK, Va. — Today, Ramin Fatehi and a bipartisan group of Commonwealth’s Attorneys came together to welcome the Virginia Access to Justice Act (VAJA), a comprehensive investment to address the current crisis in the criminal legal system. This crisis stems from: sharp increases in per-case work due to new digital evidence; decreasing law-school enrollment; decreasing number of court-appointed counsel; insufficient funding to prosecute felonies; and the total absence of prosecutors from misdemeanor cases in most of the Commonwealth.

This crisis has resulted in a deficit of over $240 million in the funding for criminal prosecution and defense. VAJA proposes the following statutory changes to address the above crisis and reduce unjust outcomes for the accused, victims, law enforcement, and the wider community:

• Ensuring that every city and county in Virginia is served by a Public Defender’s Office and, and reestablishing a dedicated Appellate Defender’s Office to cover selected appeals;
• Raising the statutory cap on fee reimbursements for court-appointed counsel;
• Requiring that a Commonwealth’s Attorney be assigned to the over 400,000 misdemeanor charges filed in Virginia every year;
• Closing the historic funding deficit for prosecutors, public defenders, and court-appointed counsel; and
• Expanding the Virginia Victims Fund to cover out-of-pocket restitution expenses not just for violent crime victims, as is currently the case, but for all for all victims, with defendants’ restitution payable to the VVF.

VAJA is carried by Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Albemarle) and Del. Katrina Callsen (D-Charlottesville). It is supported by Commonwealth’s Attorneys Amy Ashworth (D-Prince William), Alfred Gray Collins (R-Colonial Heights), Parisa Dehghani-Tafti (D-Arlington), Steve Descano (D-Fairfax), Ramin Fatehi (D-Norfolk), and Jim Hingeley (D-Albemarle), along with Virginia-based advocacy groups such as the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police and the Virginia State and the Virginia State Conference NAACP.

The bill is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee on January 22, 2025. 

Support from a bipartisan group of Commonwealth’s Attorneys:

“As the elected Commonwealth’s Attorney for Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, I wholeheartedly support the Virginia Access to Justice Act,” said Amy Ashworth. “This jurisdiction has seen some very challenging criminal cases and we have had to handle them without the resources we need, namely prosecutors and administrative staff. All three levels of court are desperate for more court-appointed attorneys to serve as defense counsel when the public defender’s office can no longer handle the volume of cases. This problem is not unique to Prince William County. Many jurisdictions across the state are in the same predicament. The criminal justice system in Virginia has been starved for resources for too long. We can do better.”

“Victims navigating the criminal justice system all too often face additional burdens: cases may take months to move forward due to a lack of defense attorneys, or victims in misdemeanor trials may have to present their case without a prosecutor,” said Alfred Gray Collins, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Colonial Heights. “By ensuring both sides of the criminal system are appropriately funded, this bill will ease the burden on victims.”

“Victims deserve to be made as close to whole as possible, as soon as possible,” said Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Arlington County and the City of Falls Church. “The only way to do that is through a restitution fund that helps victims when they need it most and collects restitution from defendants proportional to what they are able to pay. Instead of continuing to deprive victims of the support they need and criminalizing poverty, the Virginia Access to Justice Act will help us do better.”

“Prosecutor involvement at the misdemeanor level is essential for preventing future crime and building community safety,” said Steve Descano, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax. “Experienced Commonwealth’s Attorneys will be able to separate out the small number of bad actors responsible for driving crime from the larger number of individuals meriting more measured treatment. Currently, only wealthy jurisdictions are able to fund enough prosecutors to handle misdemeanor cases – an injustice for Virginians across the Commonwealth.”

“A criminal trial should be a search for the truth,” said Ramin Fatehi, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Norfolk. “That is why every criminal case in Virginia should have a prosecutor capable of protecting victims, diverting deserving individuals, and guarding against wrongful convictions. The Virginia Access to Justice Act closes a huge deficit in justice in Virginia, while making our communities safer and our system fairer.”

“As a prosecutor who has 25 years’ experience as a chief public defender in Virginia, I know how much the proposed expansion of the public defender system will contribute to improving the quality of justice in Virginia,” said Jim Hingeley, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Albemarle County. The Virginia Access to Justice Act ensures that defendants and their counsel have the resources they need to prevent unjust outcomes, while giving prosecutors the tools they need to faithfully pursue safety and justice in every case.”

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