With more than 200 offenses for which state law dictates mandatory minimum sentences, Gov. Ralph Northam has decided enough is enough.
So he vetoed two bills, including one sponsored by fellow Democrat Kathleen Murphy, who reprsents McLean in the House of Delegates, that would have set mandatory minimums for crimes that don’t now have them.
Murphy’s bill set a mandatory minimum sentence of 60 days in jail when someone convicted of assault and battery on a family member has been previously convicted on that charge, or has been found guilty of wounding another person with the intent to maim or kill, (It’s the way what in other states is called attempted murder is charged in Virginia.)
The other bill, sponsored by state Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, would have set a mandatory minimum sentence of six months for killing or injuring a police dog.
In an op-ed essay in the Washington Post, Northam wrote that Virginia already has too many mandatory minimum sentences.
“Growing up with a father who was a judge, I heard a lot about justice,” he wrote, “But for justice to be applied, punishments need to fit their crimes. Over the past few decades, there has been a rise in legislation imposing mandatory minimum sentencing. These kinds of sentences are determined by elected officials who purport to be tough on crime, particularly drug offenses. Judges are not given the opportunity to arrive at these sentences by weighing the facts on a case-by-case basis.”
House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, who co-sponsored the assault and battery sentence measure, said he was appalled by Northam’s veto, calling it a self-serving attempt to repair his image after this year’s blackface scandal.
“This was a bipartisan effort to protect women from their abusers,” Gilbert said,. “Republicans and Democrats in the House as well as the Senate sent this bill to the Governor’s desk by huge majorities. His veto today is unconscionable.”
Northam said another bill, setting a minimum sentence of life in prison for capital murder of police officers will be the last such bill he will sign into law.
That bill passed with veto proof margins in both the House and Senate.
While the Senate narrowly accepted Northam’s suggestion to revise Reeves’ bill so that it set a penalty of at least six months but without describing it as a mandatory minimum, the House rejected the idea.The House also rejected a similar effort by the governor to revise Murphy’s bill.