D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Robert Contee are raising specific but strenuous objections to portions of a long-planned overhaul of the city’s 100-year-old criminal code, saying that certain provisions could clog up the courts or lower criminal penalties just as the city faces prevalent concerns over public safety.

Speaking to D.C. lawmakers at a breakfast on Tuesday, Bowser and Contee said that there was “consensus” around 95% of the rewrite of the code, which has been in the works for more than a decade and seeks to modernize criminal laws that were written by Congress in 1901 and only updated in a piecemeal fashion since.

But they also said that specific provisions should be reconsidered or taken out of the 231-page-long bill a council committee will vote on Wednesday before sending it to the full council for debate and a pair of votes before the end of the year.

One of those provisions would expand the right to a jury trial to almost anyone charged with a misdemeanor; currently, only more serious offenses trigger the right. While proponents say that D.C. is currently a national outlier when it comes to limiting who gets a jury trial, Bowser argued that expanding the right would clog the courts and result in slower legal proceedings for more serious offenses.

“The concept we’re not opposed to, but we are opposed to placing that burden on our courts, which are experiencing a vacancy crisis,” said Bowser, referring to the longstanding shortage of judges in the District. Superior Court as well as all new judges have to be nominated by the president and confirmed by Congress.  “Right now we’re down 14 judges. They are already catching up on felony trials. And we don’t expect that that problem will go away in a year or two years or three years. And so that will really gum up our criminal justice system.”

Bowser also raised objections to a provision that would expand the ability of people serving prison sentences to petition to have them shortened. Under current law, anyone who committed a crime before the age of 25 can ask a judge to reduce their sentence after they have served 15 years in prison. The proposed reform of the code would expand that right to all inmates, though those who committed crimes after the age of 25 would have to wait until they have served 20 years in prison.

In a letter to Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who chairs the council’s judiciary committee and has been shepherding the overhaul since the D.C. Criminal Code Revision Commission handed him its recommendations last year, Bowser said both the issue of jury trials and sentence reductions “are new policy proposals best addressed in stand-alone bills where they can be appropriately studied and debated.”

“I’m creating a three-year delay from it even taking effect and then a transition all the way through 2030. That’s a pretty big on-ramp,” said Allen, referring to his proposal that the expansion of the right to a jury trial be phased in slowly between 2025 and 2030, allowing the courts to adjust. “But we need our judges confirmed. We have judges that are sitting in the Senate right now and they have to approve them.”

In a letter to lawmakers on Tuesday, the Public Defender Service for the District expressed its support for extending the right of a jury trial to most people facing misdemeanor offenses. It said the city has “one of the most restrictive, least democratic systems” when it comes to denying jury trials for offenses for which a conviction “will certainly lead to job loss, the loss of housing, and deep personal impacts.”

Bowser and Contee were more strident in their opposition to provisions of the overhaul they say would lower penalties for certain crimes, from serious ones like burglary, robbery, carjacking, and illegally carrying a gun to more minor ones like public drinking and urination. (Their concerns mirror those shared by the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes serious offenses in the city, in testimony to the council last year.)

“If we’re reducing a sentence from ten years down to five years, that makes the city less safe,” said Contee about overall criminal penalties. In her letter to Allen, Bowser similarly said decreasing penalties “sends the wrong message to our residents when we are using every resource in our government to drive down crime.”

Allen disputes this, saying in some cases he rejected recommendations from the Criminal Code Revision Commission and actually increased penalties for certain offenses. That includes a recommendation that carjacking be removed as a stand-alone offense, and another recommendation that would have eliminated all mandatory minimum sentences. Allen maintains it for first-degree murder.

Allen also says the overhaul largely aligns penalties with sentences that were being handed down by judges and juries. And he says it better defines penalties and adds gradations to better reflect the impact on a victim. “One of the goals is to create greater proportionality in our sentences. What the [overhaul] does is say, ‘What is the harm done?’, so for the greatest amount of harm we have the greatest penalty. It gives more clarity to the juries and the judge,” he said.

Bowser and Contee are pushing lawmakers to pull the provisions they object to out of the draft overhaul, and hold more community meetings and gather more input. “Do people understand in a 10,000-line code, do people really understand what we’re getting? The ANCs and the rest of the people, the regular community folks, my neighbors, my mom and my dad, do they really understand where we are right now?” asked Contee.

But Allen and proponents of the overhaul say the process has included extensive input from residents, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. In its letter on Tuesday, the Public Defender Service for the District urged lawmakers to move ahead with the full overhaul as drafted.

“PDS is not now seeking piecemeal amendments… because PDS recognizes that unraveling this package of reforms threatens the overall improvements in fairness and clarity the Revised Criminal Code provides,” it wrote. “Ultimately, the Revised Criminal Code is the product of a thoughtful and deliberate process by an expert body that benefited from a fully engaged group of stakeholders. It should not be taken apart now, on the eve of passage, in a way that listens to one voice [and] discounts others.”

In his own letter, Attorney General Karl Racine also urged lawmakers to approve the overhaul. “It is critical to ensuring fairness, justice, and safety in the District’s criminal justice system,” he wrote.