The D.C. Council will consider a new bill aimed at stiffening penalties for certain domestic and sexual violence cases.

The bill, introduced by Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto along with Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker and At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds, also contains other provisions that would give prosecutors more power and leverage in certain cases.

The bill’s introduction on Wednesday came weeks after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled her own package of legislation aimed at increasing penalties for gun crimes and making pretrial detention more frequent. Both Pinto and Bowser have framed their bills as an attempt to address what they’ve described as “gaps” in D.C.’s legal system at a time when certain categories of crime – including murder and sex abuse – are up compared to last year, according to police data.

Pinto’s office drafted the bill with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes most adult crimes in the city. She says its focus is on “victims of domestic violence and other victims who are sometimes overlooked.”

The bill enhances penalties for assaults against senior citizens. It also includes a provision that would ask courts to expedite cases where children are victims. Pinto also argues the bill will help prevent gun violence; it includes a provision that would prevent people who have been convicted of stalking from legally obtaining firearms.

“About 10% of all of our homicides every year are domestic violence related,” Pinto told DCist/WAMU. “I think we’ll be able to protect a lot of victims.”

Among other provisions, the bill would –

• Expand the group of crimes where no statute of limitations applies. Under the current D.C. code, prosecutors can bring murder and sexual abuse charges at any time, no matter when the alleged crime occurred. Pinto’s bill would tack on additional charges to that group – including so-called “planning offenses” associated with those crimes, like attempted murder, or conspiracy to commit murder or sex abuse. The bill would also allow prosecutors to add on charges that are directly related to the underlying murder or sex abuse offense at any time.
• Make misdemeanor arrest warrants extraditable outside D.C. — meaning that if a judge finds good cause, a warrant can be executed for those offenses even if the person is outside of the District
• Amend the D.C. Code to state that data from GPS-monitored ankle bracelets owned by D.C.’s Pretrial Services Agency can be used in court to prove someone’s guilt
• Create a new standalone felony offense for strangulation (lawmakers have tried to do this before at the behest of domestic violence-focused advocates, but it hasn’t reached a vote. Bowser’s crime bill also names strangulation as an offense in the code, but designates it as a type of assault).
• Increase penalties for domestic violence crimes that are committed when a child is present
• Allow judges, if asked by a prosecutor or victim, to order defendants charged with sexual assault to be tested for HIV after they’re charged with the crime — and before they’re convicted — so that victims can get those results sooner (although there can be delays between when a person is exposed to HIV and when they test positive for it).

The bill comes as prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney for D.C. face criticism from both local residents and federal lawmakers after it was widely reported that they declined to prosecute 67% of the cases D.C. police brought them last year. USAO has said the low prosecution rates are related to issues with D.C.’s unaccredited crime lab, as well as the increased availability of police body camera footage — which might reveal issues with the constitutionality of an arrest, or other problems that might make it more difficult to prove their case in court.

Pinto says she hopes her bill will have an impact on prosecution rates, and argues that the increased power it would give prosecutors — like the ability to extradite people for misdemeanors, or the ability to argue for the use of more GPS evidence in court – will lead them to “bring more of these cases under the assumption that they’ll be successful.”

A public hearing on Pinto’s crime bill has yet to be scheduled. But the D.C. Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on Bowser’s bill next week — at which defense attorneys and advocates for criminal justice reform are expected to push back hard against many of its provisions. The debates over both bills in the coming months will likely highlight divisions in the city over whether more punitive measures will reduce crime and improve public safety.

Naida Henao, the Head of Engagement at the Network for Victim Recovery of DC (NVRDC), applauded many of the bill’s provisions.

“Generally, we feel that it’s a good move and feels very responsive to a lot of smaller issues that victims’ service providers have identified… as issues that are affecting their clients,” she said. Henao appreciates that the bill allows longer sentences for recurrent instances of sexual abuse, clarifies the definition for serious injury to an elderly person, and pays attention to the issue of strangulation — which research shows is often a precursor to domestic violence-related homicides.

But, Henao added, NVRDC is not in favor of every provision: In particular, they object to a section of the bill that they say could make it easier for prosecutors and the courts to violate victims’ privacy by revealing therapists’ notes and other sensitive personal information. Henao also said these tweaks to the law are a “good first step” but will not replace further action to support victims’ services providers, who are struggling to support an influx of clients amidst rising crime. She also wants to see the city address ways to support crime victims who want alternatives to the criminal justice system or the police, she said.

Some critics of the Pinto and Bowser bills have also argued that in addition to raising due process and privacy concerns, the bills adopt a poor strategy of making piecemeal changes to D.C.’s criminal code. They believe the best way to adjust the outdated criminal code (which hasn’t been fully revised since 1901) would have been the wholesale overhaul that the D.C. Council passed last year, which was eventually blocked by Congress with the support of President Joe Biden. Proponents of the comprehensive rewrite, which took place over a period of years, argued that it made the definitions of crimes and terms more clear (the current code’s ambiguities and archaic language can potentially lead to strange applications of the law), made sure maximum penalties for offenses made sense relative to each other, and got rid of outdated offenses. Adding new tweaks on top of the existing code, some argue, just makes the problems with it worse.

“[The bills are] continuing to make a deeper and messier muck of our criminal code when we know that we have a solution, and we need to get that in place,” says Emily Cassometus, Director of Government and External Affairs for D.C. Justice Lab, which advocated for the passage of the criminal code revisions. People can debate and disagree about which penalties make sense for certain crimes, Cassometus says, but changes to the city’s criminal laws would be better accomplished by passing a completely revised code, rather than layering more text and individual tweaks on top of an already complicated set of laws.

“Until we have a framework where everything fits and makes sense, all of this is just making that more complicated,” she added.

Proponents of the revision argue that it would have addressed some of the issues that Pinto’s bill is trying to solve: For example, the revised criminal code the D.C. Council passed specified strangulation as a significant bodily injury that can enhance the penalty for an assault charge.

Pinto herself supported the criminal code revisions — and voted to override Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of the bill (though Pinto did say she wanted to see penalties for certain gun-related crimes increased). But she argued that it was important to move forward with changes to the code in the meantime.

“We absolutely need a full scale modernization of our criminal code. Congress overturned our ability to do so,” Pinto said. “And so while that is a better path forward, it is not appropriate for me or us as a city to say, ‘Well, because we can’t have the perfect version of what we fought for, we’re not going to do anything.’”