Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares accused Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano today (Friday) of engaging in one of the “most horrific patterns of both incompetency and ignoring victims” that the Commonwealth has ever seen.
An investigative report released by the attorney general alleges that an “alarming pattern of misconduct” by the prosecutorial office has led victims and their families to feel forgotten and lacking in justice.
Fairfax County is set to host its inaugural expungement clinic on Saturday, Sept. 13 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Hybla Valley Community Center (7950 Audubon Avenue).
The event offers an opportunity for those with non-conviction criminal charges from Fairfax County or Fairfax city to determine eligibility and petition for removal of the charges from their records, Fairfax County Circuit Court spokesperson Rafael Arancibia, Jr. said in a news release.
A Fairfax-based restorative justice pilot program could become permanent after receiving a grant from Microsoft and the Urban Institute.
Adult Accountability for Safer Communities (AASC) is one of 25 nonprofit organizations selected to join the Catalyst Grant Program, which aims to advance the use of data and technology to improve racial equity and reform in the criminal legal system.
Fairfax County and other localities across the state may get more time to address state-mandated limits on public accessibility for some criminal records.
Legislation moving toward likely adoption in the Virginia General Assembly will give local governments an additional 12 months — until July 1, 2026 — to implement changes to the current expungement process that had been mandated four years ago.
Individuals who believe they have been wrongfully convicted in Fairfax County now have a new way forward.
The county’s Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, in partnership with the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (MAIP), announced today (Monday) the creation of a Conviction Integrity Unit that will review challenged cases, establishing a process to potentially “secure more just outcomes.”
Fairfax County’s elected leadership is standing firm in efforts to have the state government fulfill its responsibility for housing those sentenced to incarceration.
But exactly how local leaders will deliver that message in advance of the 2025 General Assembly session remains a work in progress.
Instead of jail-time, a restaurant job could be waiting for some individuals facing non-violent criminal charges in Fairfax County if they finish a newly launched job training program.
The Pathfinder Kitchen initiative unveiled Monday (Jan. 8) by the Fairfax County Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney builds on the office’s nascent Taking Root diversion program, which offers case management, mental health and substance use assessments, affordable housing and other services to people accused of non-violent crimes in lieu of incarceration.
A new data dashboard shows Fairfax County prosecutors are sometimes asking for more detainments of defendants than judges.
The Office of the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney (OCA) released a dashboard in October with data comparing how often and under what circumstances prosecutors are asking for pre-trial detainment and release to a judge’s recommendations.
Local police officers are using at hand-held remote device to restrain individuals from a distance of up to 25 feet.
The Fairfax County Police Department announced yesterday (Wednesday) that it is piloting the BolaWrap, which releases an 8-foot-wide tether to entangle uncooperative suspects or individuals experiencing a mental health crisis from a distance.
While Fairfax County regularly makes headlines for its diversion initiatives and other criminal justice reform efforts, an imbalance in funding for prosecutors and defense attorneys remains unaddressed, the local public defender’s office says.
Dawn Butorac, the county’s chief public defender, said her office’s 25 attorney positions are around half the number of lawyers that Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s office has, and that gap is only going to worsen if a proposed county budget is adopted without changes this May.
