The letters before a bill’s number designate its chamber of origin. HB= House Bill, SB= Senate Bill, HR= House Resolution, etc.
Bills to support:
SB 825: Provides for new sentencing hearings for people convicted after the 1995 Truth in Sentencing Act but before the 2000 court case Fishback v. Virginia. The 1995 Act abolished parole, and 2000 court case mandated that juries be informed that parole was no longer available. During this time, juries sentenced people with the expectation that, because of parole, a person would serve only part of their sentence in prison.
SB 942: Authorizes state Board of Corrections to review inmate deaths in local and regional jails, and to report on whether the facility followed DOC policies. This bill comes in the wake of Jamycheal Mitchell’s death in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in 2015, after which no state agency could definitively be said to have responsibility for conducting an investigation. Mitchell, a 24 year-old schizophrenic man accused of stealing $5 worth of snacks from a convenience store, was subjected to four months of abuse by corrections officials before dying of starvation. After his death, eleven state agencies claimed not to have the authority to investigate the jail.
SB 957: Makes it a misdemeanor for police officers to take your recording device or alter your recordings, provided those recordings are legal. This imposes actual penalties for officers who interfere with your legal right to film the police by taking your device or deleting your recordings.
SB 796: Allows somebody to petition for the expungment of certain minor crimes (marijuana posession, underaged alcohol posession, and using a fake ID), provided it’s been more than five years and their conviction took place before their 21st birthday.
SB 940: Mandates that jail inmates be screened for mental illnesses and evaluated regarding their need for services within 72 hours. This will help address the issue of mentally ill people being warehoused in jail cells without services.
SB 830: Provides that if a person is otherwise eligible for food stamps but has been convicted of a first-time felony intent to distribute, they are still eligible. Food is a right.
HB 1522: Establishes that if a person convicted of a capital crime had a severe mental illness at the time their crime was committed, they cannot be sentenced to death.
SB 908: Decriminalizes simple possession of marijuana (makes it punishable by a fine instead of jail time), and decreases the penalty for distribution or possession with intent to sell from a Class 5 felony to a Class 6 felony, provided the quantity is not more than five pounds.
SB 784: Removes the requirement to automatically suspend the driver’s licenses of people convicted of simple possession of marijuana.
SB 841: Makes certain medical use an affirmative defense for some marijuana-related charges. Marijuana is clinically proven to benefit sufferers of some conditions, but it is not legal in Virginia.
HB 1426: Directs the Commissioner of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services and the Director of Criminal Justice Services to come up with an alternative mode of transport for people being involuntarily committed to psychiatric institutions, so that the police don’t have to be called.
SB 831: Makes production, or possession with intent to produce, of marijuana a misdemeanor, if the defendant can prove that their intent was to give (not sell) the marijuana to another person, who is not incarcerated. Currently, this is a felony punishable by 5-30 years in prison.
SB 933: Mandates that the annual training for sheriff’s deputies and correctional officers at jails must include mental health first aid. Many people experiencing mental health crises end up in jail instead of at hospitals; training of this type might improve how jails handle them.
HB 1480: Similar to the above, requires police officers to be trained in mental health awareness.
SB 1000: Establishes a process for disclosure of officer-involved shootings, and directs the Department of Criminal Justice Services to develop a policy for the investigation of such shootings.
HB 1599: Provides a means by which a person whose license was suspended due to court fees to have it reinstated upon an offer of employment which requires a license.
HB 1611: Allows reinstatement of a license suspended due to nonpayment of child support, under certain circumstances. This is necessary because most people need their license in order to work; if somebody can’t pay child support, being unable to legally get to and from work is not going to help them pay.
HB 1419: Gives DMV permission to issue temporary driver's licenses for immigrants who have been granted stays of deportation due to fear of torture in their home country. This allows them to drive legally.
SJ 222: Amends the state constitution to give the General Assembly the ability to restore rights to non-violent felons. Currently, only the Governor can do this. SJ 243 is identical, except that it does not limit the ability to non-violent felonies.
SB 817: Allows restricted driver's licenses to permit travel to and from job interviews.
Bills to oppose:
HB 1613: Establishes that if a police officer who is required to wear a body camera causes that body camera to stop recording, he is still allowed to testify about what would have been recorded, but the jury is instructed to weigh his testimony against the fact that he caused the camera not to record. IE, if an officer turns his body camera off, he’s still allowed to testify in court regarding what he didn’t want recorded, and it’s up to instructions to overcome the bias in favor of police testimony.
HB 1398: Expands the definition of hate crime, for the purposes of reporting, to include attacks on police and EMS personnel. These incidents are already reported in the annual Crime in Virginia publication put out by the state police, and saying that an officer who was punched while arresting a belligerent has suffered a “hate crime” is rhetorically disingenuous. It’s not appropriate to put this in the same category as genuine bias crimes.
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