Haywood Supports Dehgani-Tafti

Continued from Page private practice, told the News-Press that historically Arlington has not transferred many juvenile offenders to be tried as adults. “It’s only in very serious cases such as homicide or rape. Juvenile transfer is more common in other parts of Virginia,” she said. But even if the perpetrator was tried as an adult, the result might have been similar. “What is missing in the current discussion of juvenile transfer is that when a person is certified as an adult to Circuit Court, it does not mean the young person has to go to adult prison,” Newton said. “The Circuit Court has all the sentencing options available to the juvenile court. The Circuit Court’s powers extend beyond that of the juvenile court and accordingly can potentially offer a young person additional rehabilitative services beyond that of the lower court, including supervision after the age of 21.”

Newton supported Dehghani-Tafti in 2019 but this year has donated to Katcher’s campaign. “I have worked with Josh on serious cases. He treated the client fairly, made reasonable offers and was diligent in turning over evidence,” she said.

In Dehghani-Tafti’s corner has been Brad Haywood, chief of the Office of the Public Defender, posting analyses on Facebook and Nextdoor. Had the teen who killed Meade been transferred for trial as an adult, the adult sentencing guidelines would have recommended a low-end of 10 months, a mid-point of one year, eight months, and a high-end of two years, six months, he wrote. “The median sentence for all Virginia vehicular manslaughter cases over the past four years is two years, six months. “Had the Commonwealth tried to transfer to adult court and failed, there would have been less incentive for the defendant to plead guilty.”

Haywood told the News-Press that such transfers were already slow- ing in Arlington before Parisa’s tenure. “Though I’ve been critical of Theo Stamos, this is one area” where she was right, he said, tracing the last such transfer to 2016. “Parisa got better about stopping the use of threats to transfer to coerce guilty pleas.”

Backers of Dehghani-Tafti have combed courthouse records and extracted redacted excerpts from transcripts in a bid to show that Katcher in the past hasn’t behaved as a reform prosecutor. One result was a feature in Arlnow describing “a domestic violence victim” whom Katcher prosecuted for violence, despite evidence, Dehghani-Tafti says in criticism, that the woman was defending herself against an abusive husband. Katcher declined to comment on this and other past cases by reading only excerpts without refreshing his memory with full documentation.

Meanwhile, the advocacy group Justice Forward Virginia in a June 3 blog praised Dehghani-Tafti for avoiding the “overcharging” it said was common under her predecessor Stamos, in which prosecutors “make the risk of losing at trial so great, with punishment so harsh, that any rational person would plead guilty—even those who are innocent.” She won an endorsement May 31 from the Arlington Education Association and is backed by former county board member Walter Tejada. And the nonprofit abortion rights advocacy group REPRO Rising Virginia backed her, its executive director saying, “The current status of abortion access in the South is dire, and we need progressive prosecutors like Parisa that will take a firm stand against the criminalization of people seeking abortion care.”

Katcher, having won backing from the Arlington Coalition of Police, on June 8 announced he had won the endorsement of former Virginia Public Safety Secretary Brian Moran. (His brother, former Congressman Jim Moran, is backing Dehghanti-Tafti.)

The News-Press has endorsed Salim and Dehghanti-Tafti.