A surge of federal prosecutions aimed at curbing crime in Washington, DC has reportedly swamped the city’s courts, which were already stretched to the limit.
CNN reported Wednesday that now led by former Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro, the District’s U.S. Attorney’s Office has instructed prosecutors to bring the most serious charges available, even elevating minor offenses to more significant ones.
Defense attorneys across the city argue that this is turning relatively small infractions into major legal battles.
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A individual at DC federal public defender's office, who was not identified, told CNN: “It has been a nightmare."
At the same time, prosecutors are pushing to keep more defendants behind bars before trial, a sharp shift from the city’s traditional approach of releasing those accused of nonviolent or low-level crimes unless they pose a threat or are convicted.
This pivot has created immense pressure on DC’s criminal justice system, endangering the already fragile balance across its jails, federal courts, and the local Superior Court, which currently has 13 judicial vacancies waiting to be filled by the president, owing to the District’s unique federal status.
AJ Kramer, the federal public defender for DC, told CNN: “It’s a real mess right now."
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In a recent detention hearing, Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui made clear how badly the system is buckling, per the report.
He chastised the Department of Corrections for detaining a woman for nearly 24 hours “despite his order releasing her”, highlighting that the city’s facilities are not keeping pace with the volume of intake.
“The systems in place are not keeping up with the volume coming in,” he noted in another appearance, conveying how this crackdown is amplifying existing inefficiencies in the DC jail.
The report noted that this torrent of cases has also led to heightened scrutiny from both judges and juries.
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One federal matter this month involving an altercation between an FBI agent, an immigration officer, and a detainee failed to win a grand jury indictment not once but three times, an extremely rare outcome.
Pirro candidly stated at a press conference: “The burden is on us to prove these cases,” then added, “Sometimes a jury will buy it and sometimes they won’t. So be it. That’s the way the process works.”
Another striking example involves a DC man, Sean Dunn, who faces a felony assault charge after allegedly throwing a sandwich at a federal law enforcement officer. Prosecutors hoped to secure an indictment to proceed on the felony, but the grand jury refused, though the office still has the option to try again in the coming days.
The aggressive federal posture endorsed by President Donald Trump and executed by Pirro’s team is flooding DC’s courts with elevated charges and pretrial detentions. But as the system strains under the weight, repeated grand jury setbacks mean that increased prosecution may be reaching the limits of what evidence and resources can sustain. This development has revealed deep vulnerabilities in the capital’s criminal justice framework.
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