Democratic prosecutors in Northern Virginia who took office in 2020 with plans to reduce incarceration will be facing primary challenges this year from attorneys who say their tenure so far has led to mismanagement or put communities at risk.
In Fairfax County, Ed Nuttall, an attorney known for defending officers charged in police shootings, launched his primary campaign Monday against Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano.
Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj, who announced her reelection campaign Monday, is facing a primary challenge from Democratic lawyer Elizabeth Lancaster, who says Biberaj mismanaged the office.
In Arlington and Falls Church, Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti is facing a primary challenge from Josh Katcher, a former prosecutor in her office who says he agrees with many of Dehghani-Tafti’s priorities but questions her management style and high rate of staff departures.
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“Thirteen attorneys have quit the office in 13 months,” Katcher said, arguing that under Dehghani-Tafti, the Arlington prosecutor’s office was in “free fall.”
Virginia Democrats have set their primary elections for June 20.
Mark J. Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, said “the challengers in all three cases are campaigning from the same playbook focusing on growing concerns about rising crime.”
Rozell said perceptions about crime may put incumbent prosecutors on the defensive, even if crime in their jurisdictions is not, in fact, rising.
Dehghani-Tafti, who announced her reelection bid in November, said crime has not increased in the area and that Katcher was closely aligned with her predecessor as Arlington’s top prosecutor, Theo Stamos, and others who resisted her criminal justice agenda.
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She said it was unfair to criticize her for attorneys who left her office. Some attorneys were elevated to the bench, some left for better-paying jobs or personal reasons, and “some were performance issues,” Dehghani-Tafti said.
“And it’s important to keep in mind that he managed some of the people that left for eight of those 13 months,” she said of her opponent.
Addressing a crowd of supporters and protesters outside the courthouse in Leesburg, Biberaj said “safety has gone up, and crime has gone down” since she took office. The prosecutor said she had increased funding for sexual assault prevention programs and “saved taxpayer dollars by modernizing our approach to incarceration.”
The average daily jail population is down from 425 to about 250, saving approximately $14 million a year, she said. Violent crime increased 7 percent in the state in 2021 but declined 12.5 percent in Loudoun County, Biberaj added.
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Biberaj has faced opposition from fellow Democratic officials in Loudoun County, and a recall effort had gathered thousands of signatures before the primary season kicked off this year.
Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, the group behind the recall effort, said the three Democratic prosecutors were facing primary challenges because they had all botched cases or instituted reckless policies. “These prosecutors’ actions and words have demoralized and disrespected crime victims, judges, law enforcement, and even their own staff prosecutors,” Kennedy said.
The father of a girl who was sexually assaulted in a Stone Bridge High School bathroom in Ashburn in 2021 was arrested and charged by Biberaj’s office after an altercation at a school board meeting. He successfully got a judge to disqualify Biberaj from prosecuting his case.
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The father told The Washington Post he is supporting Lancaster, his former attorney, in the Democratic primary. “She believes in the Constitution,” the father said. The Post is not naming the father because it may identify his daughter, a victim of sexual assault.
Biberaj has maintained that the father was rightfully charged for tussling with officers after clenching his fist at a woman during the school board meeting. Asked about the recall effort and what Kennedy described as a “well resourced” campaign his group is planning to oppose Biberaj, the prosecutor said her opponents were running a “grift.”
“That’s how it is in this job,” Biberaj told supporters Monday after her speech. “Either you get the blame or you get the glory.”
Nuttall is the first Democratic challenger to announce a run against Descano, who announced his reelection campaign in January. Nuttall, a defense lawyer at the Fairfax firm Carroll & Nuttall, said he decided to run because Descano failed to reform the county’s justice system.
“We’re going backward,” Nuttall said the Friday before his announcement. “We need someone in that office who understands how trials work, how the criminal justice system works and who can implement real, meaningful changes in the justice system that were promised and just haven’t been realized.”
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Nuttall said he would bring more experienced trial attorneys to the county’s office to ensure violent offenders are “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Nuttall has represented officers in more than 20 police shooting cases in Virginia, according to his firm’s website. He defended Adam D. Torres, a Fairfax County police officer who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting an unarmed man in his doorway. Nuttall also defended Tyler Timberlake, a Fairfax County police officer who was acquitted of charges alleging he used excessive force on a Black man. The Fraternal Order of Police’s Fairfax County lodge, which Nuttall represents, endorsed his campaign in January.
Nuttall said in an interview he had practiced law in the area for 26 years and had handled more than a thousand criminal and civil cases.
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Descano warned that Nuttall would undo his reforms, and derided him for his work defending police officers accused of wrongdoing.
“We have a choice to continue on with the progress that we’re making, building a system of equality, justice and fairness,” Descano said. “Or we can flush all of that work down the toilet and hand it over to the guy whose job is protecting bad cops.”
Nuttall said police officers who follow the rules are sometimes the harshest critics of those who don’t.
“I’m a defender of the Constitution. One of those amendments to the Constitution is the Sixth Amendment — the right to counsel,” Nuttall said. “My opponent sometimes forgets about that amendment.”
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