Matt Denn Off to Great Start!

Two major initiatives, and I like them both.

First, his creation of a new Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust is designed to eliminate inherent conflicts within the AG’s office where attorneys represent both agencies and members of the public with concerns about said agencies. This has been an issue dating back as far as I can remember. As Denn points out:

“We sometimes have attorneys who are on both sides of the issue where we have attorneys who are representing state agencies but also then find themselves having to help with investigations of certain parts of what state agencies do,” Denn explained. “We want to separate those roles out so that we don’t have attorneys who one day are representing someone and the next having to do an investigation.”

Denn has appointed former State Solicitor Allison Reardon to head the new office.

I like it. I like it a lot. Not even the police are exempt from complaints.

And, now, some BREAKING NEWS from a noon press conference held today by the Attorney General. Here is the press release in its entirety:

We are here today to unveil a bill that is part of what we hope to be a coordinated attack on gun violence in our state’s most dangerous neighborhoods.

One of the most important things that someone who is new to a job like mine can do is listen.  And I have been doing that.  One of the questions I have asked our front-line law enforcement personnel is “who is doing these shootings?”  The forces driving the shootings are a different issue — high level drug dealers and growing numbers of Delawareans addicted to drugs and willing to do what is necessary to get them.  We will be trying to address both of those problems as well.  But who is doing these shootings?  And the answer consistently comes back: young adults carrying guns, most of whom already have violent criminal records.  And some of those records began when they were teenagers.  The suspect arrested in Friday night’s shooting homicide in New Castle was 21 years old.

Let me give you some real statistics that back up what my colleagues in law enforcement are telling me.  In 2012, the last full year for which we have reliable statistics, 69% of the shooting suspects were age 25 and below.  Sixty-eight percent of the shooting suspects had prior violent felony arrests.  And over 70% of the shooters had their first contact with the criminal justice system as juveniles.  

The bill that we are unveiling today is designed to deal very directly and specifically with this population that is doing most of the shooting in our neighborhoods.  Again, the individuals targeted by this bill are not young adults who are new to the criminal justice system or have just made a single mistake.  These are people who have violent histories, and are now on top of that illegally holding firearms.

The idea of imposing minimum mandatory sentences for persons who illegally possess firearms is not a new one.  The current minimum mandatory structure for these sentences was set up in 2003, over a decade ago.  The idea that there should be minimum mandatory sentences for violent offenders who insist on illegally having guns is water under the bridge,

But the minimum mandatory sentences don’t apply to some of the people who are causing the  most violence on our streets.  Because persons convicted of having guns they were prohibited from having based on violent crimes they committed as juveniles do not receive minimum mandatory sentences under our existing law.  

I’m going to say something that you probably haven’t heard from any Delaware Attorney General in the past.  I think some of our minimum mandatory sentences are too severe, and I am willing to talk to legislators about reforming them.  In fact, I’ve already talked to some legislators about common sense reforms we can make to our habitual offender statute, so that non-violent offenders aren’t serving decades in jail.  But minimum mandatory sentences have their place, and taking these violent offenders who are now flouting the law and holding guns off our streets is precisely the type of problem that minimum mandatory sentences should address.

If passed, this law will get dangerous people who insist on carrying guns off our streets.  And keep in mind that these aren’t people who bought a gun and didn’t know they were prohibited.  They are on the registry, if they tried to buy a gun in Delaware, they’d fail their background check.  So these are people who (a) have already committed violence against other people, (b) know they are not supposed to have a gun as a result, and (c) insist on having a gun anyway.  

These are also not people who committed violent acts in the distant past.  This bill only applies to people between 18 and 24, and is limited to adults who committed violent crimes when they were 16 or 17 years old.  So these are people who committed violent acts when they were clearly old enough to know better, not 13 or 14, and recently enough that they still remember it.

This will also allow our police and prosecutors to have a consistent message: if you are prohibited from having a gun because of a violent crime in your past, and you have one anyway, you are going to jail.  Period.  That is an important message for us to have out there.

Finally, this bill does one more thing: create minimum mandatory sentences for people who are prohibited from having a firearm, and nevertheless get convicted for it multiple times.  So what we are talking about is someone who has been told that they can’t have a gun, goes out and gets one anyway, gets convicted for it and faces some criminal sanction, and then goes out and does it all over again.  These are people who insist on illegally having guns, and they too need to be out of circulation.

As I said at the outset, this is a single, surgical step in a much larger effort to deal with the violent crime that is causing such harm to our state.  But it is an important step, and I am very grateful to Senators Henry and Ennis and Representative Mitchell for taking on this issue, as well as our colleagues in law enforcement for supporting this effort.

I like this. As opposed as I generally am to minimum mandatory sentencing, this is a specific initiative aimed at violent offenders who are prohibited from having weapons, violent offenders who are committing gun-related violence.  In fact, Denn goes out of his way to say that he wants reform of minimum mandatory sentences for non-violent offenders:

I think some of our minimum mandatory sentences are too severe, and I am willing to talk to legislators about reforming them.  In fact, I’ve already talked to some legislators about common sense reforms we can make to our habitual offender statute, so that non-violent offenders aren’t serving decades in jail.

This reminds me of why I’ve always liked Matt Denn.  He is a serious thinker, and he consistently comes up with innovative solutions to problems he believes require addressing.

I expect this bill to move through the General Assembly swiftly, maybe even by the end of January. And, you know, it just might make a difference.