A federal judge on Monday upheld the legality of a Trump-era policy of charging certain gun crimes in federal court, saying it did not violate the District’s Home Rule Act or the authority of D.C. Superior Court.
, then-U.S. attorney Jessie K. Liu declared that the initiative would be phased in citywide so that by later in 2019, authorities would be “bringing essentially all of these in [U.S.] District Court.” The effort was backed by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and then-D.C. police chief Peter Newsham as the city faced a 40 percent jump in homicides, but it was opposed by 10 of 13 D.C. Council members.On average, prison sentences are twice as high in federal court. Between Feb. 1, 2020, and Feb.
The District’s murder rate climbed nearly 40 percent in 2018, even though many other large cities saw a decline in killings that year. Of 160 homicides in the city that year, 79 percent were committed with a gun. Three-fourths of homicides and nearly two-thirds of 1,926 illegal guns seized that year took place in three police districts — the 5th, 6th and 7th Districts — while police reported that 40 percent of homicide suspects had a prior gun arrest and 26 percent had a prior felony conviction.
Simmons, whose true name is Bernard Byrd, was arrested on Nov. 15, 2018, and released three days later by a Superior Court judge to high-intensity supervision, when he was indicted on federal charges alleging the same conduct. He was arrested a second time on Nov. 30 and released by a U.S. magistrate judge on similar conditions.