During this morning’s City Council budget-review meeting, Councilmember Lisa Herbold‘s proposal to add potential defenses to city misdemeanor criminal law – covered here Monday night – got about half an hour of discussion (starting at 1:46:50 in the video above). End result: At Council President Lorena González‘s request, the proposal is being pulled out of the budget process and shelved until the council gets back to regular business in about a month. González said that council staffers are already more or less maxed out on the work they can do during the intensive budget-review process, and also noted that this isn’t purely a budget matter anyway. In her initial remarks about it, Herbold said, “This is really about creating some transparency about the conditions of the lives of people who have been accused of offenses … The proposal does not require a dismissal or acquittal – it simply allows the defense.” The other councilmembers who spoke during the discussion expressed support for the concept, including González and Councilmember Andrew Lewis, a former assistant city attorney. He noted that no legislation has been drafted yet but he would expect some (unspecified) changes in the version posted by public defenders: “There’s a lot more work that needs to be done, a lot more discussion that needs to happen.” González said she supports the goals of the proposal – “I continue to believe that it’s time to stop the criminalization of poverty, addiction, and mental illness.” Though shelving the proposal until after the budget process wasn’t described during the meeting as a done deal, we confirmed with Herbold later that it is – and she adds, “Consequently, I’ll be taking the issue up in December.”
West Seattle, Washington
09 Monday
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