17 August 2020

Virginia: New Proposed Laws: Attorney General Involvement

 Criminally:

SB5040 - The bill will allow the Attorney General to participate in prosecutions of officers charged with a homicide if the local prosecutor allows them to.

Civilly:

SB5024 - Allows the AG to investigate claims of law enforcement behavior violating "rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the laws of the United States and the Commonwealth", try to resolve these problems, and sue to enforce against law enforcement agencies.

This is similar to the federal AG intervening in local law enforcement. It will be interesting to see how this plays out intrastate. In a federal context my impression is that the feds swoop in, declare local departments to be in violation of a particular interpretation of the constitution, and rely on the fact that the County of Pitcairn can't possibly stand up to the federal government to force the locality to conform to the interpretation whether or not the courts would support that interpretation. However, the AG may not have that level of intimidation and greater power levels to rely upon.

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