Washington (AP) – Big Ju Judge refused to indict A man caught in a video of a federal agent throwing a sandwich. Prosecutor I dropped another case After complaints that police illegally searched the man anatchel and found a gun. The judge also barred several defendants in prison, citing the decision on weak evidence and suspicious claims.
President Donald Trump Crime crackdown The country’s capital has created a rapid rapid oncenses against those caught up in the surge in street patrols. Judges, defense counsels, and many more, have already plunged into holes.
“I’ve seen things for the past 72 hours that I’ve never seen in federal court,” US District Judge Zia Faruqui said Wednesday at a hearing of a man who was jailed for five days on misdemeanor marijuana possession charges. Later he added: “It feels like a kind of strange nightmare.”
Civil liberties are at risk, legal figures say
Trump has framed a three-week-old operation as a campaign to eradicate ramp-prolonged crime and “reclaim our capital.” Judges and lawyers adjudicate criminal cases say they are striving to strike a delicate balance between protecting public safety and maintaining civil liberties.
A team of federal agents and military forces are patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C., helping police arrest hundreds of people. The courts are struggling to keep up with the burgeoning caseload. Some people have been in prison for days while waiting to appear before a federal judge in the district court.
Edwin Jonathan Rodriguez, a recent college graduate, at age 25, has permission to carry a hidden firearm in Maryland. However, he spent eight days in prison after police. I stopped his car He said he found about 20 ounces of marijuana and drug equipment near Washington’s Wharf area on August 19th.
US Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey had not purchased the government’s claim that Rodriguez was a dangerous drug dealer.
“It’s very rare when drug dealers register a gun,” Harvey said when he ordered Rodriguez to be released. “There are several challenges to the government’s incident.”
With the police officer Unspecified “federal partners” Rodriguez stopped Rodriguez as he was driving a Lexus with a license plate on the back, not on the front of the vehicle, prosecutors said. Court filing. Defence counsel Joseph Scrofano has denounced law enforcement for jumping at unfounded conclusions about the car’s contents.
“We don’t have people based on assumptions,” Scrofano said. “We hold people based on evidence.”
Rodriguez, a budding architect who graduated from Morgan State in December, has no criminal history. However, he faces charges that will serve a mandatory minimum sentence of five years if convicted.
The number of people arrested is on the rise
More than 1,200 people have been arrested and 135 firearms have been seized since the surge on August 7th, according to the White House. The city’s police department said crime rates plummeted in the district, including a 56% decline in catching, a 56% decline in robbery and a 58% decline on Wednesday compared to the same weekly period in 2024.
More than 30 people arrested during the crackdown have been charged in the district court where the most serious crimes are being charged. About half of them have been charged with assault officers, agents or members of the National Guard, according to an Associated Press review of court records. The rest are charged with illegally owning a gun, drug or both.
The volume of district court cases was charged against nearly 1,600 people in the same court compared to the January 6, 2021 rebellion and the riots at the U.S. Capitol. However, the riot arrests stumbled over four years and all 50 states, reducing the burden on the courts.
Former federal prosecutor Michael Romanosaid he spent more than 17 years at the Justice Department and helped oversee the Capitol riot prosecution, and that the big ju court had never refused to return the charges in one of his cases. He said the Trump administration’s efforts, which appear to be harsh on crime, could backfire with many DC residents working at the Federal Jury Court.
“When you arrest someone with a small amount of evidence and overcharge them, the community doesn’t like it, and the evidence doesn’t support it,” said Romano, who resigned from the department earlier this year. “This shows the risk that lawyers can’t do their job and have a Department of Justice who can’t properly assess whether the case is good or not.”
“We simply don’t follow the flow.”
At least three people have been arrested on assault charges for spitting out federal agents or troops on patrols. Viral video captured Justice Department lawyers throwing “sub-style” sandwiches at customs and border security agents. However, the big ju judge refused to indict him. Felony charges – Very rare obstacles to prosecutors.
“Big jury, judge, we simply don’t follow the flow,” Falky said.
He wondered why people were locked up for days due to relatively minor crimes that were not dealt with in the district court. Faruqui said he shared his concerns with the leaders of Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office and hopes that he can reduce the waiting time for detention hearings and first court appearances.
Earlier this week, Pillo and Falky orally touted the office handling of the lawsuit against a man arrested at Trader Joe’s supermarket last month. The police said they followed. Torez Riley He enters the grocery store and finds two unregistered guns inside his satchel. He was charged with a felony in possession of a firearm, but Pilro’s office dropped the case a week later.
During his hearing Monday, Faruqui said he was “absolutely surprised” that Riley was jailed for a week before the lawsuit was dismissed. He said, “It’s definitely the most illegal search I’ve ever seen.”
Pillo, a former Fox News host whom Trump appointed in May to lead the largest US law firm in the United States in May, responded in a statement accusing Fulkey of having “a long history of bent backwards to release dangerous felons with firearms.”
On Thursday, Harvey ordered the release of a man arrested on August 16 after a traffic stop by the US Park Police and former US S-Service members. The magistrate pressed the prosecutor to explain why the driver was. Amarian LangstonHe was charged with illegally owning a handgun found by an officer on the side of the road after crashing the vehicle. Prosecutor Kyle McWorters admitted that no one saw Langston throwing a weapon.
Prosecutors separately indicted Langston’s girlfriend in DC Superior Court. McWaters said the law allows the government to charge both for illegally owning the same gun, despite being said to belong to a girlfriend.
McWaters said: “I’m not saying it’s an easy hill to climb.