‘We are facing an unprecedented public health emergency, which has required us to work collaboratively to develop unique solutions…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Virginia’s disgraced Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam is taking a victory lap over his efforts to free criminals amid the Wuhan virus outbreak.
However, Northam isn’t measuring success in terms of justice but in how many inmates he’s been able to spring from local and regional jails in the name of public safety.
A Friday press release bragged about “dramatically” decreasing the state’s jail population, although the controversial governor also spoke euphemistically about the dangerous policy.
“We are facing an unprecedented public health emergency, which has required us to work collaboratively to develop unique solutions,” he said.
On March 19, Northam issued legal guidance to local and state law enforcement agencies to stop the spread of the Wuhan virus. The guidance was greeted receptively by Democratic law enforcement officials as it conveniently dovetails with the progressive impulse to treat criminal offenders as victims of the criminal-justice system.
According to Northam’s statement, the number of people admitted to local and regional jails has decreased from approximately 10,000 to just over 4,000 during a recent two-week period. Virginia’s overall jail population has decreased by 17 percent.
The Northam administration has pushed judges, magistrates and judicial officers to reduce or eliminate bail, as well as utilize home electronic-monitoring equipment and make sentence modifications to early-release convicted criminals instead of keeping them behind bars.
Northam has further proposed a state budget amendment that would allow his appointed director of the Department of Corrections to release prison inmates with less than a year remaining on their sentences.
Similar policies have taken root in places like New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio has come under fire after a police officer was killed responding to a robbery involving two coronavirus-related early-release inmates.
Northam gained national infamy last year for appearing in college yearbook photograph depicting blackface and a KKK outfit. He reportedly went by the college nickname “Coonman.”
Despite claiming that the pandemic was the catalyst for his drastic action on “mass clemency,” it was among several that was included on a laundry list presented to him last year by the radical leftist Virginia Black Politicos in return for their support of the scandal-tarnished governor.
In addition, Northam helped eliminate voter ID throughout the state of Virginia as part of an ambitious election-reform package with the goal of securing permanent Democratic majorities.
He also cleared the way for the removal of Confederate monuments Virginia’s far-left enclaves—including Richmond an Charlottesville, the site of a deadly 2017 clash over the illegal removal of two Civil War statues.
After issuing the shelter order, which diminishes the likelihood of protest, Northam last week signed expansive new laws supporting abortion and adding to the books drastic new anti-gun laws that had earlier drawn thousands to the state capitol in opposition.
Many of the counties in the state have considered designating themselves as 2nd-Amendment sanctuaries in response to the radical leftist proposals, and some have even considered seceding from the state to join West Virginia.
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.