A California county has dismissed numerous violent criminal cases because of an order related to COVID.
QUICK FACTS:
- Riverside County in Southern California was forced to dismiss hundreds of violent criminal cases due to a COVID-related lockdown order, The Blaze reported.
- “What’s happening is a disaster,” Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin told KABC. “There’s a crisis over in our courts.”
- Hestrin explained that an emergency order was put on certain cases during the pandemic allowing them to be delayed, and now the current shortage of judges is forcing them to be dismissed.
- “I think that these dismissals are not warranted and it’s an injustice, and it’s putting the public in danger,” Hestrin continued.
RIVERSIDE COUNTY DA MIKE HESTRIN ON DISMISSING NUMEROUS CRIMINAL CASES:
“We should be extending our hours,” Hestrin said. “The courts need to consider perhaps night court or Saturday court. Just to simply say we don’t have the resources and start dismissing hundreds of criminal cases, that’s not an answer.”
BACKGROUND:
- During the past nine months, concerns about crime and homelessness in the state of California have increased, as American Faith reported.
- Accused criminals now are released without bail on a “compassionate” theory that innocent people otherwise end up sitting wrongly in custody, awaiting arraignment for crimes they never perpetrated.
- According to the Public Policy Institute of California, California’s major cities have seen major increases in homicides and car thefts.
