To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better,’
is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.
— C. S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”
Issued quietly, and in only four pages, a new rule change by the WA Supreme Court will have a detrimental impact upon our public safety. It’s so extreme that it’s nearly hard to believe: Judges in our state can now unilaterally dismiss charges against a criminal. It profoundly empowers soft-on-crime judges to let criminals get away without punishment. By doing so, it means fewer penalties and more crime for our state.
Our state already has one of the highest crime rates in the nation:
Washington state was ranked the most dangerous state to live in for 2024 due to rampant crime, according to a new study from WalletHub, which ranked all 50 states for safety based on violent crime, property crime, traffic-related fatalities, and total law enforcement employees per capita.
This new rule change will breed more lawlessness, and it will undermine one of the most foundational features of any good society, and the most basic purpose any government is charged to protect: our safety.
Changing Criminal Rule 8.3(b)
Jason Rantz of 770 KTTH summarizes the new rule change:
The change to Criminal Rule 8.3(b) allows judges to throw out prosecutions they personally decide are unjust — based on vague and highly subjective factors like “the impact of a dismissal on the safety or welfare of the community (the defendant is part of the community)” or “the impact of a dismissal or lack of dismissal upon the confidence of the public in the criminal justice system.” All the Defense has to do is claim “arbitrary action or governmental misconduct” that prejudiced the rights of their client.
It puts incredible power into the hands of judges, and it removes power away from the laws of the Legislature.
Rep. Lauren Davis Speaks Out
Against this new rule stands Rep. Lauren Davis (D), a courageous legislator from Shoreline. She believes criminals should be held accountable for their crimes, and that activist, soft-on-crime judges should not be empowered.
In an interview with Rantz, she shares her thoughts:
This is really appalling. … What will happen is an activist judge will dismiss a case, [then] there’ll be some sort of catastrophic consequence, and then that will probably prompt an awakening or a response [from citizens].
But it gets a little tricky, because the entity that decides whether or not a court rule overrides of statute is the Supreme Court, the same people who approved this … proposed court rule, so they would presumably just rule that their court rule gets to govern. And they are continuing to try to take away jurisdiction of the legislative branch into the judicial branch.
And:
There are judges where their vision of justice, or their version of justice, appears to exclusively refer to justice for the defendant, not justice for public, not justice for the victim, and it’s a very narrow view that has predictably catastrophic consequences.
FPIW Action Supports Rep. Lauren Davis
FPIW Action supports Rep. Davis on this issue, and has supported her on other bills to help fight against the soft-on-crime ideology that dominates today’s judicial system and hurts our society. We applaud her for standing up for victims and for justice.
Left vs. Right
Why did the WA Supreme Court change the rule? It is a logical extension of a deeper, underlying worldview about the nature of man.
(1) Morally Good. As Dennis Prager notes, the Left believes an individual is basically morally good, and commits crime often due to external factors such as inequalities, or poverty, or lack of education, or other economic, sociological influences, e.g., “systemic racism”.
Thus, in accord with the political philosophy of J. J. Rousseau (d. 1887), society at large is the corrupting force and is primarily responsible for crime, not the specific individual who is merely a product of that society. When a person is not personally responsible for crime, the Left reasons, then there’s no need to believe in any real punishment either. The criminal merely needs things such as therapeutical care, welfare goods, or additional education.
(2) Hold Accountable. The Right, by contrast, believes in Original Sin: that each person has an innate, internal pull to do evil that must be overcome by inculcating virtue (forming good habits). Crime, the Right says, is not committed due to external inequality, nor poverty in one’s wallet, but only a poverty of values in one’s soul. Good people do not commit such crimes.
It’s true that a person may be influenced by external factors from society, but a person is not determined by them. Thus, the Right affirms that each individual is responsible for crime and should be held personally accountable.
A crime commits a real debt that must be paid; it cannot be merely dismissed as imaginary. That is why the Right believes in the motto: “Let the punishment fit the crime,” or what is often referred to as “He received his just deserts.” He is paying his debts to his victim and to society at large. As C. S. Lewis writes, “To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better,’ is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.” This is justice.
Why Judges Exist
It has long been known, as Dennis Prager points out, that crime in the United States “accounts for more death, injury, and loss of property than all natural disasters combined.” “The social, emotional, moral, and psychological prices paid by Americans for violent crime over the last 35 years are incalculable.”
So, too, in our state.
The Chairman of the Washington State Republican Party writes this about the new rule change:
The judicial system is essentially about proper punishment for crimes. That’s the basic role of a judge: to uphold justice, “what is due”. A good judge is a jewel to a society — for a good judge protects our rights, punishes crime appropriately, and thus upholds a society rooted in justice.
Now, in our state, unpunished crime — which devalues our property, rights, and lives — will get worse. Safety is sacrificed. Ironically, it will be at the direction of those whose primary job it is to protect us.
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