More county funding for reviewing claims of innocence and coordinating restorative justice was included in Arlington’s new budget.
The county payroll will now include permanent spots for a conviction integrity attorney and a Director of Restorative Justice and Diversion, the office of Arlington’s top prosecutor announced in a Friday press release.
“This helps ensure that we have some of the resources necessary to get it right and keep getting it right: we can play a role in fixing past wrongs, but also can ensure that we make informed decisions based on best practices about cases to divert and which cases to litigate, and when we do litigate, to make sure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said.
The attorney will work in Arlington’s Conviction Review Unit, which launched in 2021 to correct wrongful convictions and provide training and policy recommendations to prevent any future errors. The unit has so far helped vacate one conviction, according to the press release — that of Lundy Khoy, a Cambodian immigrant who had lived with the threat of deportation for nearly 20 years after allegedly being caught with ecstasy pills in 2000.
The other permanent position goes to Restorative Justice Director Grace Woodward, whose post was previously made possible with temporary funds from the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
Since 2023, Woodward has referred 18 cases to the Heart of Safety restorative justice program, Dehghani-Tafti told ARLnow. She also helped develop Offender Aid and Restoration’s training and diversion program, which currently has a docket of 10 people.
“All of these programs are in their early stages and have limited capacity — the more funding provided for programing, the more people we can get into the programing,” Dehghani-Tafti said.
The full press release from the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office is below.
On Saturday, April 20, 2024, the Arlington County Board adopted the $1.65 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2025. The Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney is proud to announce the permanent establishment of two key positions central to our mission of delivering fair and equal treatment for all in our criminal legal system: Conviction Integrity Attorney position, and Director of Restorative Justice and Diversion position.
The Conviction Integrity Unit investigates claims of innocence, corrects wrongful convictions, and provides training and policy recommendations to prevent wrongful convictions. This unit has already helped to have one wrongful conviction vacated, as reported in the Washington Post: Lundy Khoy has faced deportation to Cambodia for nearly 20 years. Receiving sustained funding for an attorney committed to this role serves as an additional safeguard to help ensure that our criminal legal system is just and we are proud to say that we are the first office in the Commonwealth to create such a role.
The Director of Restorative Justice and Diversion Services has similarly become an essential position in our office, having previously been funded temporarily by a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, within the Department of Justice. Our Office is among the first in the nation to officially implement such a position. The current Director, Grace Woodward, works closely with Restorative Arlington and OAR (grassroots Arlington non-profits) to generate referrals and enroll participants into our Heart of Safety Restorative Justice Program, our OAR Diversion Program, respectively. Additionally, the Director of Restorative Justice and Diversion Services is actively involved in community outreach and has built strong connections throughout the Metropolitan D.C. area to connect defendants to programs and resources where they reside.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said, “I want to thank the County Board for approving permanent funding for these two positions. This helps ensure that we have some of the resources necessary to get it right and keep getting it right: we can play a role in fixing past wrongs, but also can ensure that we make informed decisions based on best practices about cases to divert and which cases to litigate, and when we do litigate, to make sure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. I’m grateful to all the community members who reached out to impress upon the Board the importance of these positions to serve the community better in years to come.”
The Office also sought funding for an investigator, data clean-up and transparency, and restorative justice conferencing, which was not granted this year. We will continue to seek funding for these important roles and projects, as the Office has done since 2021.