Thread by @socialistdogmom

i can think of few things i would enjoy less than watching prosecutors debate but one of those things is “watching the prosecutor calmly observe officers brutally assault community members” and i’ve already seen that so what the hell, right?

there are no good prosecutors but albemarle county can absolutely do better than robert tracci.

i’ve spent plenty of time watching him in the courtroom but this is the image i think of most - tracci standing & watching as officers arrested mothers in front of their children at a school board meeting for the crime of being vocally antiracist.

imagine if tracci had a) prosecuted kessler for perjury in a timely fashion and b) not fucked up that prosecution. that would mean kessler would've been in jail during the summer of 2017 instead of planning the rally that resulted in a murder.

i’m particularly mad that robert tracci has put me in a position to favor a man i’ve referred to publicly in the past as “mr civility.”

a hingeley campaign volunteer asked me what brought me out to the debate. my honest answer was that robert tracci has chosen to prosecute some people i care about & opted not to prosecute some people who’ve hurt people i care about. it really just boils down to that.

apparently the ruritans (what is a ruritan?) did not expect people to come to this event and are not happy people are here. at least they finally let us inside. this event is not starting on time (30 minutes ago)

it’s very warm in here and it smells like fried chicken and i’m not having a good time.

thinking about how when tracci finally did get around to prosecuting jason kessler for perjury, which should’ve been a slam dunk case, he forgot to establish venue. it’s a mistake so basic that any first semester law student would be ashamed.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1179825845076217860?s=21

waiting for this debate to start & thinking about how robert tracci didn’t bring charges against any of the torch bearing nazis who threw lighter fluid on my friends. about how he offered the crying nazi a sweetheart deal for assaulting people i love.

glad i got a front row seat

tracci thanks the ruritans for preserving the “rural heritage” of the county. i still don’t completely understand what a ruritan is or does despite having it explained to me several times.

they do not have microphones or anything, which is a problem because this room is very long and full of very old people who can’t hear the candidates.

“the authority of a prosecutor is a function of his or her fidelity to the law,” tracci says. “it is not a political position, it is not a partisan position.”

tracci: “discretion is not the same as nullification,” he says prosecutors cannot “ignore the law.”
(his opponent is running on a platform that includes using prosecutorial discretion to cease prosecution for possession of small amounts of marijuana)

“i am not a politician,” hingeley says. “i’ve watched as albemarle county’s chief prosecutor has taken our criminal justice system in the wrong direction” & couldn’t sit by and watch.

hingeley says the people deserve a commonwealth’s attorney who won’t make “rookie mistakes.” damn the claws are out early.

“like donald trump, he’s satisfied with fear mongering and distraction,” he says of tracci’s statements to the media about hingeley’s plan to reduce the number of people incarcerated.

oh bringing up the bungling of the kessler case right off the bat. “he failed miserably,” hingeley says. “a victim did not get justice” because of tracci’s “rookie mistake” of failing to establish venue for the crime.

hingeley says he will do the job with discretion & good judgment, “not just a blind desire to convict and incarcerate”

tracci asks if he can respond to his opponent’s opening statement. he says hingeley doesn’t have any experience as a prosecutor (he’s been a public defender for decades)

tracci calls hingeley a “political activist” and “out of touch and inconsistent” with the office of commonwealth’s attorney. tracci then says most of the people in the room don’t even live on the county (which upsets the majority of the room who are his constituents)

lmao this is getting so ugly. hingeley points out that when tracci ran in 2015, he’d never even tried a case on his own before.

“don’t talk to me about experience - i’ve got 43 years of experience being a criminal trial lawyer,” hingeley says. (why is tracci smiling? it’s very unsettling!)

Q: what is the CA’s role in cooperation with local law enforcement?

hingeley says as a defense atty, he has worked with police extensively to prepare for trials. “i feel like i have a good working relationship with the police.”

apparently average police response time for a priority one call in rural areas of albemarle county is 10.49 minutes, which is close to their standard of ten minutes.

tracci now answering the same question about relationship with law enforcement, but first takes a moment to say it’s “flat out wrong” that he’d never prosecuted a case before taking office & “it’s inappropriate to just make things up.”

tracci says “we all have to be appreciative” of the police department every day & should thank them every time we see them. robert, getting the vote of every police officer isn’t going to be enough.

Q: in your personal and professional career, of what are you most proud?

tracci is proud of his family & his wife’s career as a surgeon. he’s also proud of the work he did on capitol hill.

tracci: “sometimes people want to subvert the law by ignoring the law” & he’s proud he doesn’t do that?

hingeley, same question: he’s also proud of his family & of having founded the public defender’s office in charlottesville.

tracci is sweating profusely and swaying side to side in his chair. he’s really about as good at debating as he is at lawyering (not good)

oh wow we’re moving on to audience questions! a woman asks hingeley what his position is on notifying ICE about “illegal aliens” (so it’s clear what answer she’s looking for!)

hingeley starts by clarifying that the prosecutor is NOT on the jail board (the local body who determines the local policy about ICE notifications by the jail)

hingeley says he would advise the jail board to follow the law, but what ICE wants is for the county to do their jobs for them. he says ICE is putting pressure on localities to “play ball” by threatening funding.

the woman is angry now and says “i can already tell your position by the way your framing your answer.”
hingeley asks her if that is a question (it’s not)
tracci thanks her for the question, “clearly my opponent is not comfortable answering it.”

tracci calls out a member of the jail board who did not support continued ICE notifications who is here in the audience & a supporter of his opponent. that seems pretty tacky, robert!

tracci is reading out the alleged crimes for which immigrants were being held before they were turned over to ICE. he says ICE is “very specific and very intentional” about the kind of people they target (not true!)

“the people who were at the jail board meeting were hectoring and berating and bullying the law enforcement officers,” tracci says (that is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. jail board meetings are INSIDE THE FUCKING JAIL. we behave at those meetings.)

next question is from a man in a “moms demand action” shirt asking a question about a bill to take guns away from people deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. tracci isn’t familiar with the bill he named.

“the second amendment is just as important a part of the constitution as any other part of the constitution,” tracci says.

“we can’t be selective when it comes to the second amendment,” tracci says.

hingeley says the extreme risk protective order bill is something he supports.

next question asker is a UVA student. she asks tracci about the events of august 11, saying her peers were terrorized that night.

“how do you square your values about not ignoring the law and getting justice for victims with your refusal to prosecute” related to the events of august 11?

tracci asks if she saw his piece in cville weekly? he says there were also torch rallies in the city for which no prosecutions were brought due to “deficiencies in the statute” re: “burning objects.” (ok but what about all the physical assaults???)

he isn’t answering the question at all. this is shameful.

tracci says “people affected by those events” should go to the police department.

hingeley says he doesn’t know what they’d get out of going to the police & that the county deserves someone who will stand up for them, that tracci is “always blaming others” (tracci is petulantly interrupting him now!)

can we get a bailiff in here to make robert tracci behave?

“maybe he’s not going to court because he’s afraid he’s going to drop the ball again,” hingeley says. 🌶🌶

“don’t tell me it’s unethical to even attempt to get this into court,” hingeley says. an attempted prosecution may not succeed but it would be “on firm ground” to at least try
(first applause of the night on this!)

next question asker is mad about “illegals.” he hasn’t even asked a question, he’s just ranting about “hispanics”

“immigrants don’t get special treatment for any category of crime,” hingeley says, pushing back hard on the question asker’s premise that undocumented people are committing crimes & getting breaks from the system. “you’re fear mongering,” he tells him.

applause again for hingeley on that question.

tracci thanks the racist for his question. “let’s be very clear about what my opponent favors,” saying hingeley agrees with people who hold signs like “no borders, no wall, no usa at all” & wants to get ICE out of our community.

hingeley is upset at the “guilt by association” and doesn’t appreciate being lumped in with the sign holders tracci referred to.

this question asker is taking too long to get to his question, even if it is good to call tracci on the fact that most immigrants detained by ICE have not committed violent crimes.

“it’s important that this be a fact driven analysis and not driven by platitudes,” tracci says. which is weird because he is cherry picking facts that support a really specific, racist, xenophobic narrative.

“there is a difference between legal and illegal immigration,” tracci says, hiding from any allegation that he’s a racist by reminding everyone that his parents are immigrants.

the debate is over but tracci can’t let it end without implying it’s the judge’s fault he messed up kessler’s case.