The best political news of the summer is Denver DA Beth McCann’s decision to step aside when her second term ends and let someone else take the reins in 2025 who might actually prosecute and jail violent criminals.
Her decision may be a signal the tide is turning among Democrats who for years have preached that criminals should be coddled instead of punished. It’s likely she ran the poll numbers and saw the exit sign flashing over the door before it kicked her ass goodbye.
Even outgoing Denver Mayor Hancock admitted to The Gazette that the courts under her reign have failed to hold criminals accountable.
“I think the DA and her administration have not really held up their end of the bargain in terms of dealing with repeat offenders, in particular ex-felons carrying weapons,” Hancock said. “You know, even on some of the drug charges, we simply have not done the job in the district attorney’s office in terms of holding people accountable.”
We know we’ll get bashed by 9News’s Kyle Clark for failing to thank McCann for letting the 9News security guard shooter off the hook for all her years of service to criminals, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.
We expect she will eventually go down in history as the worst prosecutor in Denver history. And not just because she failed to prosecute the 9News security guard who shot and killed a rally protestor.
The dashboard created by McCann to give the illusion her office is doing its job to keep the streets of Denver safe cracks under the briefest glimpses of scrutiny.
Here are the cases filed during her tenure. But it’s impossible to figure out how many of those resulted in prosecution or plea deals, dropped charges or deferrals.
The vast majority were traffic-related.
How many plead guilty or agreed to plea deals is not evident. What is, not many actually go to court for prosecution.
Also, the only number we could find for cases resolved was in 2022, and the felony cases resolved outnumbered the cases filed because so many cases languish for longer than one year.
It’s no secret that there’s no justice in Denver for victims of crime. In fact, if a driver tries to get away from a rioting mob that jumps on their vehicle and smashes the windows, the driver gets prosecuted while the violent attackers walk Scott free.
The Gazette notes:
McCann all too often has used her two terms as Denver’s top prosecutor to advance the same reckless and naive “justice reform” agenda that has driven soft-on-crime legislation at the Capitol in recent years. In place of stiff penalties, she has touted offender-friendly “restorative justice.” Rather than keep high-risk suspects with lengthy criminal records behind bars pending court proceedings — so they can’t menace the community — she has shown a preference for easy-release, personal-recognizance bonds.
Denver voters really should demand better from their top prosecutor when next year’s election rolls around, instead of the feel-good progressive programs that are obviously doing more harm than good.