A Record of Reform
Decreased Crime and Decreased Incarceration
Ramin took office in 2022, in the middle of a national spike in violent crime provoked by the social dislocations of COVID and the failures of the Trump Administration in managing that crisis.
Since Ramin took office, the City of Norfolk has seen a 40% drop in violent crime and homicide from 2022 to 2024 and a 27% drop in property crime from 2023 to 2024, all while the population of the Norfolk City Jail is a fraction of what it was a decade ago.
Amid pressure by powerful special interests and other elected officials to “get tough” and show “zero tolerance,” Ramin kept his promises to implement criminal-justice reforms in Norfolk. And crime dropped.
Conviction Integrity and Public Corruption
In 2012, a corrupt Norfolk Police detective went to federal prison for accepting bribes from drug dealers. That same detective was responsible for the false conviction in the infamous “Norfolk Four” case in addition to multiple other false convictions.
Despite this corruption, there was never a review of that detective’s cases. In 2023, Ramin formed a partnership with UVA Law School’s Project on Informed Reform to review every one of that detective’s cases, because that detective’s corruption has cast all of his work into doubt.
Ramin knows that we cannot expect people to have faith in the justice system if the justice system refuses to examine the integrity of its own work.
Confederate Monuments
In 2017, shortly after white supremacist violence erupted in Charlottesville, Ramin did the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office’s legal analysis—at the request of the City Attorney—concluding that Virginia’s monument-removal statute would not prevent the City of Norfolk from removing its Confederate monument. Ramin’s reasoning paved the way for the removal of that monument following the protests against the murder of George Floyd.
No Prosecution of Marijuana Possession
Also in early 2019, Ramin conducted a study of marijuana-possession arrests and convictions in Norfolk. That study revealed that, though Norfolk is approximately 47% white and 43% African American, 90% of Norfolk’s marijuana-possession arrests were of African Americans. That starkly racially disparate outcome was something that the Office—and Ramin—could not abide.
Ramin became the primary author of the Office’s policy to dismiss all cases of simple marijuana possession in which the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office was involved. Norfolk started this vital conversation, and as of July 2020, thanks to the Virginia General Assembly, marijuana possession in Virginia is no longer a crime.
Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice
Ramin is a proud progressive prosecutor and a member of Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice (“VPPFJ”), a group dedicated to advocating for sensible reforms to Virginia’s criminal justice system whose representatives are the chief prosecutors for 30% of Virginia’s population.
No Cash Bail
If someone is a threat to public safety, they should be held in jail pending trial. If they are not a threat, Virginia law entitles them to release. But in Virginia, magistrates and judges can require people who have already been deemed release-eligible to pay money–cash bail–to be released. This is unfair and harms public safety. That’s why in early 2019 Ramin was the primary author of the Office’s policy rejecting cash bail as a tool for prosecution, instructing all Norfolk prosecutors to cease demanding cash bail, and authorizing the Commonwealth’s independent magistrates to cease using cash bail where the law had otherwise required it. You can read that policy here and the letter to the magistrates here.
Closing the School to Prison Pipeline
Since taking office, Ramin has make it a priority to treat children as children and not as criminals. Since taking office, Ramin’s prosecutors have sought appropriate accountability for violent acts by children while offering diversion, treatment, and rehabilitation. During Ramin’s term, with only one exception, no child in Norfolk has been sent to adult prison.
Ending Jury Sentencing
In October 2020, the Virginia General Assembly aligned Virginia’s trial procedures to match the federal government and 44 other states in assigning the factual decision of whether an accused person is guilty to a jury of one’s peers and the technical decision of an equitable sentence to a trained judge.
Ramin lobbied for this change, behind the scenes and in public, on behalf of the Commonwealth’s Attorneys of Norfolk, Fairfax County, Arlington County, and Albemarle County, and he considers it a highlight of his career to have done so.