The D.C. Council is set to decide Tuesday whether a man who spent 27 years behind bars for murder should serve on a city commission that drafts and modifies criminal sentencing guidelines — a nomination that is likely to spark heated debate.
Washington, D.C
Should a man convicted of murder help set D.C. sentencing guidelines?
Castón, who did not respond to requests for comment, was released from prison last year, nearly three decades after he killed an 18-year-old man in a 1994 parking lot shooting. In 2021, while still a prisoner, he was elected to the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission, becoming the first incarcerated person voted into public office in the city.
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who nominated Castón to the 12-member sentencing commission, said in an interview that the panel expressed interest in having a previously incarcerated person join the group. Linden Fry, the commission’s executive director, said members began discussing the addition of a person who had been incarcerated after they learned “how other sentencing commissions in the United States have added returned citizen members.”
“A formerly incarcerated, justice-involved individual can offer a relevant and unique point of view unavailable to other members,” Fry said.
But Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District, whose office prosecutes felony cases in the city, questioned Castón’s integrity in a letter to Mendelson. Graves said the nominee would likely advocate for lesser sentencing ranges that would make it even harder for prosecutors to secure prison time for people convicted of firearms violations in the nation’s capital.
At a council hearing in December, Castón said, “If confirmed, I would be a fierce advocate for sentences that balance accountability, public well-being and human dignity.”
The debate over Castón is yet another instance of discord among top local officials about how to ensure public safety and make the criminal justice system more efficient in the District, which has been enduring spikes in violence, including homicides. More people were slain in D.C. in 2023 than in any year since 1997. The Bowser administration, Graves’s office and some judges repeatedly and publicly pointed fingers of blame at one another last year over aspects of the city’s crime crisis.
Minimum and maximum sentences for crimes are established by District law, and D.C. Superior Court judges impose prison time within those ranges. In deciding what a particular sentences should be, judges rely on a manual containing elaborate formulas for calculating an appropriate prison term based partly on a defendant’s criminal background and the specifics of the offense.
The resulting guidelines are advisory, and judges can depart from them — although data published by the commission last year showed that judges’ sentences hewed to the recommendations in nearly 97 percent of felony cases. The sentencing commission governs the manual and any revisions to it.
Castón would be the D.C. Council’s voting representative on the commission. But whether a man with a murder conviction should be part of that process has prompted debate among top D.C. officials, revealing the depths of ideological fissures among some of them. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), chairwoman of the council’s public safety committee, said she would not support Castón’s nomination, suggesting he lacks expertise in “the nuanced landscape of our D.C. sentencing guidelines.”
After Graves outlined his reservations in a letter, Mendelson responded by expressing support for Castón and accusing Graves of blaming the sentencing commission for problems created by the U.S. attorney’s office.
In the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote, Graves and Mendelson sparred in letters over the merits of Castón’s nomination. Gregg Pemberton, the chairman of the police union, also opposed the nomination, while a D.C. police spokesman said the department would work with all members of the commission.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a voting member of the commission who was appointed by the Superior Court chief judge, said Castón would add key insight to the group.
“Trying to identify problems with this nomination is completely misguided in terms of having meaningful conversations about what to do about crime,” she said. Ghandnoosh is the co-director of research at the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates to “minimize imprisonment.”
Asked about Castón’s vision for criminal justice and sentencing, Mendelson acknowledged that he did not probe Castón’s positions, saying he was primarily focused on his background as a formerly incarcerated person.
Castón, who has advocated for restorative justice and prison reform, has also done consulting and work with criminal justice organizations such as the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates against mass incarceration and seeks to reduce disparities in the justice system. But Mendelson disagreed that Castón’s appointment as the council’s voice on the commission would be a statement on the direction the council hoped to take criminal justice reform in the city.
“It’s not a policy position but a perspective,” Mendelson said.
Graves, in a Jan. 2 letter to Mendelson, raised questions about Castón’s past. He pointed to a 2021 decision by a Superior Court judge to deny his petition for early release under a D.C. law meant to give fresh chances to people who have been imprisoned for many years. The judge wrote that the court was “highly troubled by a specific characteristic that has been displayed consistently throughout his post-conviction history that seems at odds with any claim to integrity.”
Castón claimed innocence before he accepted responsibility for the murder. Mendelson, in a memo to the Council on Monday, acknowledged that Castón “pursued an innocence claim which was denied repeatedly because it was false.” But Mendelson highlighted a judge’s finding that Castón also made “enormous strides” while incarcerated.
In his letter, Graves blamed the commission for inadequate sentencing outcomes in the District. In 2022, according to Graves, 57 percent of people sentenced on his office’s most commonly charged firearms offense — carrying a pistol without a license — were sentenced to probation. An additional 30 percent received relatively short jail terms.
“These outcomes are a feature, not a bug, of the District’s Guidelines,” Graves said in the letter.
At a Dec. 5 breakfast with the council, Graves expounded on his problems with the existing sentencing guidelines and called for a “wholesale” review of the manual. In that meeting, he specifically criticized a 2018 change by the commission, when members eased sentencing guidelines for people with prior felony convictions who are found guilty of illegal gun possession.
“The fact that this is so defense-friendly really isn’t surprising if you look at the composition on [the commission],” Graves said at the breakfast. “There are voting members on that commission who are explicitly associated with organizations that are in the decarceral movement. … If people are fine with that, that’s fine to have these guidelines. But if they want to change, then you have to look at who are the voting members on the commission?”
Mendelson said it is misleading for Graves to blame guidelines that have been around for two decades.
“Focusing on the sentencing commission is turning the spotlight somewhere else,” Mendelson said, pointing to Graves’s prosecution rate. The U.S. attorney’s office declined to prosecute 56 percent of cases in D.C. in fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30. Graves has pointed to problems with the city’s crime lab, which went two years without certification in some departments, and court decisions that restrict police actions and make prosecutions in gun cases difficult.
The debate over Castón’s nomination comes as every corner of D.C.’s criminal justice system is under public scrutiny. In respond to rising crime, officials began turning away from progressive strategies enacted in recent years. Instead, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), new Police Chief Pamela A. Smith and some lawmakers have cited the need for greater accountability, advocating for tougher sentences for adults and juveniles who commit violent crimes.
Berk Kutay Gökmen
02 July 2026•Update: 02 July 2026
US Defense Secretary Hegseth on Thursday faced protesters while hosting the Trump administration’s DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force ceremony in Washington DC.
During the ceremony at Meridian Hill Park, which saw the gathering of National Guardsmen, dozens of demonstrators gathered near the park to protest Hegseth.
Footage shows the demonstrators chanting a short distance away from where Hegseth and roughly 200 members of the National Guard had gathered in the park
In social media posts, one protester was seen holding a Palestinian flag, while another person was holding a sign that reads “arrest Hegseth.” The protesters want a “Free DC,” according to social media posts.
In his address to the National Guard, Hegseth said that “this background noise is perfect,” referring to the protests.
“It’s the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude—of people who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them,” he said.
Meridian Hill Park was repaired by the National Park Service and the Interior Department as part of a larger initiative to restore and enhance federal parks and public spaces throughout the nation’s capital in preparation for America’s 250th anniversary, which falls on this Saturday, July 4.
Though such beautification projects are typically popular with the public, the current initiative has been controversial both for its choice of projects and the use of no-bid contracts to hire firms to do the work, sometimes with disappointing results.
The work aligns with President Donald Trump’s DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force, established by a March 2025 executive order that directs federal agencies to coordinate public safety and beautification efforts across Washington.
Washington, D.C
Metro, DC leaders lay out more details on transit at new Commanders stadium – WTOP News
D.C. officials expressed an urgency Wednesday to begin preparing transit infrastructure for the opening in 2030 of the new Washington Commanders stadium on the old RFK Stadium campus.
D.C. officials expressed an urgency Wednesday to begin preparing transit infrastructure for the opening in 2030 of the new Washington Commanders stadium on the old RFK Stadium campus.
The work will impact far more than the single, cramped Metro station nearby.
During a roundtable discussion with District leaders, Metro General Manager and CEO Randy Clarke laid out the need for improvements to the existing Stadium-Armory Metro stop, and touted a new rapid bus transit line with dedicated lanes.
In tandem, those will be key to getting tens of thousands of people to events at the coming stadium, Clarke said.
“I absolutely believe the first couple of experiences that people have going to a Commanders game, going to some of the first big events, is going to dictate how people feel about taking transit,” D.C. Council member Charles Allen, who chairs the committee that oversees transportation projects, said. “So, we don’t have an option to get it wrong. We have to get it right.”
That’s why Clarke and other District leaders agreed that reaching a memorandum of understanding that lays out the roles, responsibilities and financials of these projects by July 23, the next Metro board meeting, is crucial.
“I think we’re all working towards that, and pretty optimistic,” Clarke said. “Then we’ve got to work really hard on design, we’ve got to work really hard on procurement, we’ve got to work really hard on construction.”
Clarke said the stadium’s ability to attract blockbuster events will depend on the transit agency and its ability to move people in and out of the complex.
“We’re not going to try to get, hosting the Super Bowl, we’re not going to try to host women’s World Cup, we’re not trying to get Taylor Swift and Beyoncé back here. I mean, at the end of the day, Metro is going to be the key to the success. We understand the pressure on us,” he said.
For the Stadium-Armory station, that means renovating the mezzanine and adding elevators to handle the increased demand. Clarke also talked about new street-level infrastructure to help manage the flow inside the station.
“So it’s very Disney-esque, where people feel like they’re constantly moving without actually going too far, if you know what I mean,” Clarke said. “Then we filter them where we need to go. That is a good example of what we need to do at the surface.”
But Metro won’t rely entirely on its trains. The roundtable also discussed what’s been dubbed the Gold Line, which would run buses from Union Station to the stadium.
Construction estimates for bus line are in the $75 million range, District Department of Transportation Director Sharon Kershbaum said
The Gold Line is to run through the heart of the H Street corridor, and transportation leaders said the impact will be everything the streetcar was supposed to be.
“This is now going to be the east-west corridor that we never were able to accomplish on the streetcar,” Kershbaum said.
“This is going to have frictionless service, because it will be center-running. So all of the issues — when a car double-parked and it stopped streetcar service — all of those things, we’ll be immune from. We are going to see the transportation service that was really never ever reached by streetcar achieved with this,” she said.
The vision for the Gold Line goes beyond the handful of weekends when NFL football is played at the stadium, and beyond initial Union Station-stadium route. Transportation officials see the buses eventually traveling between the Benning Road Metro Station and Rosslyn, Virginia.
“We want the Gold Line to solve the cross-town problem we’ve had in this community for a long, long time,” Clarke said.
That means providing access to the convention center and also solving the gridlock that fills up K Street NW every day. Clarke said coming up with dedicated lanes on K Street would actually be the most pivotal part of this new transit line.
“The downtown core of D.C. does not move, especially during p.m. rush hour,” Clarke said. “If you want people in Benning Road that may work, say on K Street, to have better transportation, solving K Street is equally as important, if not more important, because of time savings and reliability.”
Officials did not specify a timeline for the full expansion, but it would not be completed by 2030.
Where it does run, Gold Line buses would travel in the middle lanes, to avoid what caused problems for the Streetcar, which could grind to a halt when cars would double park. Building out the Gold Line would mean more changes to the way cars move along H Street in Northeast.
“You can’t do what you want to do and also keep all the parking,” At-Large Council member Christina Henderson said.
“There’s intersections where we’re going to have to take turns away at certain intersections, maybe parking in certain places,” Clarke said. “In other places parking could be kept, because we’re looking at putting platforms.”
Stadium-related transit construction will run far beyond H Street and the Stadium Armory stop.
“We do want to minimize outages, but there’s going to be significant outages to do this project,” Clarke said.
“It’s all about where we can turn trains around and how to manage that,” he added. “So if we do an outage to Stadium Armory, what that really means is we’re impacting customers from New Carrollton and Largo all the way through the system, and some people that are west of the system that want to go east of Stadium Armory won’t be able to.”
But with the project not even really in the design phase yet, it’s hard to plan out how and when those impacts will happen.
“We’ll be doing obviously overnight work,” Clarke said. “We’ll probably do some, what we call, early outs. Sometimes we’ll start at 10 o’clock at night. We might be able to do some single tracking on certain types of work. Other work is going to be complete shutdowns.”
“And the question is, is that going to be X amount of weekends or is it going to be like a two-, three-, four-week block at a time,” he added. “We’ve got to work through all of that.”
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ohioans are among the visitors traveling to the nation’s capital this week for the Great American State Fair, part of the country’s 250th birthday celebration.
On Wednesday, visitors trickled into the Ohio state pavilion booth, which includes a map of Ohio’s most iconic places and an exhibit on several children’s initiatives championed by Gov. Mike DeWine, First Lady Fran DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel.
“I wanted to come here, we wanted to see the sights here. We figured once in a lifetime,” said Carolyn Golamb of Fremont, who was visiting Washington, D.C. with her husband, Mark.
The fair has been a source of controversy after multiple musicians scheduled to perform at a kickoff concert withdrew, citing political concerns.
The event was organized by Freedom 250, a White House-backed group that has been accused of usurping the government’s official America250 commission, created by Congress 10 years ago for the same purpose. In addition, many elements of the fair have pushed a partisan message, such as President Donald Trump’s campaign-style rally on June 25 and events like “MAHA Mondays.”
Amid the controversy, attendance at the fair has been sparse.
Rep. Dave Taylor, R-Ohio, attributed the light turnout not to politics, but to forecasts of triple-digit heat this week.
“The weather is going to hold numbers down a little bit,” he said. “There’s a lot of walking to go from one place to another here, and people are here visiting with little kids. I think you’re going to see the numbers pick up as we get closer to Saturday for sure.”
Several visitors from Ohio said they did not notice any partisanship at the fair.
“That is the reason why I’m here, is because all of us have made a big positive contribution to what makes America great. And it’s not just one group or one party or anything. It’s all of us together,” said Toledo native Cassandra Newsome.
“It’s the 250th anniversary. No matter who was in power at the time, I still would be here,” said Mark Golamb.
The fair runs June 25 to July 10 on the National Mall.
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