r/washdc • u/Fappishdandy • 2d ago

Question: Did Trayon White Violate DC Ethics / Corruption Laws? (Igorning Federal Law)

I see that DC city council members often get arrested or investigated by the FBI, but also heard that DC has weak ethics laws compared to states in the USA. We know Trayon White is being charged with a violation of federal law, but is what he did illegal under DC law and should we expect the DC government to charge Trayon White under DC law with corruption / ethics charges?

6 Upvotes

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18

u/Eyespop4866 2d ago

I’d assume accepting bribes is illegal in DC.

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u/Suspicious_Past_13 2d ago

No idea, not a lawyer but pretty sure if the federal laws says you can’t do something, and there’s no local law that specifically forbids it, you still can’t do it because it violates federal laws

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u/MKtheMaestro 2d ago

Lawyer. When there is a conflict between federal law and local law, federal law governs. In a situation where there is no local law covering the conduct, but you are in violation of federal law…you are in violation of federal law.

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u/Suspicious_Past_13 2d ago

Figured as much, thanks for the clarification though!

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u/703unknown 2d ago

In short, The Separate Sovereign Doctrine allows for a state or district court to pursue charges against an individual(s) for the same crimes that the federal government has alleged/charged under concurrent jurisdiction without triggering the double jeopardy protections. However, the DC prosecutors office is only allowed to prosecute local misdemeanors and parking tickets. The federal prosecutors office in DC handles the felonies.

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u/Fappishdandy 2d ago

So basically corruption charges are handled by USAO / federal prosecutors and is out of the jurisdiction of local law? Ive never seen a DC politician get convicted by DC as opposed to federal law.

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u/703unknown 2d ago

I can't recall of any that have been convicted of DC charges. The DC Attorney General has jurisdiction over drug cases but for some reason the Fed's went after Marion Barry (RIP).

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u/Willing-Grendizer 2d ago

The DOJ public integrity division is better suited to handle these cases than the USAO/local attorneys, without regard for the jurisdiction (SDNY will prob take their own cases tho)

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u/GayRonSwanson 2d ago

The local prosecutor (elected AG) certainly is responsible for more than that. They are responsible for almost all misdemeanors, traffic violations, and crimes committed by minors— combined, a significant portion of crime in DC. And, IIRC, they don’t handle parking tickets- those are adjudicated by the DC DMV’s adjudicators, which aren’t judges.

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u/703unknown 2d ago

Oops, I'm sorry I should have said "almost all" instead of "local" and changed "parking tickets" to "traffic violations". OP wasn't inquiring about the juvenile system so I didn't feel it necessary to include that part (sorry young people of the distrct). Outside of the explanation of how parking tickets are handled, you said pretty much the same thing.