Seattle City Council narrowly rejects drug prosecution bill
In a 5-4 vote, the Seattle City Council rejected a bill that would have given the city attorney the authority to prosecute drug possession and public drug use cases Tuesday, following nearly three hours of public comment.
Council members considered a bill that would have adopted into the city’s criminal code the state’s recent law making both public use and possession of drugs gross misdemeanors, while also giving the city attorney the ability to prosecute those arrests. Without adopting the bill, Seattle police will still be able to make arrests under the new state law, but prosecutions will fall to the King County prosecutor.
The bill, proposed by City Attorney Ann Davison, a Republican, and sponsored by Councilmembers Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen, started in late April as a proposal to make public drug use a simple misdemeanor when a temporary state law was set to expire in July.
Then state legislators passed a bill in a May special session that makes drug possession a gross misdemeanor and criminalizes public use, after the Legislature had failed to agree on a replacement for the current possession law during its regular session.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Source: The Seattle Times
