QUESTIONNAIRE: Elizabeth K. "Libby" Humphries

Candidate for Commonswealth Attorney

Questions

FXBG Advance: Have you previously run for office?

Humphries: Yes

FXBG Advance: Have you previously held office?

Humphries: Yes

FXBG Advance: Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

Humphries: No

FXBG Advance: Briefly explain what experiences you would bring to this office should you be elected.

Humphries: I am running for re-election as the Fredericksburg Commonwealth's Attorney. I have served as a prosecutor since 1999, have been with the Fredericksburg prosecutor office since 2018, and have served as the Fredericksburg Commonwealth's Attorney since August 1, 2021, first by statutory appointment and then by election for a term that began January 1, 2022. I have a range of experience from prosecuting homicide and other violent crime jury trials to serving as a line Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court prosecutor (and then as a supervising J&DR Court prosecutor). For more information, please see my campaign website, votehumphries.com.

FXBG Advance: Briefly explain two issues that are most important to you as a candidate.

Humphries: I. The intersection of individuals with serious mental health illness and the criminal justice system. Co-occurrence of criminal conduct and serious mental illness can cut in many different directions for prosecution decisions from charging to sentencing recommendations. Obviously, there are cases where lengthy incarceration is needed for public safety. There are also cases where more calibration is needed, most especially nonviolent offenders with serious mental illness that is closely connected to the crime. These cases, while a minority, are still a significant segment of prosecutions. In these cases, to change future behaviors, we need sustained, engaged efforts at rehabilitation in tandem with the punishment objective. It is not possible to simply enforce and arrest through the challenges of both holding the person accountable and changing future behavior. I led a community stakeholder team to create the Fredericksburg Therapeutic Docket. The docket is the specialty docket for misdemeanor cases only and this permits early interventions with defendants with serious mental illness connected to their misdemeanor crimes and is an opportunity at early intervention before the behaviors escalate. II. Organized Retail Crime and Other Retail Theft. Increasing resources and focus on complex organized retail crime and retail crime generally is also important as our community has destination shopping off the I95 corridor. The City of Fredericksburg, unfortunately, sees a wide range of retail theft crime both by organized thieves coming in from out of state and stealing tens of thousands of dollars to petty crime by unhoused individuals with significant mental illness, addiction challenges, or both. As Fredericksburg’s chief prosecutor, I recently started a multi-disciplinary work group to focus on this issue. I have also increased the prosecution resources for this area in my office by restructuring how we prosecute the monthly shoplifting docket.

FXBG Advance: Briefly explain why you would be a good fit for the office you are pursuing.

Humphries: I ensure that the prosecutor office evaluates cases broadly. My office seeks outcomes for the interests of justice for the community with input from all case stakeholders. My office works as a team with law enforcement to serve the community. My office also keeps focus to ensure that there is a path to the defendant's conviction beyond the arrest by the police in the field. This approach has yielded many accomplishments that you can see on my website (votehumphries.com). The following are of particular note: the murder verdicts against the two shooters of the high school senior in 2023, the six life terms sentence against a child abuser of multiple child victims, the creation of the new Fredericksburg Therapeutic Docket, and keeping a fully staffed office of eight prosecutors at a time when there are significant shortages that affect public safety and finding justice both in Virginia and across the country. I also assign a prosecutor to work remotely at the Police Department each Wednesday as a resource for building good cases. I am very involved in the City of Fredericksburg community. For example, I serve as the co-chair of the Fredericksburg Branch NAACP's Education Committee and, in that role, serve on the Branch's Executive Committee. I also serve on the Board of Legal Aid Works, which serves the City of Fredericksburg on providing legal representation to income-challenged individuals in civil cases. My personal history includes both a family history of service and overcoming personal difficulty, and these experiences led me to my legal career in public service and as a prosecutor. I am the wife of an Army veteran and the daughter of retired public school teachers. Many other family members have served in the Armed Forces. About a year out from law school, I was a Red Cross Disaster Relief victim as I lost a home in a fire. It was an emotionally devastating experience that took some time to work through. The experience has given me special empathy for individuals who must rebuild destroyed or greatly damaged lives or who must work through bureaucratic mazes of different government or non-government agencies. I have other experience in another community (Charlottesville) where I was a prosecutor for 19 years that informs the approaches that I take both as a prosecutor and as a supervisor. I run as an independent and not as a party nominee for a couple reasons. First, neither the community's elected chief prosecutor nor the candidate for that role should be obligated to a national party’s ideological platform that they may not agree with across the board on criminal justice or that simply may not be a good approach for the City of Fredericksburg. Second, the City of Fredericksburg has a strong tradition of local candidates running as independents to emphasize local focus, (though it is common that some local candidates may still have strong ties to a political party). I want to work to improve the community with practical, thoughtful solutions consistent with local values and will work with City officials and residents who have those goals. I have endorsements from Former Fredericksburg Mayor Katherine Greenlaw, Vice Mayor and Ward 4 Council Member Chuck Frye, Jr., and the Fredericksburg Democratic Committee. I am proud to receive these endorsements because members in the City of Fredericksburg community and City organizations that support me but may not always agree with me on every point but still share key values with me; they know that I am fair, do the work, and am here to put the City of Fredericksburg first.

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