Lisa Baskerville-Greene , Acting Chief

The Misdemeanor Trial Section prosecutes most misdemeanor crimes in the District of Columbia, including offenses involving narcotics and weapons possession, theft, prostitution, animal cruelty, illegal dumping, destruction of property, threats, and simple assault. The Misdemeanor Section does not handle domestic violence misdemeanor cases, which are specially assigned to the Office’s Domestic Violence Unit. Notably, the Misdemeanor Section is often the first trial section to which new attorneys to the Office are assigned.

The Misdemeanor Section is divided into six “teams,” which typically contain four Assistant United States Attorneys, two paralegals, and one legal assistant. Each team is assigned to one judge sitting on the Superior Court misdemeanor calendar, although an effort is made to rotate Assistants through different judges during their tenure in the Section. Assistants also appear in Community Court, a new and innovative tribunal focused on “problem solving,” rather then merely “case processing.”
Each team is led by a Team Leader, an experienced Assistant whose duties include managing the day to day operations of the team and distributing new cases to team members. Team Leaders are also assigned to a police district, and act as the Misdemeanor Community Prosecutor for that district. In this role, Team Leaders focus on crimes that are of particular concern to the communities in their district, with an emphasis on dangerous and recidivist offenders and criminal “hot spots” in the district.

Every Misdemeanor Assistant is almost immediately placed in a courtroom, and tries both non-jury and jury trials within days or weeks of joining the Section. Besides trials, Misdemeanor Assistants represent the United States in a myriad of different court proceedings, including plea hearings, sentencings, and probation revocation hearings. Thus, from their first days of service in the Misdemeanor Section, new Assistants assume great responsibility and play a critical role in the Office’s pursuit of justice.