How District of Columbia handles a case
What happens after an arrest anywhere in District of Columbia: who decides release first, how fast a person sees a judge, which courts hear the case, and who runs the offices around them. Every county in the state works under these rules.
From arrest to court
- Who decides release first
At the station, a police releasing official can release some people on a citation or on collateral they post and may forfeit. Everyone else sees a Superior Court magistrate judge or judge at presentment, who sets release conditions.
D.C. Code 23-1110D.C. Code 23-1321D.C. Code 11-1732- Time to see a judge
Police must bring an arrested person before the court "without unnecessary delay." No law sets a number of hours, so the federal 48-hour rule from County of Riverside v. McLaughlin is the outer limit.
D.C. Code 23-562(c)(1)- Money bail
A judge may set money bail only to make sure a person comes to court, and never in an amount that keeps the person in jail. A person the court finds dangerous is held without bail after a hearing instead.
D.C. Code 23-1321(c)(3)- Pretrial risk assessment
The Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia scores arrested people with its own risk assessment instrument, built from D.C. cases, and recommends release conditions to the court.
Pretrial Services Agency, Pretrial Risk Assessment in DC status statement (February 2022)- Courts
The District has no counties. One trial court, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, hears every local criminal case, felony and misdemeanor alike. Federal crimes go to the separate U.S. District Court.
D.C. Code 11-923- Judges and magistrates
The President appoints Superior Court judges with the Senate's consent, for 15-year terms. The court's chief judge appoints magistrate judges, who must be lawyers, for four-year terms.
D.C. Code 11-1501D.C. Code 11-1502D.C. Code 11-1732- Prosecutors
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, a presidential appointee, prosecutes felonies and most misdemeanors. The elected Attorney General for the District of Columbia prosecutes minor offenses punished by a fine or up to one year in jail, such as city regulation violations and disorderly conduct.
D.C. Code 23-101- Public defense
The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia takes most of the serious felony cases. The court appoints private lawyers from its Criminal Justice Act panel for the rest.
D.C. Code 2-1602- Jails
The D.C. Department of Corrections, a city agency under the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, runs the jail.
D.C. Department of Corrections, About DOC
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. DC has no counties and no state; run_by "state" means the District government runs the jail. The 2026-09-30 pass could not open the Superior Court's Criminal Rule 5 PDF or the PDS site (both 403); the presentment rule and the PDS role rest on D.C. Code 23-562 and 2-1602. The PDS felony share rests on a search summary of PDS pages.