Candidate Profile: Ramin Fatehi (Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney race)

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14-05-2025

Ramin Fatehi is the incumbent candidate for Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney and is running as a Democrat. His name will appear on the June 17, 2025 ballot. Fatehi is running against challenger John F. Butler in the June primary. The winner will appear on the ballot for the General Election on Nov. 4.
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Name: Ramin FatehiAge: 46Website: http://www.fatehinorfolk.com
I have had the privilege of serving as Commonwealth's Attorney for Norfolk since my election in 2021. I currently head an office of 40 lawyers and 45 support staff responsible for serving justice in Norfolk. I grew up in Virginia Beach and graduated from Norfolk Academy (1996), Yale (2000) and Columbia University Law School (2003). I clerked for Justice Elizabeth B. Lacy of the Virginia Supreme Court, worked at a large firm in Washington, and then became an Assistant Public Defender in Richmond, where I represented indigent adults and children. I began my eighteen-year career as a prosecutor in the Chesapeake Commonwealth's Attorney's Office (2006-2011), served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in Charlottesville (2011-2012), and joined the Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney's Office in 2012. I live in Colonial Place with my wife, Mary Beth Pennington, a Master Lecturer in English at Old Dominion University, and my sons Thomas (8) and James (7).
I consider it my calling to serve the people of Norfolk and to work toward having one system of justice for all, not one system for the rich, powerful, and connected and another for everyone else. For too long there have been two justice systems, and a two-tiered system harms community trust and makes us less safe. I am a progressive prosecutor and proud Democrat, and I have spent the last four years focusing our work on holding accountable the people who commit violent crimes while offering diversion, treatment, and rehabilitation to people who deserve a second chance. During my tenure, homicides in Norfolk have dropped 42%, violent crime has dropped 40%, property crime has dropped 27%, and the jail population is down to half of what it was 10 years ago. I have driven the number of children in adult prison effectively to zero. I have proven that we do not have to choose public safety over civil rights, and I will continue to stand up for Norfolk in the face of attacks from the Trump administration on our reproductive rights, our livelihoods, and our safety.
I have done the work, and I have the receipts to show it. Crime in Norfolk is down. The jail population is down. I am fortunate to have the endorsement of Congressman Bobby Scott, House Speaker Don Scott, former Attorney General Mark Herring, former Delegate Algie Howell, former City Councilors Paul Riddick and Andy Protogyrou, and former School Board member Rodney Jordan. I have hired and retained the most diverse office in Hampton Roads in the midst of the Great Resignation. I am the only candidate who has spent nearly my whole career in the Virginia state court system, unlike my opponent, who has no state court experience and who left the employ of Attorney General Mark Herring to take a job in Donald Trump's Justice Department in 2018. I have built relationships with law enforcement to identify the small number of bad actors who disproportionately drive crime. I go to every homicide and police-shooting scene in Norfolk personally, because it is my responsibility to do so. I have built partnerships with local violence interrupters, community leaders, and faith leaders to build trust in our work. I have lobbied for years in the General Assembly for fairer and more effective laws, from Virginia's first witness-protection program to a law making it illegal to possess a gun with an obliterated serial number. I have pledged never to prosecute a woman or her doctor for an abortion that was legal under Roe v. Wade.
A lack of trust in the justice system that makes it impossible for the police to arrest most criminal actors, reduces the willingness of victims and witnesses to come to court, and makes juries suspicious of the evidence they hear in trial. In the United States, for every 100 murders, only 60 people are ever arrested. The rate of arrests for nonviolent crimes and property crimes are even lower. We have to increase trust so that the police can arrest people who do wrong and so that we can prosecute them. It is impossible to me prosecute a case if there is never an arrest or if the arrest is so weak that it will not stand up in court. I also need more prosecutors. My office is full, but the Mayor and council control my office's budget and are not funding me adequately. In 2008, we were allotted 42 prosecutors. Today, with the huge increase in digital evidence and the advent of police body cameras, we have only 40. We are in a position where does not seem to be the interest in properly funding the justice system, whether in police salaries or for my office.
I make sure that we follow the science of criminal justice as supported by academics and data, not slogans and soundbites. I am, to my knowledge, the only Commonwealth's Attorney in Virginia who puts his plea agreement policies on the internet for all to read. Those policies call for us to make holistic decisions in lower-level cases so that we do not impoverish and destabilize people's lives, not just because it is wrong to do so but because it drives up crime. They also make clear that wealth and privilege are not going to be excuses for committing crimes, especially crimes where the rich use their positions to take advantage of others. I am transparent about my work, making myself available to the press and to researchers. I fired the private collections company that was profiting off of our citizens' court costs. I have continually advocated for changes to Virginia law that would reduce the debt traps that ensnare poor people who commit low-level offenses.
I would welcome the assistance of the Attorney General's Office to enact the Virginia Access to Justice Act, a bill that I advanced earlier this year with a bipartisan group of Commonwealth's Attorneys that would have fully funded prosecutors, public defenders, and court-appointed lawyers and would have increased financial support for crime victims. I was disappointed that the City of Norfolk did not lobby for this initiative when it was in the Assembly, as it would provide real public-safety and equity benefits for Norfolk's citizens. I would hope that the Attorney General would see fit to support making people more safe by making the justice system more fair.
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