DOJ wins tough sentences for DC robbers despite rehabilitation law
A Washington, D.C. judge recently rejected lenient juvenile sentencing standards for a carjacker involved in multiple crimes, marking a series of legal decisions aligned with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s tougher sentencing approach. Twenty-two-year-old Dartanian Owens was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison for carjacking, robbery, firearm possession during a violent crime, and carrying a pistol without a license, despite being eligible for lighter sentences under D.C.’s Youth Rehabilitation Act of 2018 due to his age at the time of his crimes. Court decisions have increasingly favored Pirro’s recommendations,which consider such laws too soft on offenders.Owens had committed a series of violent crimes, including using a gun to steal a delivery driver’s vehicle and subsequently robbing several individuals at gunpoint. He previously received Youth Rehabilitation act sentences for other offenses. Data shows Judges frequently impose Youth rehabilitation act sentences, although some cases still see deviations.Owens’s case highlights ongoing debates around juvenile justice laws, with Pirro criticizing the act and advocating for stricter measures, emphasizing that recent prosecutions and increased law enforcement efforts have led to more severe sentences for violent offenders in D.C.
A Washington, D.C., judge rejected lenient juvenile sentencing standards for a carjacker in a string of similar wins for Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Twenty-two-year-old Dartanian Owens was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison on Monday for carjacking, robbery, possessing a firearm during a violent crime, and carrying a pistol without a license, the Department of Justice announced. Owens’s age at the time of his April 2025 crime spree made him eligible for lighter sentencing under D.C.’s Youth Rehabilitation Act of 2018, but Superior Court Judge Andrea Herzfeld became the latest judge in several cases to agree with Pirro’s sentence recommendations despite the law, which the prosecutor considers too soft on criminals.
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Judges tend to give Youth Rehabilitation Act-inspired sentences in most cases, according to the latest available data. Courts imposed them on 60% of eligible defendants between 2019 and 2020, declining them for 40%, D.C.’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council found.
Owens used a gun to steal a DoorDash delivery driver’s car and used the vehicle to commit three more armed robberies of a victim at a bus stop, another walking to a Metro station, and someone waiting on an Uber driver for a doctor appointment, the DOJ said. He received Youth Rehabilitation Act sentences in two other cases, first in 2022 for simple assault, theft, unlawful entry, and property destruction and in 2023 for attempting to illegally carry a gun with ammunition, court records show.
An attorney for Owens did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
D.C. judges rejected five other defendants’ requests to be punished as youths between August 2025 and April 2026, according to DOJ statements. Four were carjackers and one was an armed robber who stole from a 72-year-old man. But Pirro’s wins are not a perfect streak, as judges granted the Youth Rehabilitation Act sentences in other cases over her team’s objections.
Police have linked juveniles to about 60% of carjackings in the district as of 2025, NBC4 Washington reported.
Pirro slammed the Youth Rehabilitation Act last year as a mistake by the D.C. Council, highlighting the case of Javarry Peaks, a teenager who shot someone in the chest on a Metrobus in March 2025 and got no jail time.
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“I can’t touch you if you’re 14, 15, 16 [or] 17 years old and you have a gun,” Pirro told the press in August 2025, the month she went from interim to official U.S. attorney for D.C. “I convict someone of shooting another person with an illegal gun on a public bus in the chest [with] intent to kill. What does the judge give him? Probation, says that you should go to college. We need to go after the D.C. Council and their absurd laws.”
Pirro’s office increased prosecutions by 67% since she became U.S. attorney in August 2025, she previously told the Washington Examiner. President Donald Trump launched a D.C. public safety crackdown that month involving National Guard patrols and increased collaboration between federal and local law enforcement.
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