Favored as next D.A., Williams details his game plan

For years, opponents of tougher gun laws have used a mantra when confronted with proposals to regulate or restrict their purchase and use of firearms: "Enforce the laws we have."

Seth Williams, the Democratic candidate for district attorney, says he intends to do just that - more aggressively than any of his predecessors.

"We're gonna begin wiretaps, the use of grand-jury investigations and undercover sting operations to go after those who traffic in guns illegally," Williams, 42, vowed at a recent campaign stop.

"We're gonna go after straw purchasers, the people who sell guns out of the trunks of their cars, the entire stream of commerce, and use the asset-forfeiture unit of the D.A.'s office to go after the assets of those trafficking in those handguns."

More than most who have sought the job as the city's top prosecutor, Williams has already laid out detailed plans for what will change if he takes office in January, replacing Lynne Abraham, D.A. for the last 19 years.

Several major factors make Williams the overwhelming favorite against Republican Michael Untermeyer in Tuesday's election.

The biggest is the city's huge Democratic registration edge. Registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans by 6-to-1. It's been 20 years since Philadelphia elected a Republican to citywide office.

That was 1989, when voters re-elected District Attorney Ron Castille, now Pennsylvania's chief justice. At that time, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by not quite 3-to-1.

For a candidate never elected to public office, Williams has also built up some name recognition - thanks to a strong bid to unseat Abraham four years ago and a two-year stint as the city's inspector general, at the end of the Street administration.

Buoyed by strong support in minority wards, Williams survived a tough, five-way Democratic primary fight last May. He billed himself as the most experienced candidate, with 10 years as a prosecutor in the D.A.'s office, including two stints in supervisory jobs, running its Municipal Court and repeat-offender units.

But his experience as a manager - supervising just 10 employees as inspector general, for instance - is small stuff compared with the job he is likely to take on, directing more than 300 lawyers and 200 support personnel as the figurehead of the city's criminal-justice system.

Among his priorities, more aggressive, sophisticated enforcement of gun laws now tops the list.

Brian J. Grady, one of Williams' opponents in the Democratic primary, is a candidate to become the leader of the Gun Violence Task Force, a partnership between the D.A.'s office and the state attorney general.

Grady will also take charge of an effort to revamp the D.A.'s charging unit, to make smarter decisions about what crimes to prosecute, before charges even get filed.

As his campaign has approached the finish line, Williams has downplayed one of his earliest goals - revamping the D.A.'s office along geographic lines and assigning teams of prosecutors to police districts and detective divisions, making them more familiar with crime patterns in each community, and more responsive to victims.

Untermeyer goes along with the idea of assigning prosecutors to handle specific cases from beginning to end - so-called "vertical prosecution."

But he and Williams' other opponents have consistently derided the community-based prosecution concept as too expensive and too complicated to coordinate with the city's courts.

Williams says he hopes to establish a community crime-prevention center in each of the city's six detective divisions, but he may have to rely on volunteer staff and donated space.

Another priority, Williams said, will be attacking municipal corruption, including police misconduct and police brutality.

He said that in talks with Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, both had expressed concern about the length of time the D.A.'s office has taken to deal with allegations against police officers.

"Some of these investigations go on longer than who shot President Kennedy," Williams said. "I have a great relationship with the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police]. They endorsed me in 2005; they endorsed me this year. . . . But I'm no puppet for anybody, and if a police officer does the wrong thing, they're gonna be prosecuted for it. . . . People have to know that we'll have the same standard of justice for everybody."

Williams grew up in West Philadelphia, the adopted son of a teacher at Sulzberger Junior High School and a secretary at the Navy Yard. He went to Central High School and Penn State, where he was elected president of the student government.

Williams went to work for the D.A.'s office in 1992, right after graduating from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, and stayed there until early 2003, when he left to mount a challenge against Abraham, his one-time mentor.

Williams now lives in the Greenhill Farms section of West Philadelphia with his wife, Sonita, his mother and two of his three daughters.