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LAURENCE KESTERSON / Staff Photographer

Democrat Seth Williams celebrates his victory with supporters in the Radisson Plaza Warwick Hotel ballroom. He had a commanding lead of nearly 3-1 over Republican Michael Untermeyer.

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Seth Williams wins race for Phila. D.A.

By Michael Matza

Inquirer Staff Writer

Democrat Seth Williams scored a decisive victory yesterday as Philadelphia's next district attorney, and made history as the first African American to be elected a district attorney in Pennsylvania.

Williams, 42, maintained a commanding lead of about 3-1 over Republican Michael Untermeyer, 58. The election marks the first change of leadership in nearly two decades for the office run by departing prosecutor Lynne M. Abraham.

"I'm ready to walk into this office and make it the office it always could have been," Williams said in declaring victory to supporters at a Center City hotel ballroom. "You want us to fix a broken criminal-justice system. You want us to get the guns off the streets. . . . Our work begins now."

Moments earlier, at a small reception at a Society Hill pub, Untermeyer, a real estate developer and former assistant prosecutor, had conceded defeat. "It looks like the race for this office is over," he said.

Williams, a former city inspector general who worked as an assistant prosecutor for Abraham for 10 years, ran unsuccessfully against her in 2005. His second run at the office was the charm.

Nationally, fewer than 40 of approximately 2,000 elected prosecutors in America are black or Latino, said Suffolk University Law School professor Jeffrey Pokorak, who since 1998 has studied the race of elected district attorneys for law review articles about capital punishment.

In his speech last night, Williams reflected on his life's "improbable journey." Abandoned in an orphanage at birth, he lived in foster homes before being adopted at 2.

Likewise, his road to the top prosecutor's post was not without bumps. It started last winter with a bruising five-man Democratic primary. After an opponent brought a lawsuit challenging the propriety of Williams' campaign spending, a judge of Election Court removed him from the ballot. Thirteen days later, he was reinstated by Commonwealth Court.

The legal attack on his candidacy "backfired," Williams said at the time. "I got all kinds of free publicity from that."

On the campaign trail, he billed himself as the most experienced candidate, citing his 10 years as an assistant prosecutor, including assignments running the repeat-offender and Municipal Court units. After leaving the District Attorney's Office in 2003, he was appointed city inspector general for two years under Mayor John F. Street.

At candidates' forums across the city, he reminded prospective voters that "Philadelphia leads the nation in the rate of homicide by handgun" and that "the leading cause of death for black men under 35 in Philadelphia is homicide."

He said "the justice system is broken" and the District Attorney's Office needs reform.

Pitching his slogan, "A new day. A new D.A.," he spoke of plans to decentralize the operation by assigning prosecutors to neighborhood police districts, diverting minor offenders into community-based drug and alcohol treatment programs, and providing "better care and support" for victims and witnesses.

He emerged victorious with about 42 percent of the vote in the May 19 primary.

As a Democrat in the general election, Williams benefited from the huge registration advantage of his party, which outnumbers Republicans in the city by more than 6-1. Endorsed by nearly two dozen unions, including the 14,600-member Fraternal Order of Police lodge, Williams also enjoyed a strong organizational advantage. It helped get his voters to the polls on a day when the eleventh-hour strike by SEPTA, coupled with the traditionally low rate of participation in an off-year election, led to voter turnout in the city of approximately 12 percent.

Teaming with the Democratic City Committee and the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, Williams went to court yesterday to try to win an extra hour of voting, citing the impact of the SEPTA strike.

After a two-hour hearing, however, Judge Lori Dumas-Brooks ruled that the strike was not enough of a hardship to warrant extending the polling hours beyond 8 p.m.

As district attorney, Williams will lead an office of more than 300 assistant prosecutors and 250 support staffers.

His priority, he said, is to position the office to be more effective against gun crimes. One of the ways he plans to do that is by strengthening the Gun Violence Task Force, a partnership between the District Attorney's Office and the state attorney general.

To head that effort, he is likely to hire Brian Grady, one of his opponents in the Democratic primary, who helped Williams craft policy papers over the summer.

Grady is a former assistant prosecutor whose "passion" and "ability to cut through the bs," Williams said recently, make him a good candidate to lead the task force.

Williams will take office Jan. 5. To coordinate the transition, he said, he has appointed Mark Aronchick, a lawyer prominent in Democratic Party circles, and JoAnne Epps, dean of Temple University's Beasley School of Law.

For the latest and most complete election results, visit www.

philly.com

Contact staff writer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com.

Contributing to this article were staff writers Jeff Shields, Marcia Gelbart, Vernon Clark and Olivia Biagi.

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Comments

Posted 06:53 AM, 11/04/2009

1Govenor

His predecessor had some respect for the 2nd amendment. What is this fellow's story?

Posted 07:29 AM, 11/04/2009

OneShot

Good question 1Govenor. It all depends on whether he thinks 'Guns Kill People' or 'People Kill People'.

Posted 07:31 AM, 11/04/2009

chrissmith

Great. Now you have a chief prosecutor as chief social worker. Democrats in Philadelphia have to be the stupidest voters in the entire country. I'm dead serious. You guys all look like fools.

Posted 08:13 AM, 11/04/2009

NickiDrea

People who actually work in the criminal justice system, including almost all the district attorneys AND defense attorneys that I know, wanted Seth Williams to win. I am on the other side, but his ideas are actually pretty good, especially his ideas about changing the charging unit and neighborhood-based prosecution. As far as gun control, he plans to go after straw purchasers of guns, not make guns illegal. Before people make comments, they should actually know something about the system other than what they see on t.v. or read on a website.

Posted 08:26 AM, 11/04/2009

Zeke/pa

When prosecutors start aggressively using EXISTING legislation to deal with gun crime, then and ONLY then will the problem go away. Officer Liczbinski's 3 killers (May 2oo8) had between them 18 PRIOR weapons arrests and were NEVER charged in any. Un-prosecuted weapons arrests in the City right now number into the several thousands. Charge, prosecute and SEVERLY punish. Until THAT happens, everything else is a mere sugar - coating.

Posted 08:40 AM, 11/04/2009

chrissmith

NickiDrea: I'm an attorney. I stand by my comment.

Posted 09:30 AM, 11/04/2009

fcs25

Well you can be happy for you have elected a gun grabbing liberal democrat that has no use for the second amendment.You have no one to blame but yourselves for putting this progressive loon into office.

Posted 09:36 AM, 11/04/2009

John O

lets see now all the major offices in Philadelphia are held by African Americans; Philadelphia is on its way to becoming another Detroit.

Posted 10:49 AM, 11/04/2009

2012 ~ Ron Paul

Good luck Seth, please try and put a stop to the horde of government dependents who are commit the vast majority of the crime in this city. Stick it to them hard. Philadelphia is so awesome! Try to not get murdered or mugged on your way home today.

Posted 11:25 AM, 11/04/2009

longshanks

The city elected a supposed black racist for DA while the state of Virginia elected a known white racist for Governor.

Posted 12:00 PM, 11/04/2009

psyrus

Neat but I don't live in Virginia nor do I care about their politics. I am more concerned with Philly. Thanks for the info even though your comparison makes no sense. The Dems literally have a strangle-hold on the city and are squeezing the very life out of it.

Posted 12:39 PM, 11/04/2009

Kennedy

Really no news here ... Of course the black candidate won. It's Philadelphia. Williams might as well of been running un-opposed. But now that he's got the job, lets hope he can hold a candle to the job Abraham has done. (For the sake of the city I HOPE SO!)

Posted 01:53 PM, 11/04/2009

DonQ

Mr Williams prefaces his taking office by promising two things he cannot deliver: Fixing the DA's office and taking guns off the street. I'm sorry to see that he is setting himself up for failure. BTW, assigning DA's to the police districts creates the potential situation of a local crime boss "knowing where he lives". This is what happened in Puerto Rico when the policy was tried out some 40 years ago. "Those who fail to learn the lessons of History are doomed to repeat them."

Posted 04:54 PM, 11/04/2009

jester

@John O: Give it a rest, please. Let Williams succeed or fail based on his own merit or lack thereof. Give him a chance to actually try something before you bury him, especially if your distaste is because of his ethnicity. And just so you know, I was pulling for Untermeyer. But now that Williams is D.A., I'm pulling for him to do some good work, because this town sure needs it.