Council president Jason Williams announces bid for O.P.D.A.

Catching many people off guard last week, New Orleans City Council President Jason Williams, a former defense attorney, announced Tuesday night at the New Orleans Film Festival that he will make another bid to serve as Orleans Parish District Attorney.

Many had speculated that he would run for D.A. again but Williams made his announcement after a viewing of a documentary on the New Orleans criminal justice system titled “Guilty Until Proven Guilty.”

Williams, the former son-in-law of former New Orleans Mayor Sidney Bartholemy, also ran for that post in 2008, finishing in third place.

Born in New Orleans, Williams was raised in Atlanta, Ga but spent his childhood summers in the Crescent City. When it was time to choose a college, he opted for Tulane University, where he played for the Green Wave football team.

Last week, Williams, 45, said on WBOK that he hoped the D.A. would stop using tactics like “fear-mongering” to win public approval for tactics that promote mass incarceration rather than support criminal justice reforms.

Williams and Cannizzaro have butted heads over a number of issues including the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office budget and the district attorneys handling of cases involving small amounts of marijuana found on suspects.

The current D.A. said in a statement last week that he hopes that the council president won’t allow his political aspirations to impact the decisions he makes regarding the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office budget.

Williams and his colleagues on the New Orleans City Council have been critical of the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office for its use of “fake subpoenas: to force crime victims to testify.

In the documentary “Guilty Until Proven Guilty,” Williams plays a prominent role as an outspoken critic of the current D.A.

Williams is the first candidate to announce plans to run for Orleans Parish District Attorney in 2020.

The second-term councilman told The Advocate that the time has come for the New Orleans criminal justice system to implement reforms that reflect statewide and national efforts to boring about criminal justice reforms.

“I think we need real change,” he told The Advocate. “It’s costing us money, and it’s costing us lives, and I’m committed to bringing that reform.”

This article originally published in the October 22, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.