Meet the 3 candidates for King County prosecutor

SEATTLE — The race to be the future King County prosecutor has by now begun.

Dan Satterberg’s retirement announcement was hardly dry prior to candidates started coming out of the woodwork to declare.

Jim Ferrell, Leesa Manion and Stephan Thomas currently may well make up the most assorted, but in some approaches comparable, listing of candidates for the workplace. They all boast encounter with the place of work, nevertheless are setting up their differences in strategy.

“The quantity one particular issue in our county is community security. Persons in our location are pretty worried about increasing crime, regular enhance in four a long time has been 77{a73b23072a465f6dd23983c09830ffe2a8245d9af5d9bd9adefc850bb6dffe13},” pointed out Ferrell, the Federal Way mayor. “I imagine we have reached a tipping level in King County and I consider the people recognize it.”

He’s touting his prior history in the office environment as a trial lawyer and the actuality he’s commanded a police power of “perfectly about 130 officers” as good reasons to increase his candidacy.

Manion is the recent chief of workers. 

“I jumped in mainly because I wished folks to know accurately how committed I am to working for this position, ” she explained on Thursday. “I would say that my expertise is now in this article, it can be latest. It is really informed by existing science and present-day details. I’m not wanting back again at practically 20 decades ago, or what my encounter may well have been, and I am not hunting at a small time in the office, and drawing my choices or my viewpoints from that place.”

“I would say that with the help of the folks from King County, I would be the very first girl and the first individual of colour to keep this seat and to lead this business office. And that’s history in the building,” Manion mentioned.

But Thomas may possibly have the most special point of view of the three. He also labored in the business as a deputy and reported his backstory gives him a look at like no other.

“I am a former gang member. I bought drugs, I carried guns. I was arrested seven periods. I know what received me out of that situation. Proper. It was reconciling with my dad who abused me. Correct? It was it was becoming able to go to higher education and get an education and learning. Now I went to drug rehab 2 times. Like those are the points that worked for me,” he mentioned in an interview. 

“I’ve been in the trenches. I’ve know what it is like to consider difficult cases. I’ve accomplished that operate prior to. I was on the executive group at the King County prosecutor’s office environment. So I know how the whole place of work operates,” he mentioned, including, “That is what helps make me dynamic in this race.”

All three candidates have by now racked up sizeable endorsements.

Thomas is touting the guidance of Condition Senator Joe Nguyen, and Point out Reps Tara Simmons, Jesse Johnson, and Jamila Taylor, as well as King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, Lisa Daugaard of the Community Defenders Association and Dr. Ben Danielson.

Ferrell has a extensive swath of assistance from mayors in communities outside the house Seattle, including Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus, Kent Mayor Dana Ralph, as very well as the Washington State Fraternal Buy of Police and the Federal Way Police Officers Guild.

Manion can depend endorsements from King County Govt Dow Constantine, King County Council associates Claudia Balducci and Sarah Perry, and Bellevue Mayor Lynn Robinson. Various judges have also put their guidance at the rear of her.

So considerably, Thomas has the guide in fundraising at just more than $26,000. Manion has raised a shade above $10,000 and Ferrell reported he will report more than $20,000 lifted by a deadline subsequent week.

The top rated two finishers in the August Principal will advance to the November General Election. Satterberg has held the role because 2007.