New DA Lorrin Freeman takes reins in Wake County

While many Wake County residents reveled around the First Night acorn in the first minutes of 2015, Lorrin Freeman, the county’s top prosecutor, went before Chief Magistrate Dexter Williams at the stroke of midnight.

Wake County’s first female district attorney took the oath of office in a small ceremony in the home of her father, Franklin Freeman, a former N.C. Supreme Court associate justice.

Freeman took the helm of an office that for the previous nine months had been run by Ned Mangum, a District Court judge who served as the interim district attorney after Colon Willoughby, a 27-year veteran, left the office before the end of his elected term.

A public ceremony was held in the Wake County courthouse on Friday. Donald Stephens, the county’s chief resident Superior Court judge, and Robert B. Rader, chief District Court judge for the 10th judicial district, presided over the event in courtroom 701.

Lawyers, family and friends were there to celebrate.

Freeman, the county’s clerk of court for the past eight years, is no stranger in the Wake County courthouse. She also is no stranger to the county prosecutor’s office. When she started her career almost two decades ago, she worked as an assistant district attorney for Willoughby.

But in her new role, Freeman said she expects to see the Wake County justice system from a different perch.

“Now, I am the people’s lawyer in these courts,” Freeman said.

Freeman plans to employ administrative skills she used as the county’s clerk of courts and continue her push to update the courthouse technology.

Like many in the state courts, Freeman knows about the financial belt-tightening that has taken place in recent years.

In her first months in office, she hopes to get a better idea of her office’s resources. She already hints at the possibility of asking for more prosecutors.

Over the past year, Wake County has seen double the number of DWI cases, due in large part to local police departments receiving federal grants for a new DWI task force team in Raleigh and stepped-up efforts in other Wake towns and cities. Freeman hopes to meet in the coming weeks with all the police chiefs in Wake County and continue to get to know the 65 lawyers, investigators, victim assistants and others in the D.A.’s office.

“I feel very fortunate to come after Colon Willoughby, who for the past 25 years led a well-run office,” Freeman said.

She added that she also felt fortunate to be able to look to such successful female jurists as Susie Sharp, the first woman to be chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court, as a mentor and friend.

“I understand I stand on the shoulders of these women who came before me,” Freeman said. “But I’ve never perceived any glass ceiling.”

Jennifer Knox, a Wake County district judge for almost a decade, became the new clerk of court.

Mangum, who took a break from the District Court bench to serve as the acting district attorney, became a district judge again.

This story was originally published January 2, 2015 at 6:47 PM with the headline "New DA Lorrin Freeman takes reins in Wake County."