Our choice in the primary for Wake County DA

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Endorsements 2022

The Editorial Board’s recommendations for the primary elections on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.

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As Wake County’s district attorney, Lorrin Freeman represents the state well, but she’s not as effective at representing herself.

Freeman, 51, takes a low-key approach to a job. She handles her own media relations and avoids politics even as she stands for reelection. She thinks her job isn’t about setting up a run for higher office or racking up convictions. It’s about reaching results that are just while protecting the people of Wake County.

Now Freeman’s admirable approach has left her vulnerable to an unexpected challenge. As she seeks a third four-year term, she finds herself in a race against a defense lawyer who is criticizing her as too tough on the accused and too slow to adopt the criminal justice reforms activists have pushed for in the post-George Floyd era.

Freeman’s opponent in the Democratic primary is an unlikely crusader for such reforms. As described in a recent profile on The Assembly website, Damon Chetson, a Raleigh defense lawyer, was a Republican as recently as 2014 and is a former vice president of the Barry Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank.

Now Chetson, 49, is offering himself as a liberal who would emphasize leniency. His campaign website says he is committed to expanding alternatives to incarceration and addressing the racial and social biases in the criminal justice system. He is advertising himself as a prosecutor who would not prosecute for possession of small amounts of marijuana or bring capital charges.

We support most of the reforms Chetson proposes. So does Freeman. But much of what he is calling for is beyond the district attorney’s office. A district attorney can’t sweep away state laws on marijuana possession, strike down the death penalty or increase the district attorney’s budget to hire more prosecutors and pay them better. Those are all actions that must be taken at the state level and are unlikely under a Republican-led legislature.

Chetson’s candidacy has drawn the support of judicial reform groups. And the North Carolina American Civil Liberties Union, which does not endorse candidates, has nonetheless launched a campaign to “educate voters about the high stakes of the Democratic primary for Wake County District Attorney.”

For those who would reform the criminal justice system in Wake County, ousting Freeman would be counterproductive. The Democrats’ most effective advocate for criminal justice reform is already the Wake County district attorney.

Freeman has created more programs for diverting drug addicts and the mentally ill out of the criminal justice system than any district attorney in the state. Marijuana possession cases have dropped by more than 30 percent since 2017-18 and are now less than 1 percent of total cases in the system. Freeman last brought capital charges five years ago.

Unlike Chetson, Freeman thinks it is unwise for a prosecutor to rule out enforcing an existing law. That’s a sound approach for a prosecutor and it’s good politics for Wake County.

In a midterm election against a low-key incumbent, Chetson may generate enough energy among advocates to win the Democratic primary. But at a time of rising concern about crime, Republicans would have a field day attacking his agenda in the general election.

The result of nominating Chetson may not be an accelerated reform of the criminal justice system. It may be a new Republican Wake district attorney.

Freeman is making gradual but effective progress toward changes in criminal justice that include fairness and compassion.

We strongly recommend Lorrin Freeman in this Democratic primary.