OUT & ABOUT: Seth Williams, Straight From The Hip

BY DENISE CLAY/ Here are two things you might want to know about Philadelphia’s District Attorney Seth Williams:

One, he’s probably not going to run for Mayor of Philadelphia unless the number of candidates is much smaller than the scuttlebutt on the street says it’s going to be.

“Unless the only candidate is Prince William J. Green the Third, I won’t be running….” he said.

(In case you don’t know who he’s referring to, Williams is directing his sarcasm at City Councilman Bill Green.)

And as the quote above would indicate, he’s also funny. When the District Attorney is using street names like Pookie and Man-Man to illustrate his points about the need for better relationships with between the DA’s office and the community, you can sense that.

Williams held court at the monthly meeting of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists on Tuesday night. During the hour-long session he held with journalists, he talked about his career, the challenges of his office, crime, punishment, the Death Penalty, Mumia (Abu Jamal, a former PABJ president) and Gosnell (as in Dr. Kermit, who was convicted on Monday of being possibly the worst women’s doctor ever).

He also talked about his relationship with the Philadelphia media … something that’s been rocky at times.

“I value having a good relationship with the media,” Williams said. “It helps us when it comes to getting information out. But getting the information out depends on who’s covering us.”

Since the Gosnell case was still under a court-imposed gag order Tuesday night, Williams wasn’t able to speak about the verdict. But he was able to talk about the case and how his office put it together.

“We took the emotion out of it and just stuck to the facts,” Williams said.

As mentioned above, Mumia Abu Jamal was a former PABJ president. So current PABJ President Johann Calhoun asked Williams about the case, which led to the DA’s doing a reenactment of the night Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot.

Williams talked about a lot of things, outlined a lot of his achievements, and shared a lot of insights.

But in the end, Williams said, his goal is to make the District Attorney’s office a place that makes the entire criminal justice system more trustworthy to everyone.

It has to be the same standard of justice for all,” Williams said. “If the system is going to be perceived as valid, we have to prosecute everyone; pedophile priests, Gosnell, everyone.”

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