Admirable sentiments, but I think he should look at his job description more closely.

It appears he may have checked the wrong box. It sounds like he is running for a city council seat or director of one of the many half ass useless social works departments plaquing this city..

The PA's job is to prosecute, not be a social worker. The legislative branch, multi-layers ineffectual social work departments and the courts lumber around trying to tuck everybody in and read them bed time stories about being better people.

And where has that gotten us lately?.... well if one believes the gun shooting figures, spike in crime rate figures, casual glance at the homeless camps dotting the city.... not in a good place.

While social work, holding hands, thinking happy thoughts and the singing Kumbaya is all good, it isn't the same as enforcing the law.

"In those cases where diversion fails to keep people out of prison, he'll push for more education opportunities and services for people in custody. "If you shoot and kill people, if you are a serial DV abuser, if you commit sexual assault, if you’re into child pornography, if you are abusing children, then, yeah, you’re going to have to have a time out. There's no doubt about that. But I don't want to waste that opportunity," he said."

Well, you just provided the blurb for his opponents to bury him before he even starts. "abusing children" ? "child pornography"? "A time out"? "opportunity"?

Any parent reading this claptrap is thinking "so some dbag assaults my kid, and this ass is concerned about the systemic and personal causes that led the perp to the point of doing this and how to use the opportunity to help the perp?" Then they vote for the other person. Like with NTK.

Cluetrain, Rich and kiddies. The average voter identifies with the victims of crime, not the perps. They may have sympathy for the bad childhood, etc...and want some mitigation there, but they also want perps in that quote above locked up for a very, very long time. You can hate that fact, but it's still how it is.

You learned nothing from the last couple of elections. Let's hope you don't end up screwing us again as you did with Pete Holmes.

Stephan Thomas’ life and the obstacles he has overcome is an admirable success story.

He doesn’t seem to be a good fit for the job of Prosecuting Attorney. Perhaps he would be happier as a Defense Attorney.

It looks like Jim Farrell is getting my vote since he is for “greater accountability for persistent offenders and justice for victims of crime.”

What part of the 2021 City Attorney race do people not understand? The people of Seattle rejected an incumbent they felt was too soft on criminals and then rejected a candidate who wanted to free all the criminals.

The job of the Prosecuting Attorney is to Prosecute criminals. We don’t need another soft on criminals prosecutor doing the job of defense attorneys.

Violent criminals deserve no compassion and no second chances. Once that Rubicon has been crossed, and a person commits violence against another they’re beyond redemption.

@4:

"The job of the Prosecuting Attorney is to Prosecute criminals."

Huh, and here I was under the mistaken impression our legal system operated on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty", silly me.

He seems like his platform is: anyone that commits a crime in King County should be immediately set free because they committed the crime because society forced them to.

Crime, drug abuse, human trafficking, and gun violence are skyrocketing with this approach.

Hard Pass.

@5 That’s right “innocent until proven guilty” which is why our system depends on strong prosecution attorneys and strong defense attorneys.

If a defense attorney were to behave as a prosecutor there would be justified outrage.

Well when prosecutors behave like defense attorneys expect justified outrage.

"What, decades/centuries of this approach have not eliminated or reduced crime? That's not the point, they do bad thing, bad thing is done to them, then everything is fine. Anything else is more than those huma-oh shit, CRIMINALS deserve. Whatever the outcome, they must be punished. Over and over, in most cases"

@7:

Except that this is precisely what many legal scholars and prosecutors like Thomas themselves are doing, have been doing for some time - completely rethinking the role of the PA in the justice system in the larger context of criminal justice reform; there a literally scores of articles devoted to the subject.

https://www.google.com/search?q=rethinking+the+role+of+the+prosecuting+attorney&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS857US857&oq=rethinking+the+role+of+the+prosecu&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j33i160l2j33i299.8510j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

@9 The people who are rethinking the role of the prosecutor are predominantly defense attorneys.

Your average citizen doesn't want to "rethink" the role of the prosecutor. The average citizen wants criminals, especially violent criminals, to be removed from society.

When you have been raped or assaulted, when your loved one is murdered or raped, it really doesn't matter that the murderer or rapist had a hard life.

I don't know about you but I'm really glad their traumatic upbringing of being raised as dumbshit rednecks wasn't used to gain sympathy and get them off.

No matter how hard someone's life has been been the moment they assault, rape, or murder they have crossed a line that should never be crossed, and it should make no difference why it was crossed.

And crossing that line has to have severe consequences.

There's no reforming a murderer. There's no reforming a rapist.

As you look out at the America of 2022 what possibly makes you think that letting criminals get away with crimes is a winning electoral strategy?

Read the Room man, Read the room.

Edit to my Fourth Graph:

I don't know about you but I'm really glad the traumatic upbringing of Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and William Bryan being raised as dumbshit rednecks wasn't used to gain sympathy and get them off.

They committed cold blooded murder and should spend the rest of their miserable lives in a 6 x 6 cell.

https://youtu.be/N92CJGLrIVk