THE DA'S RACE: CAPITELLI PUNISHMENT

The very important race for Orleans Parish District Attorney has been flying under the radar thus far. LINK. The two best known candidates are both Italian-American: Judge Leon Cannizzarro and Ralph Capitelli. Cannizzaro was a legend as a tough, no-nonsense judge at Tulane and Broad before ascending to the fancier climes of the appellate court. I tried a few cases before Cannizzarro in my days as a mouthpiece and knew to be well prepared or he'd bite my head off and spit it back at me. Splat. That's why I refer to him as Judge even though he stepped down from the bench when he leapt into the DA's race. He's a bad mutha. Shut your mouth...

Ralph Capitelli has the endorsement of the Singin' DA, retired, Harry Connick. He, too, has a formidable reputation as both a defense lawyer and as one of the members of Harry's choir. I've never met Capitelli but the folks we have in common think highly of him. 

Dr. A is acquainted with Linda Bizzarro who is a former federal prosecutor. I want one of her yard signs because I love her name. If your name is Bizzarro, you should have fun with it. Imagine the slogans: Turn New Orleans Into Bizzarro World. Scratch that, it's *already* Bizzarro world as well as Debrisville. (Does anyone know whether or not Ms. Bizzarro is Italian too?) 

Jason Williams is the lone African-American candidate, which automatically gives him a shot despite his thinnish resume and lack of a campaign web site that was easily googleable. How can you run for office in 2008 and not have a web site? Even Senator Walnuts has one and he thinks that yahoo is one of his Appalachian supporters. One of the things that I *do* know about Williams is NOT a plus: he's former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy's son-in-law. Sidney was even more low key in office than Nagin. He put the feck into feckless or some such shit. Williams also has the support of the hacks of OPDEC. <running for the exit with Karen and Kim in hot pursuit>

I wish had more wisdom to impart about the candidates. Three of the four are very qualified on paper and I know so little about Jason Williams that he *might* be better than I suspect. BUT Slow Eddie Jordan was also qualified resume-wise and we all know how that worked out. I'm going to have to haul my ass to some forums to see the candidates in person because they're all vowing to be tough on crime and good administrators; yadda, yadda, yaddd. Position papers are well and good but good judgment is the most important thing for a prosecutor to have.

I'm hoping that the folks on my RT III politics panel will know more about these folks than I do even though I plan to do some homework this week. Gordon, I'm counting on you, dude. 

tags: nola  crime  da  politics  rt  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit