Williams offered pre-trial alternative

By RICHARD BURGESS
Acadiana bureau
Published: Aug 12, 2006

LAFAYETTE — City-Parish Councilman Chris Williams could avoid criminal charges for allegedly writing “Dr. Martin L. King Jr. Drive!” on a council desk with permanent marker if he pays for the damage, performs community service and takes an anger management class.

District Attorney Michael Harson recommended those provisions Friday as part of a pre-trial diversion program that Williams would enter to avoid prosecution and a possible mark on his record.

Harson said he will ask the City-Parish Council — which he called the “victim” in the case — to approve the pre-trial diversion recommendation.  But council members said Friday they were reluctant to make a decision on how the prosecutor should handle the case, which began when some members made an issue of the writing.  “For him (Harson) to punt this football to us is politics in its highest form,” Councilman Marc Mouton said.  Mouton argued that the council, as the legislative branch of local government, has no authority to meddle in court cases.

“The council has never been put in such a position,” Councilman Randy Menard said. “I don’t think the council could make that decision.”  Menard’s name is on the police complaint about the writing, but he said he did not believe investigators should have required him to be singled out as the complainant.  “I was forced to do that … I didn’t witness the incident,” Menard said.

Harson said his office has a long-standing policy of not allowing a person to enter pre-trial diversion without approval of the victim.  The district attorney said that if neither the council nor the city-parish administration responds, he will assume a “no” answer and possibly file formal charges of criminal damage to property.  “If nobody tells me anything, … Mr. Williams is stuck. Hopefully, somebody will have the guts to say something,” Harson said.

Council Chairman Rob Stevenson said in a written statement Friday that he had “spoken to the DA regarding the council’s options, which are under consideration. No further comment will be made.”

The writing was discovered on the council dais under Williams’ nameplate before a meeting in July.  The writing came after months of failed and contentious efforts by Williams and Councilman Louis Benjamin to persuade the remainder of the council to approve naming a major road in Lafayette after slain civil-rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr.

Williams and Benjamin are the only black members on the nine-member council.  Williams, a vice chancellor in the Louisiana Technical and Community College System, has apologized and offered to pay to remove the writing and have the dais refurbished.

Harson said pre-trial diversion is appropriate for the case.  “It is not one that particularly involved moral turpitude,” he said, commenting that most cases against politicians involve more-serious charges, such as theft or bribery.

Under pre-trial diversion, criminal charges are held over a person’s head pending completion of certain requirements.  Williams would remain under supervision for a year to ensure he pays to have the writing removed from the council dais, attends anger management class and performs 85 hours community service, Harson said.  Harson also said that he would require some of Williams’ community service hours to be spent speaking to schoolchildren about the balance between free speech and responsibility.  “The right to exercise your viewpoint while at the same time not violating the law while you are doing it,” Harson said.

Harson said that Williams has cooperated with the District Attorney’s Office in the case and agreed to abide by the requirements of the pre-trial program if accepted.

Williams did not return phone calls placed to his council office and home Friday.

Story originally published in The Advocate