Assistant commonwealth's attorney announces bid to replace Fuller

Fast on the heels of Bill Fuller’s announcement that he will not seek re-election as the commonwealth’s attorney in Danville, a senior assistant on his staff has said he will run for the position.

Michael Newman has been on Fuller’s staff twice, first from 1998 until 2001 and again from 2005 to the present. In between, he was an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Pittsylvania County and the assistant city attorney in Danville.

Newman did a brief stint in private practice, which he said reinforced his desire to be a prosecutor.

“It’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” Newman said Friday. “In my 8th-grade civics class, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, and by the time I graduated, I new I wanted to be a prosecutor.”

He said he wants to make sure those guilty of a crime get the conviction and sentence they deserve, while the innocent remain free.

“I just want a 100-percent conviction rate of the guilty, of people who have actually committed crimes,” he said. “The commonwealth’s attorney not only prosecutes the guilty, but defends the public and makes sure people are not wrongfully convicted.”

Newman said he has prosecuted many cases, but finds those that involve “innocents” — children and the elderly — most disturbing.

“Those cases prey on me the most,” Newman said.

The prosecutor said he didn’t have statistics on hand for crime rates in Danville, but noted he has seen some disturbing trends.

“I’ve seen changes in the types of individuals we see,” Newman said. “They are younger and more violent.”

He said the answer to reducing that trend boils down to community involvement and willingness to step up and testify to crimes that are witnessed.

“The only way to fight crime is to build cooperation between law enforcement and the community,” Newman said. “There’s a big difference between arresting someone for probable cause and getting a conviction based on reasonable doubt. We need the community’s help and witness cooperation.”

Newman said Fuller encouraged him to run for the office.

“I really appreciate having Bill’s support,” he said. “His decision (not to run again) was sudden, but he encouraged me to announce my candidacy right away.”

Newman, 37, is a fourth-generation Danville native who graduated from George Washington High School in 1989 and graduated from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg in 1993. He earned his law degree from George Mason School of Law in Arlington and passed the Virginia Bar in 1996.

He married his wife, Amy, in 1998 and they have two children, Andrew, 8, and Madison, 6.

• Contact Denice Thibodeau at dthibodeau@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7985.