Candidates are beginning to line up to run for the northshore District Attorney's Office left open with the recent death of District Attorney Warren Montgomery.
Qualifying for the special election March 23 is Dec. 13-15, and so far, it's a three-person race.
Collin Sims, Montgomery's first assistant who’s serving as interim district attorney until the election, announced his candidacy in a press release Tuesday morning. Vincent Wynne, an attorney who unsuccessfully ran against Montgomery in 2020, said he will run again. And northshore Judge Raymond Childress, who announced his retirement from the bench, said Tuesday he will also be a candidate.
Collin Sims, a prosecutor for the 22nd Judicial District Attorney's Office.
Whoever wins that election will serve out the rest of Montgomery’s term, which runs through early January of 2026.
The 22nd Judicial District includes St. Tammany and Washington parishes.
Sims said he is the candidate who would carry Montgomery's legacy forward and keep corruption out of the DA’s office.
“It's been the honor of my lifetime so far to partner with a guy like Warren and restore the trust and credibility of that office to the public,” Sims said.
Montgomery, at the time considered an outsider candidate, first won the office in 2014, after Walter Reed’s three-decade long tenure as district attorney was derailed by a federal investigation that would ultimately land Reed in prison on corruption charges.
Montgomery died on Nov. 10 following a three-year-long battle with cancer.
Vincent Wynne
Sims has been with the northshore DA's office since 2015. He has also prosecuted cases with the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Offices in New Orleans and Shreveport.
Wynne waged a bruising campaign against Montgomery in 2020. Wynne, who runs a private legal practice based in Covington, sought to paint Montgomery as aloof, inaccessible, and soft on crime. He criticized the DA’s office for pleading cases out rather than taking them to trial.
Childress, who lives in Folsom, was set to retire after 25 years on the bench in the 22nd Judicial District Court. But now that the District Attorney's Office is open, he's delaying his retirement and will seek another term in public office.
22nd Judicial District Judge Raymond Childress
"I really feel that I accomplished everything I wanted to do" as a judge, Childress said. "But this is totally different."
"I'm an outsider looking in at the DA's office," he added. "If changes are necessary, I'll bring them about."
He was set to hand his seat on the bench to his successor, Alan Black, who won an October election for the judgeship in January. In order to qualify for the DA's race, Childress will have to retire as judge two weeks early. Black will likely to step into his new role early, Childress said.
With qualifying still more than two weeks away, more candidates may enter the race. But for those already in it, the scramble to raise campaign funds is already underway.
“We’re raising a lot of money really quickly,” said Lionel Rainey, a campaign spokesperson for Sims.