Local Roots, Law-and-Order Pitch: Williams Challenges Phelps for District Court

By Miles Layton

SWAN QUARTER — Lloyd Williams is, by his own description, a local guy through and through. He grew up commercial fishing in Hyde County, docking his boat within sight of the courthouse window where he now works as a prosecutor, and he still calls the county home.

Williams, 50, is the Republican candidate for judge in the 2nd Judicial District, which covers Beaufort, Hyde, Martin, Tyrrell and Washington counties. He faces Cole Phelps, a Democrat who was appointed to the seat in late June and sworn in in July, in the race for a full term on the District Court bench.

Asked what separates him from Phelps, Williams didn’t hesitate to note the parties involved — “I’m more conservative than my opponent, obviously. You know, I’m a Republican; he’s a Democrat” — but he framed the sharper distinction around background and approach to bond decisions, particularly under recent state law limiting bond for certain repeat and violent offenders.

“Someone from a DA’s background is… not going to be for that as much as someone from a defense attorney background, and I don’t mean that as a slam or anything like that,” Williams said. “But that’s just that’s a difference between the two of us.”

Williams described his judicial philosophy as rooted in what he called a law-and-order approach shaped by two decades of prosecution. “I believe you know a little more on the law and order side,” he said. “It’s not to say you hammer everybody that comes into court, but I firmly believe in protecting the public. We don’t need… a revolving door of criminals who we see in our system day in and day out.”

Williams began his legal career at the Pitt County public defender’s office in Greenville, handling a heavy district court caseload — “I think at one point I had something like 700 cases on my caseload,” he said — before returning home to work under then-District Attorney Seth Edwards. He’s been with the district attorney’s office ever since, now 20 years and counting, and currently serves as one of the district’s senior assistant district attorneys.

That role, Williams said, means covering the district’s most serious cases.

“I do a lot of our high profile or complex cases, murders, rapes, robberies, you know that type of stuff,” he said. “I do a lot of district court still.”

He’s also the lead prosecutor for the district’s recovery court program, work he described as central to what prosecution actually looks like day to day. “Some people think being a prosecutor is just about throwing people in jail, and that’s, you know, it’s kind of far from it,” Williams said. “You’re more often seeking rehabilitation for people with drug addiction problems… you’re trying to resolve issues rather than just send people to jail on a daily basis.”

Williams also serves in rotation as the district’s “online prosecutor,” fielding reduction and dismissal requests filed through the state courts website — a system he said helps keep minor cases out of crowded courtrooms. “The more we can do outside of court, the less, you know, the public’s waiting in court,” he said. “We can handle the trials and the things that need a judge in court, and the things that don’t need a judge, we can get moved.”

A typical week, he said, can carry him across the entire district — juvenile court in one county, traffic court with hundreds of cases on the calendar in another, a fraud-prevention presentation at a community college in a third.

Williams pointed to his record in Washington County as some of his most significant trial work. “I think the last three or four murder trials over there I’ve been involved in, either the lead prosecutor or the second chair,” he said, citing last year’s prosecution of Brandon Carter in a killing at Carol’s Variety Store near the old high school in Plymouth as his most recent lead role.

“I’ve represented the victims of crime in Washington County for nearly 20 years, and I appreciate the support and their vote,” Williams said.

Williams grew up on the western side of Hyde County, working the water with his mother, Gloria Williams, who later became a sergeant at Hyde Correctional Institution. His father, Lee Williams, was a lieutenant with the Marine Fisheries office. Commercial fishing, Williams said, wasn’t a summer job — it was the family trade.

“I started commercial fishing with her,” he said of his mother. “She started, you know, she started getting a little bit of carpal tunnel on her hand, wrist, and again, you know, never retirement on the water.”

Hero’s backstory: Williams fished through high school and college, graduating as valedictorian of Mattamuskeet High School in a class of 42 students — Class of 1994, he noted, that went on to some unlikely places. “We had one guy worked on the set of Hell’s Kitchen, the TV show, when it came out,” he said. “We had a guy who ended up in Southern California… he ended up doing animations for Disney. “It’s funny, you know, we had a little class, but we had some people do some pretty amazing things,” he said.

Williams is also a distant cousin of Brianna Williams, now the superintendent of Tyrrell County Schools — a few years his junior — they rode the school bus together — she’s doing good things now, one of the best superintendents in Northeast NC.

Williams earned a criminal justice degree from East Carolina University, after time at Beaufort County Community College, then took a year off to fish again before enrolling at Campbell University’s law school, graduating in 2004.

“I’ve been practicing now for 22 years,” Williams said.

Even as he moved toward the law, Williams said, the pull of the water and its uncertain future weighed on him. “Commercial fishing is, in many ways, you know, it’s it’s tough work,” he said. “Back in the 90s, when I was going to school, there was a lot of talk and wondering how long commercial fishing was holding out.”

That uncertainty has only deepened since, he said, pointing to the legislative fight earlier this year over a bill that would have restricted shrimp trawling. “Shrimp Bill, if that had passed, would have devastated Hyde County,” Williams said. “It would have truly devastated fishing and farming here… Everything depends here on fishing and farming.”

Williams said his mother’s side of the family comes from the Belhaven-Pantego area of Beaufort County, a place close enough to his childhood home that it doubled as the family’s grocery and gas stop. “So when we go to get gas or groceries, that’s where we go, to Belhaven, and so I’ve got family,” he said. His sister still lives in the Blounts Creek area on the south side of the Pamlico River.

Of Tyrrell County, Williams said its rural, working character mirrors his own upbringing. “Tyrrell and Hyde share a lot of similarities in that they’re farming and fishing communities,” he said, adding with a laugh that Tyrrell has at least one advantage: “They got us in a stoplight, so they got us beat on that.”

Williams said voters shouldn’t expect campaign promises outside his lane. “I can’t, you know, I can’t promise to pave any roads or lower taxes, but promise to be fair and impartial, and that’s what I’ve done as a district attorney,” he said. “I’ve always listened to both sides. I’ve always given everybody… a fair shake, and I’d continue doing that as a judge.”