Newport News gets new top prosecutor for first time in 36 years – The Virginian-Pilot

Newport News’ newest top prosecutor was sworn in as commonwealth’s attorney this week, taking the helm of a large and busy office that handles an array of criminal prosecutions.

Shannon M. Jones, formerly an assistant city attorney, ousted longtime Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard E. Gwynn in the Democratic primary last May, then ran unopposed in the November general election.

Gwynn, 73, was first elected in 1990 at age 38, and went on to become the second-longest serving commonwealth’s attorney in Virginia.

In a swearing-in ceremony at a packed City Council chambers Thursday, Jones promised a progressive approach to criminal justice.

Though she plans to go after violent criminals, she said she would try to find alternatives for others — calling that a “smart on crime” rather than “tough on crime” approach.

“We have to be focusing on rehabilitation and getting folks back on track,” Jones said.

“We have to understand that a felony conviction is a life sentence,” she added later in the speech. “We have individuals who have reached out to me who were convicted of (felony larceny) 30 years ago and cannot get housing today because they are a felon.”

But Artisha Gregg, the emcee of Thursday’s event, joked that the “rumors” that Jones is progressive aren’t true. “That’s a lie, I’m telling you,” Gregg said. “I tried to work her this week, and she shut me all the way down.”

Circuit Court Judge Tyneka Flythe administered Jones’ oath for a four year term of office that began Jan. 1.

Flanked by her family, Jones swore on a Bible that she would support the Constitution and vowed to “faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties” of her new role, “so help me God.”

The Newport News prosecutor’s office has 70 employees — including 29 attorneys — and handles some 4,800 felony and misdemeanor cases annually.

Replenishing the ranks of will be one of Jones’ top priorities.

Sixteen of 29 Gwynn’s prosecutors — including several of the most experienced ones — left since his loss to Jones seven months ago. Some have been hired to replace them, with Jones saying the current attorney count is 22.

“These are the survivors that didn’t leave the island,” Gregg quipped after asking Jones’ staff to stand to be recognized.

Jones named one of Gwynn’s top deputies, Amy Pyecha, as her chief deputy. Another senior prosecutor in the office, Chad Perkins, is sticking around. Moreover, Jones successfully recruited experienced prosecutors Phil Bailey and Tina Brady from Norfolk.

Thursday’s swearing-in took place on Jones 41st birthday, with Newport News Bar Association president Chip Goldstein leading the crowd in a rendition of Happy Birthday to Jones. Six judges sang from city council seats.

Jones is the eighth Black female out of 120 commonwealth’s attorneys statewide. And she’s Newport News’ first woman to hold the office.

On the campaign trail, Jones vowed to divert more prosecutions to alternative outcomes, such as community service, anger management classes and substance abuse therapy.

During her remarks Thursday, Jones said that process could include prosecutors having direct conversations with defendants — a practice she learned in Philadelphia about 12 years ago.

“That is the epitome of being smart on crime,” Jones said. “I get the opportunity to look you in your eye and say, ‘Why are you carrying a gun in this city? … You’re asking me for a deal. Tell me why. Why are you stealing? Why are you committing violent crime?’”

And if she likes the answers, she said, she can go back into the courtroom and tell the judge, “Your honor, if you gave this man a job, he would not be stealing.”

Jones grew up in a 500-person town in North Carolina, moving to Virginia Beach with her mother when her parents split. She attended Tallwood High School before attending Old Dominion University for a degree in psychology.

“I considered myself a young revolutionary, and I was very, very, very, very committed to civil rights” at ODU, Jones said. She became president of the NAACP’s ODU and statewide college chapters.

Around that time, Jones met U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport News, and began following him. Scott opposed mandatory minimum sentences and the “three strikes and you’re out” law of the 1990s, which Jones asserted led to “mass incarceration” of young Black males.

“He understood that it is not beneficial to be tough on crime,” Jones said. “It does not make us safer.”

After college, Jones took a job as an organizer with a nonprofit organization in Washington. She recalls standing outside the U.S. Supreme Court in the rain when several NAACP attorneys walked out of the courthouse after a crucial voting rights case, just as the sun came out.

As she dried her wet hair in her organizer’s clothes, “I thought to myself, I kind of want to be inside the courtroom,” Jones quipped.

She applied to law school at Howard University. After earning her law degree in 2013, she mistakenly applied for a prosecutor’s job in Philadelphia by the click of a mouse in an automated application system.

“I accidentally clicked the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office,” she said. “And they accepted my bid.”

What she saw in Philly, she said, was prosecutors working closely with defense lawyers in arriving at fair outcomes.

“We must not only fight and advocate for justice for our victims, but we also have to pour into the defendants,” Jones said. “Because they are part of the Commonwealth, too.”

Outside observers might be surprised that “this social justice revolutionary girl became a prosecutor,” she said.

“But … there is no greater way to impact criminal justice or to bring about criminal justice reform than from the seat of the Commonwealth’s Attorney,” Jones said, saying a prosecutor wields “immense discretion and power” that must be used wisely.

After coming back to Virginia, Jones worked as an assistant prosecutor under Gwynn from December 2016 to January 2020, when she left the office to work at the Hampton City Attorney’s Office.

Gwynn hired her back in June 2021, saying during last year’s campaign that he took her back against the strong wishes of his staff.

Gwynn and Jones have different accounts of what happened next. Jones said her understanding was that Gwynn would soon be retiring and that he would back her as his replacement when he stepped down. But Gwynn said he promised no such thing.

Jones tendered her resignation in February 2022, taking a job with the Newport News City Attorney’s Office.

During her speech Thursday, Jones said that was a difficult time in her career.

“The beautiful plan that I thought I had was not going the way that I thought it would,” she said. “I was lost. I was scared. And I remember praying and saying, like, ‘God, what are we doing? Like, what is this plan?’”

But after ascending to her new seat on New Year’s Day, Jones went into the prosecutor’s office with no one else around.

“I got off the elevator, and I was completely overwhelmed with emotions,” Jones said.

“Stepping back in there, I remembered all the things that I felt on my last day as I left that office,” she said. “I was overwhelmed because I realized that God had a beautiful plan for my life.”

Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com