Nassau County district attorney: Joy Watson

JOY M. WATSON

REPUBLICAN

BACKGROUND: Watson, 50, of Hempstead, is also running on the Conservative Party line. She worked as a prosecutor for nearly 20 years under former Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon, including as chief of the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Bureau and deputy chief of the Major Offense Bureau. When Rice was elected in 2005, Watson left the office and took a job as the principal law clerk to Nassau Supreme Court Justice Karen Murphy. She has a bachelor's degree from the University at Albany and a law degree from the Pepperdine University School of Law.

ISSUES: If elected, Watson said, she will institute a no-exceptions residency policy for prosecutors, and will try to bring back many of Dillon's top lawyers. She also said she would dismantle the current district attorney's Early Case Assessment Bureau, where prosecutors review each case at the time of the arrest. She would replace it with a forensic evidence bureau, and separate gangs and narcotics bureaus to allow prosecutors to sharpen their expertise.