Candidate Profile: John F. Butler (Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney race)

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14-05-2025

John F. Butler is a candidate for Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney and is running as a Democrat. His name will appear on the June 17, 2025 ballot. Butler is running against incumbent challenger Ramin Fatehi in the June primary. The winner will appear on the ballot for the General Election on Nov. 4.
If you are voting in this election, from May 2 through June 14 you can vote early at your On Election Day, polls in Virginia are open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. Don't forget to bring your ID. to see who is on your ballot.
10 On Your Side reached out to all of the candidates running in this race, with a request for a bio and a list of questions to answer. If you do not see the candidate listed with a profile, we did not receive one.
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Name: John F. ButlerAge: 46Website: butlerfornorfolk.com
John F. Butler is a lifelong Virginian, a lifelong Democrat who worked for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and a lifelong public servant, who moved to Norfolk 13 years ago as an officer in the Navy JAG Corps. He and his wife fell in love with Norfolk's welcoming spirit and chose to raise their two daughters here.
John served as a federal prosecutor for 10 years, where he was appointed during President Barack Obama's administration, and most recently was the Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia's Norfolk Division, where he supervised 60 federal prosecutors and staff and twice received the Department of Justice's highest honor, the John Marshall Award.
In the Navy, John prosecuted and defended hundreds of cases, serving eight years on active duty, including a deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan, during Operation Enduring Freedom. He was named the Navy's Prosecutor of the Year, and he continues to serve as a Commander in the Navy Reserves Judiciary Unit.
Now, he is running for Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney to build a safer, stronger Norfolk, because everyone deserves to feel safe, no matter who they are or where they live.
I love public service, and I love Norfolk. I want to improve the lives and safety of everyone in our hometown, and I believe I have the education, training, and experience to be most effective in the role of Commonwealth's Attorney.
Over the past decade as a federal prosecutor and for two and a half years as the Managing Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, I helped make Norfolk and the region safer, delivering justice to victims and leading critical community violence intervention and prevention programs.
I am stepping up to focus my efforts on Norfolk and help build a Commonwealth's Attorney's Office that effectively prepares and evaluates cases, creates a culture of excellence that motivates staff, trains and develops junior prosecutors, and delivers justice to victims to make Norfolk a safer, more thriving city.
I bring nearly twenty years of experience as a leader and criminal litigator – both as a prosecutor and defense attorney in the Navy JAG Corps, and then as a federal prosecutor in the Norfolk Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In these roles, I have demonstrated an ability to lead teams, try complex cases, and deliver justice to victims.
As a federal prosecutor, I handled some of our region's most significant cases. I managed the office for two and a half years, overseeing 60 attorneys and staff. I led not just by supervising, but by personally trying multiple cases a year and taking them to trial. The most effective managers are servant leaders, and I made it a point to lead by example and provide the resources my teams needed to be successful.
At the United States Attorney's office, I strengthened public safety through community-based initiatives. I created the Hampton Roads Opioid Working Group, bringing together medical professionals, educators, peer recovery specialists, first responders, business leaders, and community partners to address the opioid crisis by connecting people suffering from addiction to the help they needed and taking steps to educate young people to prevent addiction. I took those lessons to the Project Safe Neighborhoods program, a community engagement initiative that intervened with at-risk individuals to prevent them from becoming involved in the criminal justice system.
Through this work, I built and ran an effective prosecutor's office that created a culture of excellence, mentored junior attorneys, implemented community-based crime prevention and intervention strategies, and, most importantly, delivered justice to victims and their families.
We need a competent Commonwealth's Attorney, who can inspire and motivate a strong team that effectively prepares and evaluates cases, delivering justice to victims. You lose the community's trust when cases are repeatedly lost because of avoidable errors, like not turning over discovery, not properly staffing cases, or failing to prepare witnesses.
Winning cases depends on earning the trust of witnesses and the broader community. Witnesses must believe we will win these cases and that they will be safe if they come forward. That requires strong witness and victim protection programs, effective preparation, and a proven record of success in the courtroom.
Building trust also requires a partnership between the police department, the Commonwealth's Attorney's office, and the community. That's why community violence intervention programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods are so critical, and why it is essential to work with trusted community leaders to rebuild and strengthen those relationships.
First, it is necessary to acknowledge the history of redlining, racial segregation, and systemic racism in Norfolk and across Virginia. We are still working to undo the harmful effects of these policies and must prioritize building a relationship of trust between the community and the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.
A prosecutor must consider and balance the circumstances of the crime, the defendant's history and characteristics, the impact on victims, and the safety of the community. Marginalized communities have faced unfair sentencing and targeting by our criminal justice system, and we must make active efforts to prevent that.
That is why I led Project Safe Neighborhoods, the Department of Justice's Violence prevention and intervention program, which focuses on reaching individuals before they become justice involved and providing them the resources they need to succeed. For too long, the reactive approach has not worked; we must be proactive, especially in marginalized communities, to combat the symptoms of crime. I am proud to have done that work and will implement and support funding community violence intervention programs as your next Commonwealth's Attorney.
The current Attorney General has failed to stand up against Trump's dangerous rhetoric and decision to roll back progress in civil rights that Virginians have fought so hard for by shuttering the Civil Rights Division's focus on race.
When the Trump administration called on our universities to shut down their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the Attorney General joined them rather than stand up for our students. We must protect civil rights programs and support the communities that have been overlooked for far too long in Virginia.
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