Whether it’ll be just another roll of the dice or a real jackpot won’t be known for a while, but Vicksburg is a gambling town and one of its own wants to take a chance in order to give something back.

Lane Campbell, 26, who will join the District Attorney’s office Monday as a third assistant DA, left a sure future as a U.S. Marine Corps attorney to accept the position.

It’s a gamble because it’s funded by a one-year state grant which may or may not be renewed in future years. The grant, through the Victims of Crime Act, provides help for domestic abuse and other victims of violent crime to get protective orders and other help.

Campbell returned last week from officer candidate school in Quantico, Va., to accept the position. He will be sworn in at 9 a.m. Monday by Circuit Judge Isadore Patrick.

“I love being home,” Campbell said in an interview Friday at his family’s Baum Street home. “It’s great to be able to help people in your hometown, especially in a city that’s given so much to my family.”

Campbell is the son of the late Frank Campbell, Warren County’s District Attorney for more than a decade beginning in 1979. Frank Campbell died in 2007 as he was preparing to go back into the District Attorney’s office as an assistant under then-newly-elected Ricky Smith.

Campbell’s family goes back five generations in Vicksburg, and includes his mother, Carole Campbell, an English and French teacher at Vicksburg High School, and brothers William, 30, a physician in Jackson, and Matthew, 20, a junior at the University of Mississippi studying history. His uncle, Jerry Campbell, Frank Campbell’s brother, also practices law in the city.

Smith tracked Lane Campbell down when he got word that the county had been awarded the $75,000 grant, which will pay for Campbell’s salary, benefits, training and various supplies. The timing was crucial, as Campbell had just completed the eighth week of a 10-week program that would have placed him at graduation with the Judge Advocate General division of the marines.

“I had signed an agreement with the Marine Corps,” he said. “You can opt out anytime after the fourth week but before the end of the 10th week.” The program was tough in every way, he said, testing resolve and teaching core values and tough decision-making skills. “I’m glad I did it, and it was a tough decision to walk away. I wanted to join the Marine Corps to serve the people, and I decided I could have a greater impact on the people of my hometown as an ADA than a Marine Corps JAG.”

Campbell’s first step will be to bring in his Rules of Evidence book, he said. “I have that anytime I come near a courtroom,” he laughed. “Other than that, I guess I have to put my diplomas on the wall.”

Campbell graduated from VHS in 2001. He received a bachelor’s degree from the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at Ole Miss with a double major in biochemistry and biology in 2005, and his law degree, also from Ole Miss, in 2008. He set up shop briefly as a lawyer, but was really biding his time while on the Marines’ OCS waiting list.

Leaving was permanent, and his new job may not be. “I walked away for life,” he said. “They said, ‘You can’t come back.”

But Smith said it’s highly likely that the grant will be renewed and Campbell’s position will continue to be funded.

“If it comes through, great,” Campbell said. “If not, I’ll have to find something else. It’s a great opportunity — to help people, first and foremost. I’ll be providing victims’ assistance between the process and the people, which is great. You don’t want anybody to have to live in fear like that.”

Campbell will also assist Smith, ADAs Dewey Arthur and Angela Carpenter and victim assistance coordinator Brenda Theriot in the DA’s office.

In addition to the new ADA post, Smith announced a new part-time employee has been hired to implement a pre-trial intervention program which attempts to divert first-time, nonviolent offenders out of the criminal justice system.

Joe Goad, a former jeweler and ship engine mechanic who resides in Delta, La., will manage the case load of individuals who have been charged with certain crimes, but not yet convicted.

“We envision it as primarily helping young people in their late teens and early 20s who have made a stupid mistake. It puts them on an 18-month probationary period. If they commit no crimes and follow all the other conditions, the charges against them are dismissed.”

Those accepted into the program will pay $100 a month supervision fee; can have no prior felony convictions or violent-crime arrests; must have letters of recommendations from law enforcement as well as their victims, if any, such as in property cases; and will be required to perform community service.

The program will eventually be self-funding, Smith said, but is being primed out of fines collected by the worthless check unit.

“It gives the offender a chance to give something back to the community and also keep his or her record clean,” Smith said.

*

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com