With 70 percent of the vote, John DeRosier was re-elected as District Attorney of Calcasieu Parish, defeating his only opponent, Steve Streete. With all 119 precincts reporting, DeRosier had a total of 21,225 votes compared to Streete with a total of 9,173 votes.
DeRosier originally took the oath of office for District Attorney on December 20, 2005. He brought years of experience to the job, including a law practice in Lake Charles that focused on civil litigation, personal injury and criminal law, before serving as Lake Charles City Attorney for seven years.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps during Vietnam and spent 11 months there as a machine gunner. He was awarded the Naval Achievement Medal with Combat ‘V’.
As District Attorney, DeRosier established the Case Review Team to improve communications with law enforcement, created the Calcasieu Full Force program to target DWI offenders, worked with legislators to pass several pieces of legislation regarding more stringent requirements for sex offenders and the addition of the mentally ill to the protected persons statute to prevent their victimization by the system.
He also proactively implemented an aggressive campaign to capture and prosecute online sexual predators, furnished an Assistant District Attorney for the Combined Anti-Drug Task Force to target serious and habitual drug traffickers.
DeRosier established the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program and an adult drug court program, opened a part-time District Attorney substation in the Martin Luther King Recreation Center on North Simmons Street in Lake Charles, instituted the “Fatal Vision” program that travels to schools to dramatically teach the dangers of impaired driving, and was instrumental in passing “doctor shopping” legislation during the 2007 La. legislative session.