On Election Day in 2023, for the first time in over 30 years, the people of Chesterfield County elected a Commonwealth’s Attorney unaffiliated with a political party. For Erin Bumgarner Barr ’06, who assumed the job officially this January, it was victory in both the literal and the figurative sense. 

“I felt very strongly that prosecution should not be political, or beholden to any political ideology or party,” Barr explained. “A prosecutor should really be beholden to the law and to justice, and the facts that are in front of them.”

Now that she’s in office, Barr intends to walk the walk, building trust across the community.

“There was really a breakdown in the relationship over the last four years between the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and the law enforcement community as a whole. So I really want to rebuild that relationship,” explained Barr, who previously worked in the office. “But I want to go further than that and make sure we’re active in the community as far as building connections with organizations that deal with substance abuse services or re-entry services.”

A career prosecutor with over a decade of experience throughout Virginia, politics were never Barr’s ambition. In fact, when she began attending Randolph-Macon College, her intended career path was social work.

During a visit to campus for a scholarship weekend as a prospective student, Barr instantly connected with Dr. Lauren Bell, the James L. Miller Professor of Political Science, who would become her advisor for the next four years. Barr had declared a sociology major, but quickly fell in love with political science and added it as a second major. Embracing the breadth of an RMC education, she also pursued a classics minor, then added a second minor, religious studies, after taking a January Term class with professor emeritus and former dean of students Ira Andrews III ’59.

As she advanced throughout her academic career at RMC, Barr’s focus shifted from social work to criminal justice, thanks to both the influence of Bell and sociology courses taught by Dr. Denise Bissler. “She was the first to bring criminology classes and juvenile justice classes to RMC,” Barr recalls. “I took a lot of those, I was interested in that, and I think that probably swayed me to start looking more at getting involved in the criminal justice field.”

That interest was solidified after a J-Term internship with the Henrico County Police Division, where Barr’s experience included shadowing detectives, joining midnight shift officers on duty, and riding in the police helicopter.

Barr went straight to law school at the University of Richmond after graduating from Randolph-Macon, in part to remain close with the community of friends she had built in the Richmond area. While many of her classmates were planning on going to a firm, Barr had a different goal in mind: she was going to be a prosecutor.

After earning her law degree in 2009, Barr served as a clerk in Norfolk Circuit Court, then joined the Chesterfield Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office under William Davenport. Barr served as both an Assistant and Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney in Chesterfield for a decade before serving as a Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in the City of Colonial Heights starting in 2020.

While her day-to-day includes well-known prosecutorial tasks like handling trials and plea negotiations for felonies and misdemeanors charged by the state, Barr notes that a lot of her time is spent on work that resembles the social work she initially sought as a young college student.

“There’s a lot behind the scenes, like advising police through investigations, working with citizens, victims, and witnesses, many of whom have never been in court before,” Barr explains. “We do a lot outside the courtroom too. I sit on a number of groups that do trainings throughout the state on different topics like child abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault.”

Barr is passionate about being a public servant, noting “our ultimate goal is that community safety is served.” And while politics were never her goal, her multifaceted education paid off when the opportunity presented itself.

“I decided that it was the right thing to do, to step up and run. To make sure that we have a good Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, and a well-respected Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, in Chesterfield was really important to me,” Barr said. “Going through the political aspect was a totally different lifestyle for me, so I thought about Dr. Bell and her political science classes and all of her experiences.”

Her layered and broad study at RMC helped create a wider worldview, she believes, and it helps her see how her office’s efforts fit into a bigger picture. “I really think prosecution shouldn’t be done in a silo; it should be done as a piece of the puzzle in the whole criminal justice system.”