Lehigh County District Attorney James B. Martin has announced he'll seek the Republican nomination in the May primary election to run for re-election.

Martin has held the office since January 1998, when he was appointed by county commissioners to succeed Judge Robert L. Steinberg. He was elected to four-year terms in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011, and recently passed the late George J. Joseph as the longest-serving district attorney in the county's history.Through 2013, Martin's office has disposed of more than 70,000 adult criminal cases with a conviction rate of more than 96 percent. During the same time period, more than 23,000 juvenile cases have been prosecuted. Martin said that the criminal caseload in Lehigh County is current, and there is no backlog of cases.Of the 217 defendants charged with criminal homicide since 1998, 211 have been convicted, a conviction rate of better that 97 percent. For those murder cases that went to trial, the conviction rate is greater than 92 percent.Martin has been recognized statewide among his peers and has served as president of the Pennsylvania District Attorney's Association and as a member of its executive board. He has also served on the Governor's Victim Services Advisory Committee for eight years and on the Pennsylvania Bar Association/Pennsylvania Supreme Court Commission for Justice Initiatives. He has been a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association House of Delegates since 1987 and is past president of the Bar Association of Lehigh County.