DEFENSE LAWYERS IN DRUG CASES WANT INFORMANT'S BACKGROUND AS EVIDENCE

HINTON - Defense attorneys want to use a confidential informant's testimony
against him in two Summers County drug cases. Attorneys Jeff Rodgers and
Eric Francis said Billy Jack Cales Jr.'s admission to stealing and forging
checks belonging to his parents should be admitted into evidence under the
"prior bad acts" court rule to challenge his credibility.

In a Sept. 27 hearing on the drug cases, Cales admitted stealing checks
from his parents, forging and cashing them in June 2000. He began working
as an informant for the State Police about two months later in a fall 2000
undercover drug sting.

Later in the hearing, Cales asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against
self-incrimination when questioned about subsequent check, tool and gun
thefts that took place during part of the time he was an informant.

Rodgers said, "This guy kind of takes the cake." As a police informant,
Cales "wrote himself a blank check" in dealing drugs as an admitted addict
while he apparently continued committing crimes.

Francis said of Cales, "He stood right up here in front of the court and
admitted those."

Prosecutor Jim McNeely took issue with Rodgers' characterization of Cales.
He said he had suffered through insults and slander against state witnesses
while defense attorneys tried their cases in the newspaper.

Circuit Judge Robert Irons told McNeely to refrain from making political
speeches.

Cales was never convicted of the checks charges involving his parents. He
testified they agreed to dismiss the charges after he spent a week in jail.

Because Cales was not convicted, Irons took the motion under advisement to
review the law.

Rodgers asked the court to dismiss a charge of possession of OxyContin
against his client, John Smith of Alderson.

"He had a continuous prescription for OxyContin," Rodgers said, and read a
list of about 10 physicians who prescribed it for Smith from Sept. 22,
1999, to Nov. 17, 2000.

McNeely didn't oppose the motion. Smith still stands accused of delivering
OxyContin to Cales in October 2000.

Francis asked the court to consider admitting evidence that his client,
Osbey Dell Cox, was a potential co-defendant of Cales as reason to
challenge Cales' credibility.

Cox is accused of three counts each of possession and delivery of OxyContin.

Testimony from State Police officers Sept. 27 indicated they recovered
items from Cox that Cales may have stolen and sold to Cox.

Francis said Cales could be biased against Cox because he knows Cox may
testify against him in a gun theft case.

Irons also took that motion under consideration for a later ruling.

Smith's trial is scheduled Oct. 24, and Cox' trial is set Oct. 30.