ATTORNEY GENERAL HOPEFULS AGREE TO DISAGREE

Whether to sue OxyContin's maker is just one of the issues dividing
Donald McEachin and Jerry Kilgore. isn't the only issue dividing the
candidates for attorney general.

How best to deal with the illegal use of OxyContin is one of the many
issues that separate the two candidates for Virginia attorney general.

Democrat Donald McEachin, a trial lawyer who says he wants to fight
for Virginians as the state's top attorney, says he likes the
approach taken by West Virginia. That state's attorney general
recently sued the company that makes OxyContin, claiming that
excessive marketing of the prescription painkiller contributed to its
abuse.

"At the end of the day, it's our job to protect the people of
Virginia," said McEachin, a delegate who represents Henrico County in
the General Assembly.

Saying he didn't know the details of the West Virginia lawsuit,
McEachin stopped short of promising to file a similar one if he is
elected Nov. 6.

But, he said, "that's the kind of aggressive use of the attorney
general's office that I favor."

McEachin's opponent, Republican Jerry Kilgore, says he doesn't think
the state should sue Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut company that sold
more than $1 billion worth of OxyContin last year. Since the drug was
approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Kilgore said, it has
been proved to be an effective painkiller.

"It really seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to blame the drug's
manufacturer," Kilgore said. "You're not getting to the root of the
problem, and the root of the problem is those individuals who use a
legal drug illegally."

Kilgore, who often advocates personal responsibility and has labeled
McEachin a "criminal apologist," said he takes an especially dim view
of such litigation if it is filed by people who became addicted after
misusing the drug.

"No one should get an award in a court of law if they have used this
drug illegally," said Kilgore, a Richmond attorney who served as
secretary of public safety when George Allen was governor.

OxyContin causes a heroinlike high when the pills are crushed into a
powder and then snorted or injected. Called by some the crack cocaine
of the coalfields, the drug has been linked to more than 40 fatal
overdoses in Western Virginia and a surge in crime as addicts steal,
cheat and rob to get it.

Although several lawsuits against Purdue Pharma have been filed by
private attorneys, West Virginia is so far the only state to take
legal action. Attorney General Darrell McGraw claimed in the lawsuit
last month that the drug's manufacturers and promoters violated the
Consumer Credit Protection Act by using "highly coercive and
inappropriate tactics to attempt to get physicians and pharmacists to
prescribe OxyContin."

The lawsuit seeks to recover what it cost state agencies to deal with
the aftermath of OxyContin addictions. An exact figure was not cited
in the suit.

Purdue Pharma, which in the past has defended its marketing of
OxyContin as conservative and responsible, says the lawsuit is
"completely baseless."

Virginia's attorney general's office, which has taken a more
diplomatic approach by meeting with Purdue Pharma, has said it has no
plans to sue the company. After forming a task force to study
prescription drug abuse, Mark Earley resigned as attorney general in
June to run for governor.

The task force is looking into creating a computer database that
would track prescriptions, thus preventing addicts from going from
one doctor to another for drugs. Although both candidates were
supportive of the task force's work, McEachin said it was "ironic"
that Earley became interested in the issue while preparing to seek
higher office.

OxyContin is not the only issue of interest to Southwest Virginians
on which the candidates differ.

Already at odds on capital punishment, Kilgore and McEachin distanced
themselves further in recent interviews when asked whether they
supported additional DNA testing in the case of Roger Keith Coleman.

Coleman was executed in 1992 for raping and killing his sister-in-law
in her Grundy home. He proclaimed his innocence to the end, and
questions about the case still linger. Last year, a charitable
organization and four newspapers asked a Buchanan County judge to
order additional DNA tests that would resolve the question once and
for all.

Judge Keary Williams denied the motion last month after the attorney
general's office strenuously objected. Kilgore said he would adopt
the same position if such requests fell on his watch.

"I would vehemently oppose it again and again and again," Kilgore said.

Exhaustive post-trial reviews left no question that Coleman was
guilty, Kilgore said. And DNA tests requested by Coleman's attorneys
after his trial found that sperm recovered from the victim could have
come from just 2 percent of the Caucasian population - a group that
included Coleman. Prosecutors argued that blood tests narrowed the
percentage to 0.2 percent.

"We need finality in our judgments in Virginia," Kilgore said. "We
don't need to go back and open up cases where we've had the DNA tests
and we've had the post-trial reviews."

McEachin said he had no problem with additional testing.

"I don't see why we would want to hide from the truth as a
government," he said.

The possibility that someone like Coleman was wrongfully convicted is
often cited by those who support a moratorium on executions in
Virginia. The measure, defeated this year in the General Assembly,
would have put executions on hold until the Joint Legislative Audit
and Review Commission completes an in-depth examination of the
process.

McEachin said he supports capital punishment in principle but also
favors a moratorium.

"Let's not let our philosophical support of the death penalty blind
us to the facts," he said. "The Earl Washington case is a fact that
we came within days of executing an innocent man."

Sentenced to die for the rape and murder of a Culpeper woman,
Washington had his sentence commuted to life after questions arose in
the case. He was later pardoned by Gov. Jim Gilmore after DNA tests
showed he did not commit the crime.

Kilgore said there is no reason to put executions on hold. "A
moratorium would end the death penalty in Virginia, and we would have
to work to bring it back," he said.

On another law-and-order issue, McEachin criticized Virginia's
practice of incarcerating inmates from other states. The policy is an
unintended consequence of a prison-building campaign that intensified
in 1994, when parole in Virginia was abolished during Kilgore's
tenure as secretary of public safety. When crime dropped
unexpectedly, the state was left with more prison beds than inmates.

There are more than 3,000 inmates from other states being held in
Virginia prisons, including two supermax facilities in Wise County.

"I don't believe that importing these other states' worst rapists and
murderers and violent felons promotes public safety in Virginia,"
McEachin said. "As Virginia's attorney general, I'll speak out
against that."

Instead of concentrating on highly restrictive supermaxes such as Red
Onion and Wallens Ridge state prisons, McEachin said, Virginia's
criminal justice system needs to find ways to rehabilitate offenders
and prepare them to re-enter society.

Kilgore responded that while empty prison cells illustrate the good
times Virginians currently enjoy, a 10-year forecast on inmate
population shows that the extra space will eventually be needed.

In the meantime, he said, it makes sense to recover the debt service
owed on the prisons by renting out surplus cells to states with
crowded facilities.

"It's irresponsible to say you won't lease out the existing space to
other states when the other states need it," Kilgore said.

Kilgore cited McEachin's views on prisons and the death penalty in
characterizing him as a criminal apologist.

"I side with the law enforcement community and the victims, and as
you can see from these different issues, he doesn't," Kilgore said.

"I have no idea where he's coming from," McEachin responded. "I think
he is doing what the typical Republican Party tactic is, which is to
throw up a bunch of names and hope that one of them sticks.

"I am not a criminal apologist. There are a host of bills that can be
researched and looked at that show I have been very tough on crime."

If there is one thing McEachin and Kilgore agree on, it's this: Come
Election Day, voters will have the choice of two very different
candidates for attorney general.