JUDGE TAKES ISSUE WITH DRUG POLITICAL AD

A group called "Citizens Against Drugs" paid for a political
advertisement in Wednesday's issue of the Nicholas Chronicle
criticizing Nicholas County Circuit Judge Gary Johnson for being soft
on drug prosecutions. Johnson said the ad was untrue and unfairly
published in the last edition of the weekly newspaper before Tuesday's
primary election.

Headlined "Drug Dealers Own Nicholas County - and There is Nothing You
Can Do About It," the advertisement urges voters to back Summersville
lawyer Larry Losch for circuit judge in Tuesday's Democratic primary.

Johnson, who was endorsed by the Nicholas County Deputy Sheriffs
Association, said the charge he is lenient on drug dealers "is
absolutely not true. In a rural county like this, it is very difficult
to respond when someone says something untrue or unfair in the
newspaper just six days before an election."

Reached at his Summersville law offices on Thursday, Losch said, "I
really can't comment on this. But it is a major problem."

A group called "Citizens Against Drugs" paid for the ad. The group's
spokesman, Bill Breedlove, could not be reached for comment. The paid
ad alleges more than 400 drug dealers were arrested during the past
seven years by state, county and city police officers and eventually
sent to circuit court for prosecution.

"Three out of every four sent to the circuit court walk away totally
unpunished," the advertisement stated. "Of those who were unlucky
enough to be prosecuted, the vast majority ... received probation so
they never really missed a drug sale."

According to the Nicholas County Circuit Court Clerk's office,
Nicholas County magistrates sent 37 serious drug cases over to the
Nicholas County Circuit Court in 1998 and 1999.

Nicholas County Prosecutor Keith McMillion obtained 25 indictments,
which represented two-thirds of all drug cases sent over from
magistrate court. In the majority of these cases, the defendants
pleaded guilty even before the cases went to trial, according to the
circuit clerk's office.

McMillion said on Thursday, "I don't know of any drug cases where the
judge has given a real lenient sentence. That just has not happened.
The judge always gave some punishment to defendants as a consequence
of their actions in a drug case, whether it was jail time or
penitentiary time."

Johnson said he is trying to reach voters to counter the newspaper ad
in any way he can. "That ad is absolutely not true.

"I was endorsed by the county Deputy Sheriffs Association. If I didn't
care about drug prosecutions, does anyone believe I would have been
endorsed by the Nicholas County deputies?

"Not only does something like this bother you as a candidate," Johnson
said.

"It also bothers you that your children and friends and everyone else
reads it. And you don't have a chance to respond."