TWO DRUG CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST COURT ADMINISTRATOR

The court administrator for the South Central Judicial District was charged
with two drug crimes on Wednesday, both stemming from his Nov. 21 drunken
driving arrest.

The new charges against Douglas H. Johnson, 34, are possession of less than
a half ounce of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, both of
which are misdemeanors.

Johnson declined to comment on the charges.

The drug charges had been anticipated since the night of Johnson's arrest,
when the marijuana and pipe were found in an eyeglasses case Johnson had
had in his pocket.

The attorney general's office said the delay in charging the drug offenses
was due to a wait for toxicology tests.

Assistant Attorney General David Hagler is prosecuting Johnson. He said
Johnson's next court appearance is a pretrial conference on the DUI on
Jan. 9, which will also be the initial appearance and arraignment on the
drug charges.

Northwest District Judge Gary Holum of Minot has been assigned to the case
because Johnson works for all of the judges in the South Central District
and they disqualified themselves.

Johnson's attorney, Tom Tuntland, has entered an innocent plea for him on
the DUI charge. On Dec. 4, Johnson paid a $50 fine for having an open
container of alcohol in his vehicle.

Court records show that Johnson's eyeglass case with the drug items were
found in a bathroom at St. Alexius Medical Center, where the arresting
deputy took Johnson for a routine bloodalcohol test.

The deputy, Robert Benson, said that when he first arrested Johnson north
of Bismarck on state Highway 1804, he found an object in Johnson's pocket
and asked what it was. Johnson said it was a contactlens case inside an
eyeglass case. The deputy looked at it just long enough to verify that it
was an eyeglass case and put it back in Johnson's pocket without opening it.

After taking Johnson to the hospital, where Johnson asked to use a rest
room, the deputy took him to the Burleigh County Detention Center to be
processed. At the jail, the deputy noticed Johnson no longer had the
eyeglass case and called the hospital. A hospital employee found the case
in the bathroom and inside it were marijuana and a "onehitter" brass pipe.

Later that same day, before she turned the case over to the attorney
general's office for prosecution, Burleigh County State's Attorney Patricia
Burke asked for a search warrant to get a urine sample from Johnson to test
for marijuana usage. Northwest District Judge William McLees granted the
warrant.

The maximum penalty if Johnson were convicted of the two drug charges would
be a year and one month in prison and a $3,000 fine.