BAR OWNER SENTENCED TO 16-YEAR TERM

The owner of a now-closed Washington County bar, which was the scene of
drug sales and a heavily criticized raid by a SWAT team, faces up to 16
years in prison for those illegal transactions and other crimes.

Jack Roger Norton, 57, 116 Claude Simmons Road and 1128 E. Lakeview Drive,
pleaded guilty Thursday in Washington County Criminal Court to five counts
of selling cocaine and and one count of selling marijuana. He also entered
pleas to two counts of possessing cocaine for resale, one count of
possessing morphine for resale, one count of possessing Dihydrocodenione
for resale and two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia.

He agreed to a series of concurrent and consecutive sentences totaling 16
years in prison. Jim Bowman, Norton's attorney, will try to convince Judge
Bob Cupp to let his client out of jail at a July 18 probation hearing and
put him on some form of release in the community. By then, Bowman said,
Norton will have served about six months in jail.

Cupp told Norton that prosecutors will try to make him serve the whole
sentence behind bars.

"It's substantial," Assistant District Attorney General Steve Finney said
of the drugs.

"Outside of these offenses, you're probably not a bad fellow," Cupp said.
"Mr. Norton, you need to give me something I can work with you on (with
sentencing). I'm not sure I can."

Norton initially was charged with selling 0.9 gram of cocaine to an
informant of the 1st Judicial District Drug Task Force, selling 11.7 grams
of marijuana, possessing 5.2 grams of cocaine for resale and having drug
paraphernalia, including a spoon with white residue, on April 28, 2002.

Those cocaine possession and drug paraphernalia charges stemmed from a
search warrant the DTF served on The Weed, 116 Claude Simmons, with help
from the Washington County Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons and
Tactics team. Bowman sought to suppress the seized evidence because, he
alleged, the SWAT team did not announce its reason and authority for
entering beforehand.

Team members entered the bar with machine guns and shotguns ready to fire.
They ordered people to the ground and handcuffed them, after which the DTF
came in and executed the search warrant. Bowman alleged officers threatened
and assaulted people inside.

Officers testified at the suppression hearing that they did not see anyone
injured or treated roughly, and District Attorney General Joe Crumley said
they had information there was an automatic weapon in the bar.

Cupp suppressed the evidence, saying officers needed to announce they were
entering beforehand. He said the SWAT team's actions posed a risk of death
for officers and patrons. The judge was concerned about the way the team's
clothing, which included masks and goggles, was used.

The state Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the suppression, saying
officers did not have to announce their entry. But it blasted the SWAT
team, with one of the three judges saying its actions "do merit the
condemnation of anyone who believes that this country is not, at least for
the moment, a police state."

In accepting Norton's pleas, Cupp said, "If anything good has come from
this case I can think of . . . (it is) hopefully that the sheriff of this
county will use some judgment in the use of the SWAT team." He said that
because of his feelings about the SWAT team, "I couldn't see the trees for
the forest and suppressed" the evidence.

While these cases were pending, Norton was charged with the rest of his
drug crimes.

Cupp asked Norton, who does not have much of a criminal record, what had
happened to him to bring on this onslaught of charges. Bowman said the
defense wanted to wait until the probation hearing to divulge that.

Norton said he lost his business, which had been open for about 11 years,
because of these charges. In response to a question from Cupp, he said he
had not been selling drugs there for that amount of time.