Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 27, 1995 TAG: 9510270086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Showalter's remarks came Thursday evening at a candidates' forum for the Montgomery County commonwealth's attorney and sheriff's races.
"They stay busy," Showalter said of the two assistants, Skip Schwab and Peggy Frank. "I do not foresee a change in the personnel because I know they are hard-working individuals who pull their weight," Showalter said.
The clear implication of Showalter's remarks, and his campaign, is that Phil Keith has not.
Keith has been commonwealth's attorney since 1989 and has 17 years prosecuting experience.
He said Showalter's calls for more jury trials in drug cases and for the office to take a leadership role in implementing a juvenile-crime and drug-abuse education plan in middle and high schools are not feasible given the office's heavy court schedule and overloaded court dockets.
Showalter said too many drug cases are plea-bargained for sentences of six months or so in jail. More cases should be going to jury trials in which defendants are sentenced by community members, he said.
But Keith said jury trials offer no guarantee of stiffer sentences.
"First of all, there's no magic in a jury trial. We saw the O.J. Simpson case," he said.
Besides guaranteeing a conviction, plea agreements also are necessary because of the heavy court schedule, he said.
It would be impossible to take all drug cases to jury trials each term of court when only about a dozen court dates to handle all criminal cases might be available, Keith said.
Keith said Showalter's education plan - which would educate adolescents to the consequences of crime and drug use - is a good idea, but "our staff is not large enough at this time" to put it into place. Besides handling the voluminous dockets of General District Court and Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, the commonwealth's attorney's office also prosecutes about 450 defendants a year in Circuit Court, he said.
Showalter said he believes it is the prosecutor's primary job to prosecute but that the officeholder also should serve as a role model and be active in the community. He said his education program is workable with existing staff because it also would involve law enforcement, parents, teachers and other groups.
In the sheriff's forum, the four candidates voiced familiar themes of increased patrols in rural neighborhoods, better communications equipment and farming out extra jail-bed space to other state and federal prisoners to make additional money for the county.
The candidates are Democrat Jerry Olinger; Republican Doug Marrs; and independents Garnett Adkins and O.P. Ramsey.
About 150 people attended the forum, sponsored by The Roanoke Times' New River Valley Bureau, including many sheriff's office employees.
Ramsey, the only person running who is working for the sheriff's office, could answer questions more specifically, but took hits for promising to take care of problems some believe he should be taking care of now.
He said that as captain of law enforcement, many decisions are not his to make. As an independent candidate not tied to any party loyalty, he said he could best run the sheriff's office.
Adkins said he would "take a hard look at the schedule" to better provide better coverage of the county, which is almost 400 square miles.
"It does cost money ... but we need to keep this county covered," he said.
Adkins is stressing monthly community meetings to stay in touch with residents and their concerns.
Olinger, an investigator with the Virginia Tech Police Department, said working there for more than 20 years does not mean he is ill-equipped to run a large sheriff's office that investigates killings and other serious felonies.
He has assisted other agencies on murder investigations, such as the disappearance of two Tech students whose bodies were later found in Giles County.
Marrs, lieutenant of investigations for Christiansburg Police, stressed intensive investigation of break-ins and thefts, the two types of crimes most often committed in Montgomery County. And he said he wanted to make sure deputies stayed in assigned areas of patrol as much as possible so that residents believed they were getting the protection they needed.
Marrs has said he would implement a ride-along program for residents. But other candidates gave the idea a thumbs-down because of concerns about liability problems. Olinger said he would consider it if the county attorney OK'd it and all the deputies were in favor of it.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB