The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON - Randy O. Lewis said he decided not to challenge incumbent County Prosecutor Rea Culwell for that position when the filing period was held in May because he hadn't heard from many local residents urging him to run. But after he received enough write-in votes in the August primary to qualify for the general election ballot, he said his phone began to ring.

"A lot of people called and asked if I was going to run," he said. "A lot of them said they didn't know about the write-in rules, or I would have gotten more."

In 2010, Lewis lost a hard-fought race to Culwell, who was reelected to a second term by 134 votes.

Lewis said he has continued to practice law, and listed three cases in the past four years that he has worked on: one each in Columbia, Walla Walla and Whitman counties. Lewis served as a public defender in Columbia County from 2007 until 2010.

Lewis is a Louisiana native and received his law degree from Louisiana State University School of Law. He served as a criminal defense attorney for 15 years, beginning in 1980, and served as attorney for St. Charles Parish for eight years. In 2006, Lewis and his wife, Debbie, moved to Columbia County and built a home.

Lewis obtained his law license in Washington by taking advantage of a combination of state reciprocity agreements. Because Louisiana state laws are based on French law (the legal systems in all other states are based on English common law), only one state - North Dakota - had a reciprocity agreement with Louisiana for law licenses. Washington does not.

Lewis traveled to North Dakota and obtained his law license there, though he has never lived there or practiced law there. He then later obtained a Washington law license through Washington's reciprocity agreement with North Dakota.

Lewis has never taken and has not passed the Washington State Bar Exam. If he is elected, he will be the only county prosecutor in the state who has not passed the state bar exam.

Lewis said he believes a change in prosecutor is needed. "I believe there is currently a trust gap between the prosecutor's office and other county offices, and with a large portion of the population," he said.

If elected, Lewis said that he will review the office "from top to bottom." He said he will meet with the current employees in the prosecutor's office and has no intention to remove them. "I will review policies and put in place new protocols," he said. "I will root out potential problems related to the prosecutor's office."