For Carroll prosecutor, ?never a dull moment?

Jerry Barnes, 59, is serving his fourth term as state?s attorney in Carroll County. A Westminster native, Barnes served in the Vietnam War as a Green Beret and earned two Bronze Stars for “heroic or meritorious achievements.” He earned his bachelor?s and law degrees from the University of Baltimore.

Barnes, who specializes in drug enforcement, works in a county with a crime rate that?s among the lowest in the state, but most of its crimes are connected to drugs. When he first ran for office in 1990, he was prematurely declared the winner, then announced the loser by several hundred votes. He went on to prosecute crimes in Frederick County before returning to Carroll to be elected the state?s attorney in 1994.