Lynn Cutler, a prosecutor with the county District Attorney's Office in Santa Maria, announced Friday that he is dropping out of the campaign for Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge.

Cutler said he was unable to remove his name from the ballot in the June 3 election, but said his race was finished nonetheless.

“I don't believe that I have the requisite interest to devote all of the time, energy and resources necessary to make a successful countywide run,” he said in a written statement.

Reneé Bischof of the Santa Barbara County Elections Office said Friday that the office had not yet received notification of Cutler's dropping out of the race.

With Cutler out of the running, three attorneys - Kevin Ready, John MacKinnon and Jed Beebe - are left to vie for the seat left vacant by the 2006 removal of Judge Diana Hall, who heard civil cases in Santa Maria.

“I only reluctantly put my name in for a judicial appointment and would never have gotten involved in this process if I had known that my interest would lead me into an expensive and time-consuming countywide election,” Cutler said in the statement.

The attorney said he was

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led to enter the judicial race

because he “wasn't really impressed by the people that put their names in.”

Campaigning in an election is difficult work for a private person, Cutler said, and “glad-handing” was not a natural fit for him.

“I've never run for anything in my life,” he said.

Adding to his decision to quit the race, Cutler said, was his recent assignment to prosecute Lee Leeds, the Santa Maria man accused of murdering four men on March 18 at a Santa Maria auto salvage yard.

“I am a career prosecutor,” Cutler said in the statement. “And that's how I will retire.”

March 29, 2007