D.C. Mayor Barry Won’t Seek Reelection : Drugs: ‘Now is the time for healing,’ the embattled politician says. He insists that his decision is not a ploy in his trial on perjury and narcotics charges.

District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry, on trial in federal court on drug use and perjury charges, announced Wednesday night that he will not seek a fourth term as the district’s chief executive.

The announcement, which had been rumored for several days, was judged by some observers to be timed to elicit sympathy from jurors being selected to hear evidence in Barry’s trial or possibly to nudge prosecutors to negotiate a plea agreement that might allow him to avoid both the trial and a prison term.

However, Barry insisted his decision had “no connection to the trial” and called those who suggested otherwise “cynics.”

Barry, in a voice choked with emotion, said in an address broadcast by a local television station: “Now is the time for healing; healing for me personally and you politically.” He said he will serve until his term ends on Jan. 2, 1991.

Stressing his faith in God, Barry said that the seven weeks he spent earlier this year in substance-abuse centers in Florida and South Carolina had cured him of chemical dependency.

Barry entered the programs after he was indicted in an FBI sting operation in which he was videotaped allegedly smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend. At the time, he said that he was seeking treatment for alcoholism, but he has since acknowledged using drugs in the past.

“I have come back to Washington . . . a more complete person, a more humble person,” Barry said, appearing on the verge of tears. “This decision is not related to my legal situation but to myself and to my wife and family.”

However, local news reports have quoted unnamed friends of Barry as saying that the mayor hoped jurors might be more sympathetic to his mistakes if they knew he would be bowing out of office at the end of his term.

Others quoted in the news reports said that Barry hoped such an announcement would pressure U.S. Atty. Jay B. Stephens to allow him to plead guilty to misdemeanor drug charges, rather than insisting on a guilty plea to felony perjury counts.

Barry, 54, is facing 14 criminal counts: 10 misdemeanor counts of drug possession, one misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine and three perjury charges alleging that he lied under oath to a federal grand jury about his past drug use. If he is convicted on all the charges, Barry could receive a maximum sentence of 26 years in prison and fines of more than $1.8 million.

Justice Department guidelines state that, in public corruption cases, prosecutors are “encouraged . . . to consider voluntary offers of resignation from office as a desirable feature in plea agreements.”

However, Stephens has said that a resignation by Barry or a decision not to run again would be “irrelevant” to the charges or to any plea negotiations. Both sides had said that plea talks were under way just before jury selection began on June 4 but have been broken off.

Stephens was said to have insisted that Barry plead guilty to at least one felony, but Barry had balked because he thought that would ensure a prison term.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said in court Wednesday that he hoped to finish screening prospective jurors by Friday and to impanel a jury on Monday. The jurors will then be sequestered in a hotel, where federal marshals will ensure that they not read newspapers or watch television news programs.

By making his announcement before then, Barry guaranteed that the jurors would know about his plans to forgo running for a fourth term.

Until his indictment, Barry had withstood nearly a decade of corruption and drug investigations by two successive U.S. attorneys.