waited stoically to be called. Off to one side was a middle-aged white woman with early flecks of silver at the temples of her lacquered black hair. She wore a cream-colored turtleneck jersey beneath a red boiled wool jacket appliqued at the hem and cuffs with Christmas ornaments and crisp silver braid. Sharp-pointed silver snowflakes dangled from her earlobes and I caught an icy flash of diamonds when she picked a stray piece of lint from the jacket, examined it between her fingertips, then flicked it to the floor.
Ellen Englert Hamilton. She gave me a frosty half-smile when our eyes met, a smile I returned with exaggerated (and equally hypocritical) warmth. Englerts and Hamiltons have been intermarrying for so many generations that it’s a wonder they aren’t all congenital idiots. As a rule, both families are fanatically opposed to alcohol in any form except as an antiseptic; but every rule has an exception and every Englert/Hamilton generation throws up at least one drunkard, which is enough to fan the flames of righteousness in the rest of the clan.
I had once dated Ellen’s younger brother Rudolph until their mother decreed that a bootlegger’s daughter was no fit consort for an Englert. Once I got over my indignation, I had to admit that Mrs. Englert had cause. Her late husband had evidently been one of my daddy’s good customers; and when a sheriff’s deputy found a jar of white lightning in the basement after Mr. Englert died, it was Mrs. Englert who was charged with possession of untaxed liquor. Ironically, Rudolph has turned into this generation’s lush and I’ve heard that it’s all my fault for dumping him.
Go figure.
There was no way Ellen would be in this DWI court as a defendant, and I couldn’t see her there as a character witness for any of the others, so what—?
And then it dawned on me.
Of course.
Ellen is president of Colleton County’s MADD chapter. Mothers Against Drunk Driving. I had heard that they were going to start monitoring judges so that they could point well-publicized fingers if any DWI charges were dismissed.
Yes, there are judges who drink and drive and who base their judgments on the old there-but-for-the-grace- of-God-go-I principle, but I’m not one of them. Nevertheless, the state has to prove its case before I’ll take someone’s license or give them active jail time and no MADD watchdog could make me rule differently.
The ADA finally rose to say that he was ready to begin with the State versus Salvador Garcia, an illegal alien who had started the day with five DWIs pending against him. The ADA explained that he had dismissed two of them as part of a plea bargain, which was not what I would have done, but I could understand his reasoning.
Immigration had put a hold on Garcia and he was going to be deported to Honduras anyway, so the ADA wanted to clear up all his outstanding cases here in Colleton County. Garcia seemed to speak and understand English fairly well, but because he had pled guilty to the three remaining charges and because I would be imposing jail time, I appointed an interpreter so that he couldn’t later appeal on the grounds that he hadn’t understood.
I could have ordered probation of the first charge, but I knew he’d be getting active time on the other two because of several aggravating factors—he had blown a .22 on one and a .21 on the other, and he had a prior conviction. Therefore I ordered five-to-sixty days for the first charge, six months on the second, and twelve months on the third. I also ordered alcohol treatment while he was incarcerated here.
When he and his court-appointed attorney stood to hear me pass sentence, I added, “Mr. Garcia, I’m going to remain silent on these convictions, which means that they will run concurrent with each other. Had you not been subject to deportation, I would have let them run consecutively, but I’m sure ICE is very likely to send you back to your home within a couple of months.”
I leaned forward until his brown eyes met mine and I was sure I had his attention. “As we all know, drinking is not a crime.”
Ellen Hamilton gave an audible sniff and a flounce of her head at that comment, a reminder that if it were up to Hamiltons and Englerts, Prohibition would still be on the books.
“Drinking is not a crime,” I repeated, “and being an alcoholic is not a crime. But driving drunk
When the interpreter finished his flow of Spanish, Garcia gave a disheartened “
Next up was a very remorseful black man who had been stopped after a few drinks at a sports bar. He had a spotless driving record and no prior convictions. He also had a wife sitting two rows back who had made it clear that she would leave him if it ever happened again.
Because he barely registered a .09 on the Breathalyzer and there were no grossly aggravating factors, I sentenced him to a Level Five: sixty days in the custody of our county jail. I then suspended the sentence and placed him on supervised probation for six months on condition that he pay a hundred-dollar fine and court costs, obtain a substance abuse assessment, do community service, and surrender his license until he qualified for limited driving privileges.
I had a feeling he would not be back in court again, a feeling I did not have with the next eight defendants— three Hispanic males, one white female, and four black males—even though they were all Level Fives, too.
They were followed by several Level Ones, the highest level for misdemeanor DWI, and all received active time along with my hope that they would take advantage of the alcohol treatments and change their ways. One of them—Jackson Dwayne McHenry, white, twenty-six—gave me the finger as he was being led away. I could have found him in contempt and given him more time, but I let it pass.
When all the plea bargains were out of the way, there were two trials wherein the defendants pled not guilty. I found the first one guilty but the second dodged the bullet.
He had refused to take the Breathalyzer test, “Which was his constitutional right,” his attorney, Zack Young, reminded me. “The state has to prove that he was
The officer who stopped him testified that the defendant had passed the field sobriety tests. “Not perfectly, Your Honor, but all right.”
It was the same with his driving. Under Zack’s pointed questioning, the officer had to admit that he wasn’t all
