This Week's Trifecta: Judicial, Legislative and Executive Branches Represent!

Judge Al "Barb" Sadler ought to know a thing or to about drunk driving cases. He's probably lectured numerous defendants about the dangers of drinking and driving, especially when it you're mixing your booze with pills. He's the guy pictured in the booking photo at left.

Unfortunately it was that old combination of alcohol and pills that got the Judge into trouble on March 4th. Judge Sandler rear-ended a woman and then failed the field sobriety test. This was his his first mistake. Once he failed the FST, the cops had him right where they wanted him.

Then the judge made a smart move, refusing to provide a breath sample. But with the evidence they already had from the failed FSTs, the cops got a warrant to draw blood. At that point, Judge Sadler agreed to provide a breath sample. But it was the blood that got him convicted. While his breath sample of .02 wasn't enough to get him charged with DUI, a combination of booze and phenobarbitol was discovered in his blood.

The Judge took a plea agreement that called for three days in jail. Somehow this meant that he would not actually serve any jail time, receiving credit for the time he spent locked up when initially arrested. Then the DA announced that this was a standard plea deal in a first offender DUI case. I know this is true because First Assistant DA Phil Grant said so, and he's my Brother Rat.

The legislative branch was also heard from this week. Alabama State Senator Zeb Little, their Senate Majority Leader, was arrested for DUI last week. Then he resigned from his other job as a municipal prosecutor, with responsibility for putting DUI defendants in jail, in Hanceville.

Ironically, Hanceville is located in Cullman, which is a dry county. To make matters worse, it turned out that Sen. Little had initially refused to stop for the cops when they hit the party light. And he had let his license expire. And he had an open container in the vehicle. And he refused to provide a breathalyzer sample.

At least that last part reflects good judgment on the part of a DUI suspect, and we need more people with good judgment in our state legislatures. I hope Sen. Little's wisdom and cool-under-fire reasoning skill is recognized. I would support him in a bid for governor of Alabama. Plus it would be safer. You know, with the driver and everything.

Finally, Chicago Police Officer Richard Fiorito made the news last week as a result of his DUI arrests. He was honored by MADD for making 313 DUI arrests in about a year and a half. Then he got sued by a bunch of homosexuals claiming that his charges were trumped up to harass them.

Allegedly, he "grabbed Shawn Rauch by the throat in the police station, shoved him against a wall and called him a slur for a homosexual." I guess it's OK to harass people with substance abuse problems, but once you start harassing people because of their sexual predilictions, that's over the line. Ironically, it used to be legal to harass the homosexuals, but not the drinking drivers.