Is justice really served in the end?

What if someone burned your house down? What if someone murdered your father? What if someone raped your sister? You would demand justice. In America, we pride ourselves on a superior criminal justice system which punishes the unjust and protects the just. That’s certainly a lofty ideal, and a standard we should all hold ourselves too. However, while the verdicts in our courts may favor the just most of the time, oftentimes justice is not really served.

The case of Shannon Wilcutt illustrates this point. In 2006, Wilcutt was arrested for DUI. Few people have sympathy for those who drink and drive, but don’t be so quick to dismiss Ms. Wilcutt. See, she wasn’t really impaired. She blew a 0.048 at the scene — even after using an inhaler — and her blood tests came back with a reading of 0.022. Clearly, she was below the legal limit.

So how was she busted in the first place? That actually provides an interesting interlude. Fresh off dental surgery, she had taken her four-year-old son to a restaurant for dinner. She started with a mimosa, but the citrus stung her sutures, and she switched to water. After finishing a few glasses during her meal, Wilcutt paid and left for a quick errand before heading home.

Stephen Ceballes, owner of a commercial landscape company, was at the same restaurant. He observed a waitress serving Wilcutt glass after glass of what he thought was white wine. So he followed her out of the restaurant and observed her running a stop sign in the parking lot — a crime to which we’ve all been guilty at some point or another. What did he do then? He called the cops.

And so Ms. Wilcutt was handcuffed right in front of her four-year-old son, and brought to the precinct. She was booked, and forced to face trial, even though her on-scene breathalyzer came back at the aforementioned 0.048. She had taken a hydrocodone upon leaving the restaurant, but that was prescribed to her following the dental surgery. The cops didn’t believe that she had taken only one, though. And really, that’s all it takes.

So we have Shannon Wilcutt, who did nothing wrong, save for running the parking lot stop sign. No, maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea to be driving after her dental surgery. But she was in no way barred from doing so. And maybe she should have waited until she got home to take the hydrocodone. But she took it about 10 minutes prior, so that it would take effect once she was settled in. Once again, she broke no laws — and certainly didn’t commit three felonies, which were ultimately the charges against her.

All charges were dropped in the end. So justice served, right? Well, not exactly. The family was still out the $12,000 it had to pay in legal fees, money that they will never recoup. Some might say that it’s the price of justice. I say that’s ridiculous. No one should have to suffer that kind of financial loss when they did nothing wrong. If you think otherwise, put yourself in that situation. How would you feel is you were out $12,000 in this scenario?

Perhaps the greater cost is the damage done to Wlcutt’s son. I’m not saying that he was necessarily traumatized by the experience. But he watched as police accosted his mother and administered field sobriety tests. He was there when she was cuffed and put in the squad car. And he had to wait at the precinct while his father got matters straightened out. All because of nothing.

The other aspect of the story is Mr. Ceballes. In my opinion, he acted in an irresponsible manner. Instead of flagging down someone from the wait staff to verify how much Ms. Wilcutt had to drink, he took matters into his own hands. And you can certainly make the case that his poor judgement cost this family $12,000. What will the long arm of the law do to Ceballes? Nothing.

In an environment where we’re encouraged to say something if we see something, a number of problems arise. Ceballes could have just been doing as he was told. He thought that this woman was drinking, and worse, driving with a child. But in reporting this directly to the police, he acted irresponsibly.

But Ceballes had a chance to be responsible. According to his police statement, he had been observing Wilcutt during dinner. How easy would it have been to summon a manager to find out how much the woman had been drinking? Clearly, not difficult at all. But Ceballes forewent that option. If justice was truly to be served, he would pay for his errant judgement. But he did not. Shannon Wilcutt did.

A further problem in this scenario is the way law enforcement approaches potential DUI cases. Anyone who has been pulled over late on a weekend night knows the first question the officer will ask: “Have you been drinking tonight?” Sarah Fenske, who penned Wilcutt’s tale in the Phoenix New Times, puts this in perspective:

The officers are only doing their job, but their job is to bust drunk drivers. That’s what the Legislature wants, what the governor wants, and what the public wants. From the minute the cops pull you over, they assume you’re drunk.

It’s your job to prove yourself innocent.

It sounds anathema to the mantra of our justice system: “Innocent until proven guilty.”

My question to law enforcement: Does an officer’s presumption of guilt lead to more rightful arrests than a situation where the officer is less presumptive? As we can see with the Wilcutt case, the presumption of guilt can easily lead to false conclusions. Unless these tactics bring in more true drunks than other tactics would, I cannot see the sense in allowing officers to act in a manner so inconsistent with the base of our justice system.

This might be a single case, but it is clearly illustrative of a larger problem. How can we pride ourselves on serving justice when cases like this occur every day? Justice was not served to the Wilcutts. Justice was not served to Caballes. I just hope that no one mistakes your water for wine, and causes you $12,000 in unnecessary damage.