With all due respect to your friend, that is one the downfalls of going into public office. Unfortunately, when you go into a job like that, there is no room for error.

While I am all for justice, I always wonder if people feel the same way about the construction worker or ditch digger, who could not afford a good attorney, and ends up losing his or her job/career over a situation like that.

Does that ditch digger mean less than a DA? I am not saying that you think that very thing, but I am always puzzled as to why there are no people screaming about the average guy that lost his whole way of life.

On the flip side, there was a Judge at Dallas County, who will remain nameless, who lost his career due to a DWI. He was one of the nicest guys I had ever met. He got drunk and had a wreck one night and lost his career. Funny thing was that everybody knew he was a drunk and they just laughed at it. I remember his face plastered all over the television. I felt so bad for him. Not because he was losing his career, but because he was all over TV just because of his position.

Going one step further, when a police officer is busted for DWI, his/her face is all over the television and they even dig into his/her job history. It becomes a dark day in law enforcement because a cop did something human.

Since I have gone that far, let me go off the deep end now. While in the military I saw plenty of young soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines lose their career for a DWI, but the high ranking officers who were caught...well lets just say it never went anywhere. I only know of one time that a commander was busted on DWI and it was because the Sgt, who stopped him, pushed the case until the police commander could not avoid letting the other commander fall.

Having said all of that, it is a cold fact that only one beer can put you over the limit. Depending on the person, one beer can knock them out for the count, while others may take quite a few more. Some people have the misconception that you have to be "drunk" to get a DWI. All that has to be shown is that you are impaired, which can be shown by a number of clues during the field sobriety test. I am sure that the intoxilyzer video tape may show him to not be in that bad of shape, but something gave the officers enough to arrest him. The bottom line is that you put your own life, career, and liberty in jeopardy anytime you drink and jump behind that wheel.

While I am sure your friend is a nice guy and had a great career started, he should have thought twice about getting into the vehicle.

[Ed Note: I appreciate your thoughts. With all due respect to construction workers and "ditch diggers," I don't have the stats on how many people MADD has screwed or backed off on. But this one experience showed me that MADD is not concerned with guilt or innocence--rather the charge against the person.

That's what my comments are about. And, based on that, I still say I'll never donate a penny to MADD and MADD's behavior was enough to get me to work on getting others follow suit!]

Wow. Where to comment here.

I had no idea fines went to outside agencies. What law did that? Is MADD held accoutnable for that money --in that, what do they do with it in Dallas County?

High salaries for a 501(C)3 organization are not new. Again, do they have a public responsibility to show how they spend their money?

Finally, career enders are tragic, but not as tragic as life-enders. NewGuy's observations about DWI's in the military are exactly opposite to what I saw. In my time in service, it was the NCO's who would get busted a stripe, but got to stay in. The officers were told to resign their commissions.

Either way, the best lesson the military taught was: NO Drinking and Driving. Period. End of story. Get a cab, get a friend, walk home--or stay sober. If you have a drink in one hand a set of keys in the other, can you honestly gamble that you would drive JUST as safely as when you are stone cold sober?

[Ed Note: Point well made about driving after a drink, but everyone charged with criminal activity is entitled to his or her day in court. When a charge is dismissed and MADD runs to the newspapers and ruins the guy's career--that's rather low.

If there had been a conviction, that would have been one thing. But there wasn't.]