APPARENTLY IT IS OK TO GET STONED IF YOUR WIFE IS THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR DA

It pays to have a wife in the DA’s office if you’re a pothead.

PRESUMPTIVE DA’S STONER HUSBAND GETS FREEBIE ON DWI BEEF

Grits for Breakfast
June 5, 2012

This set of facts out of San Angelo is cracking me up:

Earlier this spring, the husband of first assistant District Attorney Allison Palmer, who is now the Republican nominee for DA in Tom Green County, caused an auto accident. He told police he'd been drinking earlier in the day and officers could smell the pungent aroma of marijuana in his truck. They brought in a drug dog which alerted and a search revealed a baggie with rolling papers, seeds and "small pieces of a green leafy substance."

The local police chief and state troopers were called to the scene, but Palmer was not arrested and instead taken to the hospital for minor injuries. He was never given field sobriety tests, refused a breathalyzer, did not have blood drawn, and out of more than 12 hours of dashcam footage from various police vehicles at the scene, he was never captured on video once during the incident. As a result, the Tom Green County Attorney dismissed charges TWO days after Palmer won her primary race, which seems particularly well-timed for her.

So the husband of the presumptive District Attorney gets a freebie, with the County Attorney stringing along the public - pretending he might still be held accountable - until after his favor to a colleague's pot smoking husband could no longer damage the wife politically.

Maybe Mrs. Palmer didn't know about her husband's pot smoking, police didn't intentionally avoid gathering evidence against him, and the County Attorney based his decision on the evidence as quickly as he could. Perhaps everything's on the up and up. But from a distance, it all seems like an instance of brazen hypocrisy combined with crass, good-ol-boy back scratching. The idea of the DA prosecuting the war on drugs while hubbie drives around San Angelo smoking out in his truck is really quite an image.

UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: Palmer was charged with reckless driving, reports the San Angelo Standard Times, and a Class C paraphernalia charge has been appealed to a County Court of Law. So no DWI or pot possession arrest, but charges weren't dismissed entirely.