Seventeenth century essayist Jean Bruyere said, "Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit." Wit may have been only one of the things in short supply when it came to reporting on a drunk driving case. Good taste, good judgment, but most of all fairness, seemed to be in short supply, too. The report is from another state, but it could easily have happened in South Carolina.

The point we seek to make is that it should not have happened at all. Anyone facing a charge of DUI soon comes to know that the consequences can begin to be felt before the case ever gets to court. This is due mainly because the booking is a matter of public record and the news media know that scandal sells. Never mind that publicizing the story might destroy any chance of a fair trial for the person charged.

This surfaces in connection with the case of a woman from Florida. According to authorities, she was pulled over by a Martin County Sheriff's deputy late last month for suspected drunk driving. The official report of the incident says that a deputy responding to a reckless vehicle call witnessed the woman driving over the speed limit. It says the deputy also observed that she swerved over the double yellow line twice before pulling into a store parking lot.

What was recorded after that in the report may have been valid detail for the arresting officer to include, but the way the local news media decided to play it up can only be called salacious.

In order to maintain decency we won't repeat all that was provided in the reports. Suffice it to say, alleged comments were included and shared through the media that can only be described as deeply prejudicial about the woman's possible physical condition. Rather than offering an objective transmission of police allegations, the news story presents the woman in derisive terms in an attempt to be funny. The result is that her right to a presumption of innocence has been erased.

Source: NBCMiami.com, "Big Boobs Blamed for Bad DUI Test Performance," Brian Hamacher, Feb. 3, 2012