This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays: When the Prosecutors and Judges Get Pulled Over
There is a long tradition of prosecutors and judges standing in court and asking that the book be thrown at drivers charged with impaired driving. They talk about denunciation and deterrence. They talk about the danger to the public. They ask for big fines, long prohibitions, and sometimes jail. That is their job.
What makes the past few months particularly strange is how many of them have ended up on the other side of the prosecutor’s desk, charged with the very offence they spend their careers prosecuting. Three recent stories from three different jurisdictions show that the people running impaired driving cases are not always the best behaved behind the wheel. The stories also show something else. When a prosecutor or a judge gets caught, they seem to forget every piece of advice they have ever given anyone.
The Prosecutor Who Was Drunk at the Courthouse
In St. Albans, Vermont, the Grand Isle County State’s Attorney, Douglas DiSabito, got himself arrested in the most awkward location imaginable. Somebody inside the Franklin County Superior Court building called police around 4:30 in the afternoon to report that a person in the courthouse appeared to be intoxicated. St. Albans police officers arrived, had a chat with the 57 year old top prosecutor, conducted what the police release calls a “subsequent investigation,” and then arrested him for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Think about this for a moment. If you are drunk and you work at the courthouse, the one place in the world where you do not want to be drunk is the courthouse. The second place you do not want to be is the driver’s seat of your car in the courthouse parking lot. DiSabito has been the prosecutor in Grand Isle County since 2014 and has won every election since without a single challenger. His first court date on the new charge is May 4th.
What is particularly wacky about this story is that this is not even the first Vermont prosecutor to go through this recently. The prior Addison County State’s Attorney, Eva Vekos, got arrested for impaired driving back in January of 2024 at the scene of a suspicious death investigation. She refused field sobriety tests and asked the officer to let a friend come pick her up. That case took years to resolve and ended with the Vermont Supreme Court suspending her law license in April of 2026, about a week before her counterpart in Grand Isle got caught at the courthouse. Vermont apparently has a pattern.
The Federal Judge Who Recited the Alphabet a Little Differently
Down in Michigan, federal District Court Judge Thomas Ludington crashed his black Cadillac into two traffic signs near his lakefront vacation home in Springvale Township in October of 2025. A witness called 911 after watching the crash. Michigan State Police arrived to find the 72 year old federal judge confused and disoriented, unable to explain why his airbags had deployed. He twice volunteered to the trooper that he was a federal judge before being handcuffed. According to the bodycam footage, the judge had also urinated on himself.
Then came the field sobriety tests. Asked to recite a portion of the alphabet, the judge produced “A, B, C, D, E, F, U.” The trooper did not need any further test results, but he got them anyway. The blood alcohol came back at 0.27, more than three times the legal limit, which in Michigan triggers what they call the “super drunk” enhancement. Police also reported finding a spent Luger casing on the front floor of the vehicle, which his lawyer later suggested was somehow planted by an unknown person, perhaps a defendant the judge had previously sentenced.
The strangest part is what came next. The arrest was kept quiet for four months while Ludington kept hearing federal cases. The story only came out when The Detroit News obtained the records and broke it in January 2026. Ludington took voluntary paid leave in February and pleaded no contest on April 8th to a reduced misdemeanor of operating while intoxicated, with the super drunk charge dismissed. He plans to return to the federal bench. Lifetime appointments are a heck of a thing.
The Former Prosecutor Who Could Not Remember the Sheriff’s Name
Out in Scottsdale, Arizona, a former Maricopa County prosecutor named Rachel Alexander got herself pulled over after another driver called 911 to report that a blue Mustang had run a red light and was “swerving all over” near 84th Street and Shea Boulevard. When the Scottsdale officer caught up to her, she was described in the police report as “argumentative, stuporous and incoherent.” Her blood alcohol was later measured at 0.230, nearly three times the legal limit.
This is where it gets comical. Alexander tried to play every card a prosecutor would tell you not to play. She told the officer that she did not like doing field sobriety tests because she was a former prosecutor. She ordered the officer to call her defence lawyer. She tried to claim a vague “leg condition,” could not describe the condition when asked, and then at the jail told booking staff she had no medical conditions at all. She also tried to name drop the Maricopa County Sheriff, Jerry Sheridan, but was so drunk she kept calling him “Sherry Jeridan.” She asked the officer whether Sheridan had ever spoken to him about “us entering the jail.” The officer just wrote it all down.
Alexander is now charged with two counts of extreme DUI, two counts of regular DUI, and one count of driving without valid registration. She has said publicly that she accepts responsibility for her actions, and then spent several paragraphs blaming the political left for her troubles. Anyone who has ever tried the namedrop trick at a roadside stop knows how this ends. When the name you drop comes out as gibberish, the officer knows everything they need to know.
The Pattern
Every experienced defence lawyer tells clients the same thing. Be polite, say very little, call a lawyer. Do not mention your job. Do not mention who you know. Do not invent a medical condition. Do not try to argue your way out at the side of the road. It is not complicated. Yet when a prosecutor or a judge ends up in the back of a cruiser, they seem to do the opposite of everything they have heard their opposing counsel recommend for twenty years. Something about being the one who charges or sentences people for a living seems to give a person the idea that the rules will bend a little on the night they need them to. The bodycams do not bend.
See you next week.
