Foxx aide's court case merits close look

If not for an evening of apparent heavy drinking and one poor decision, hardly anybody in these parts — save a handful of hard-core political animals — would know the name Todd Poole.

Yet because he decided to get behind the wheel that night, thousands of people across Northwest North Carolina now know that Poole serves as the chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th.

The chain of events that started with his arrest Aug. 9 for DWI and resisting a public officer — and the handling of his case in Watauga County — has progressed to a point where even casual observers can legitimately question whether an influential person was afforded special treatment.

How else to explain the fact that unlike most other schlubs charged with DWI, Poole's blood-alcohol level was ruled out of bounds by judicial order?

By the book

To get a handle on whether Rep. Foxx's right-hand man got the kid-glove treatment, it is first necessary to go over the facts as recorded in a court file.

On Aug. 9, Poole was stopped by the N.C. Highway Patrol at 10:25 p.m. for failure to yield to oncoming traffic on N.C. 105. He was described as having red, glassy eyes and slurred speech. Troopers also noted the strong odor of alcohol and reported Poole as being combative and unsteady on his feet.

Sgt. Brent Morgan said Poole had to be forcibly removed from his car and had to be restrained twice in the Watauga County Jail. Hence, the resisting a public-officer charge.

Nothing unusual about that. Lots of drunks can be mean, and every cop you've ever seen knows how to subdue one. It happens every Friday and Saturday night in every county in this state.

Poole hired a lawyer, a good one, named Tom Speed. Nothing odd about that, either. Money — Poole makes more than $131,000 a year — can buy a lot of legal acumen.

He refused a breath test, but troopers got a sample of his blood and sent it off to the State Bureau of Investigation. That's normal, too. Get stopped for DWI, and the cops can take your blood.

In the court system, Poole's case was continued twice. Again, nothing weird about that. Dockets are crammed. Despite the hype, justice isn't particularly swift.

It was only after the case actually made it into court that it turned into something other than an ordinary drunken-driving case.

Speed, Poole's attorney, asked the prosecutor to quietly slip the case on the schedule for Nov. 18. That's commonly known as "off docket," and the practical effect is that a defendant's name doesn't appear on pesky public documents.

By itself, that's not too unusual. But it does raise the specter of playing favorites for a congressional staffer.

"It's not unusual in a high-profile case for a lawyer to ask to set it a different time," said Jerry Wilson, a Republican and the elected district attorney for Watauga County whose office had to OK such a request. "Normally we will do that."

'Not proud of it'

The case took another odd twist when it got before District Judge Greg Horne. Poole pleaded not guilty but was found guilty even though the SBI never processed his blood sample to determine blood-alcohol content.

That maneuver was part of an arrangement Wilson has with defense lawyers in his district. It's not a secret that the court system is stretched thin, so in regular DWI cases, corners get cut.

"The blood-alcohol content can have consequences," Wilson said. In North Carolina, a driver can be arrested for DWI if his or her blood-alcohol concentration is .08 percent.

"If they get a limited driving privilege (following a conviction), at .16 or so, they have to get that blower on their car."

The "blower" is something called an interlock system — a device that attaches to a car's ignition. Someone convicted of being highly intoxicated while driving can be ordered by a judge (or the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles later) to have one installed as part of a limited driving privilege. The interlock system will not allow the car to start until the driver has blown into the gadget, showing that he or she has not been drinking.

That's important to note. Wilson said his office uses the threat of the interlock device to prod people into dealing with their cases even when the blood results aren't back.

"We use it as a carrot if (the blood-alcohol content) could be over .16 or a .20 … (we) say, 'You'd better get in here and take care of that and avoid the blood test,' " Wilson said. "I'm not proud of that, but it is a fact living in the real world when there are cases backed up in the calendar."

In Poole's case, his blood was never tested because of the SBI backlog. Horne found him guilty and sentenced him to one year of probation and 24 hours of community service. He also was ordered to pay court costs and fines, and to complete a substance-abuse assessment.

And 12 days after the trial, Horne took the highly unusual step of signing an order saying that Poole's blood-alcohol level "must be suppressed and excluded from consideration by this court and all agencies and departments of the state of North Carolina."

Horne said Friday that although he couldn't discuss the specifics of the case, the practical effect of the order is that it prevents the testing process from continuing inadvertently and precludes the DMV from imposing further conditions on a limited driving privilege.

In a voicemail, Poole called the notion that he received preferential treatment "baseless" and referred further questions to Speed, who did not return calls.

Still, it's hard not to wonder. A case involving a high-profile defendant — especially one seated so close to power — ought to be handled as openly as possible. Prosecutors should have insisted on waiting for the blood-alcohol results to see if more severe restrictions were warranted, no matter how embarrassing to a powerful person.

"We treated him like we treat everybody else," Wilson said. "No better. No worse. I'm not proud of it, but it's the real world."