A prosecutor has formally dismissed a driving under the influence charge against a Vermont lawmaker after receiving proof he completed safe driving and restorative justice programs.
The paperwork from the prosecution dismissing the charge against Rep. Jim Carroll, D-Bennington, was filed Monday afternoon in Washington County Superior criminal court in Barre.
Washington County State’s Attorney Michelle Donnelly said later Monday afternoon that the dismissal of the charge follows Carroll’s completion of programming sought by the prosecution.
“We treated Mr. Carroll like we would any other defendant,” Donnelly said.
“We evaluated the case on the individual merits and also took into consideration some proactive work that Mr. Carroll had done to address any issues that he had with alcohol and he also completed a safe driving course and a restorative justice component,” Donnelly added.
A hearing in the case had been set for Monday, but didn’t take place as a result of the charge’s dismissal.
Carroll, 62, was arrested on the morning of Feb. 21 on suspicion of drunken driving after a traffic stop outside the Vermont Statehouse that stemmed from Carroll’s loud car exhaust, according to charging documents.
The Montpelier police officer who stopped Carroll reported seeing several empty beer cans inside Carroll’s vehicle and also noted that Carroll’s eyes were bloodshot and watery, and he emitted a “moderately strong odor of intoxicants.”
Carroll agreed to a roadside breath test that registered a blood alcohol content of 0.081%, just above the 0.08 threshold for drunken driving.
A secondary test at the police station a half-hour later, performed to collect data admissible in court, showed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.066, the charging document stated.
A state forensic chemist, the filings added, later calculated that Carroll’s BAC at the time he was driving would have been about 0.081, falling between 0.076 and 0.095.
Carroll had told VTDigger in an interview following his arrest that he had one beer the night before his arrest because he had a hard time falling asleep. When he got behind the wheel the next morning, Carroll said, he did not think he was impaired.
Carroll had pleaded not guilty in April to the misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of alcohol, first offense.
“I’m glad it’s over,” Carroll said in an interview Monday afternoon.
“I could have stretched this out for much longer, but I wanted it over,” he said. “It would have cost the people of the state, had I gone to trial, anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000. I didn’t want to do that.”
