A Texas prosecutor won’t file a driving while intoxicated charge against Wal-Mart billionaire Alice Walton because the trooper who arrested her Oct. 7, 2011, has been suspended and is unavailable to testify in court.
John Forrest, the prosecutor for Parker County, Texas, said it didn’t appear that Texas Highway Patrol Trooper Jeffrey Davis would be available to testify by Oct. 7.
“We had two years to file the case in,” Forrest said. “We didn’t have a witness available to us that was necessary for the trial, so that’s the reason we went that route.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety didn’t tell him why Davis was unavailable but noted the trooper is on paid leave, Forrest said.
Tom Vinger, spokesman for the Public Safety Department, said Davis was suspended in February.
“Jeffrey Davis remains suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation involving allegations of misconduct,” Vinger said.
Walton’s attorney, Dee Kelly of Fort Worth, said, “Ms. Walton is pleased that the matter has been completely and correctly resolved without charges being filed.”
Forrest said it’s an unusual situation.
“It makes it difficult when you don’t have somebody to take the stand and testify,” he said. “Does that happen very often? No, it does not.”
Otherwise, Forrest said, the case was like any other DWI arrest in Parker County, even if it did receive more media attention.
“It’s a citizen with a DWI,” said Forrest. “It’s not a high-profile case to us. A high-profile case to us would be a murder.”
The arrest occurred a month before the opening of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, which Walton founded.
The daughter of the late Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton, Alice Walton, now 63, was stopped by Davis on Interstate 20 near Weatherford, Texas. She was driving her silver Lexus RX 450 at 71 mph in an unattended 55 mph construction zone, Senior Trooper Gary M.Rozzell, the Texas highway patrol’s chief spokesman, said after the 2011 incident.
Walton refused a breath-alcohol test, Rozzell said. Davis made his determination based on a field sobriety test, which in Texas typically involves the “walk and turn,” “one-leg stand” and a horizontal gaze test in which the eye follows a stylus while the officer observes the fluidity of eye movement.
Walton was jailed overnight, from 11:12 p.m. to 8:39a.m. She was released on $1,000 bail, according to the jail log.
Walton was returning home to Milsap, Texas, after a dinner with friends on her birthday when the trooper stopped her vehicle, according to Walton family spokesman Lance Morgan.
“She accepts full responsibility for this unfortunate incident and deeply regrets it,” Morgan said after the 2011 arrest.
A conviction for driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor in Texas, carries a minimum of 90 days in jail and/or a fine determined by the county attorney, which Rozzell said typically can range from about $500 to $1,500.
In May 1998, Walton was found guilty of drunken driving by a Springdale Municipal Court judge after a Jan. 27 accident in which she crashed her 1998 Toyota 4Runner into a steel utility cage on a rural road near her home in Lowell, according to previous Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
The crash was Walton’s second major accident in Springdale. In 1989, Walton’s vehicle struck and killed a 50-year-old woman who stepped out into traffic on Arkansas 265. Police said Walton was not at fault, and they issued no citations, according to the reports.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/10/2013