News-Record.com

For those of you who have been following Rep. Cary Allred's problems last week, I have a few updates. (Background here, here and here.)

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You can click here for a PDF of the actual speeding citation. You can see he was charged not only speeding 102 in a 65, but with driving "Without due caution and circumspection and at a speed or in a manner so as to endanger persons and property," which is a separate charge.

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I interviewed Rep. Allred a couple times last week, including late on Friday afternoon. In addition to asking about the ticket, the Speaker's investigation and what not, I also asked if any of this would make him resign his seat. He had a two word answer:
"Hell no."

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I interviewed Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall this morning.

Woodall said that he got a call from a Highway Patrol Trooper on Friday morning.

"He asked me if there was any provision in the law that allowed someone, a lawmaker, to speed to get to a legislative session," Woodall recalled. "I said I wasn't aware of one."

So what did he tell the officer about charging members of the General Assembly or other public officials?

"In my opinion," Woodall said, "any time there's an allegation of a 102 in a 65, a ticket should be written, whether it's the governor or my wife or anyone else."

Woodall said he didn't know who the lawmaker in question was at the time and had to have a staff member go pull up news accounts of Allred's problems.

I asked Woodall how unusual it was for traffic citations to be issued days after the fact.

"More than once I've had citations issued after the fact," Woodall said, adding that it wasn't the most common thing to have happen but that sometimes officers had questions about the proper charges or something else. "It usually involves questions about the law, as it did in this case."