It seems that Sonia Sotomayor's example ("Tell 'em absolutely nothing.") is catching.
Here's a quick story about Marsha Ternus, Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice, going mum about the party at her house where 7 teenagers and an adult were arrested. The teens were charged with underage possession of alcohol and public intoxication. The adult was charged with interference with official acts.
So why isn't Ternus talking? I mean, just because her son was among those illegally imbibing teens...and the adult arrested was her husband, Dennis Drake, the general counsel for Iowa Health System, the state's largest chain of hospitals and clinics.
C'mon, Judge; if you weren't there, just say so. But, if you were, please explain how you didn't know what was happening. What about that bonfire?
Ternus' silence on the matter was, at least in the beginning, matched by the press. Indeed, if a local TV station hadn't covered the story, we might not have even heard about it.
The Des Moines Register took over a week to finally file this story which tells us, among other salty details, that several of the drunken kids refused to take a breath test, the public intoxication charges were never filed in court because prosecutors decided not to pursue those allegations, and the lawyer representing the chief justice's husband just happens to be Timothy F. McCarthy, the father of one of the teens arrested at the site.
