Where's the Other Driver in the Bryant Wilkerson Case? Not in Jail...

By any standard, Laura Varker has had quite a year.

In the past nine months alone, the 19-year-old has been booked for shoplifting, receiving stolen property and failing to yield at an intersection (an action linked to her third car accident in as many years). The authorities found Varker's ID in the backpack of a confessed coke dealer and issued a warrant for her failure to appear in court.

Most shockingly, last month, police got a search warrant to seize Varker's clothing and DNA after a fellow partygoer ended up in critical condition, a knife stuck in his carotid artery. A neighbor told police that he saw Varker and a friend loading the victim's body into a car bound for the emergency room — the knife still firmly attached — while other partygoers frantically scrubbed away the blood stains.

Not too many college students keep so busy. And what makes it even more impressive is that Varker's done it all while on probation for drunk driving.

Yep, nine short months ago, Varker pleaded guilty to DUI and was almost entirely let off the hook. Never mind that the accident killed her 15-year-old passenger. Her lawyer argued that her drunk driving and the passenger's death were unrelated, and the justice of the peace bought it.

Varker got just one day in jail.

To be fair, there were some stipulations. She had to put an Interlock device on her car. She had to agree not to consume alcohol. And, she agreed to "at all times be a law-abiding citizen."

You can see how well that turned out.

If the name Laura Varker sounds familiar, well, that's because I've spilled plenty of ink writing about the other driver involved in the car accident that killed Varker's passenger. Bryant Wilkerson was making a legal U-turn when Varker, impatient, attempted to pass him. When Wilkerson's bumper clipped her SUV, it began rolling over and over, killing 15-year-old Felicia Edwards.

As anyone who's followed this case could tell you, Wilkerson stupidly fled the scene. When sheriff's deputies caught up with Wilkerson a few miles later, they were already convinced that he was drunk and to blame for the accident.

But accident reconstruction — and a few blood alcohol tests — would prove them wrong. It was Varker who was speeding, Varker who crossed the double yellow lines, and Varker who was, in fact, drunk.

Bizarrely, the new information changed nothing; the county never wavered in its zeal to prosecute Wilkerson. County Attorney Andrew Thomas didn't just charge the 28-year-old postal worker with manslaughter, he actually charged him with aggravated assault, for imperiling Varker, the drunk driver who hit him!

Only in Maricopa County, kids.

After my column on the situation was published, Thomas ultimately farmed out the case to another agency to see whether Varker should also face charges. (That's where the DUI came from.) But the disparate treatment the two drivers received was shocking.

Indeed, after Wilkerson's jury found him not guilty in April, I talked to three of its members. They were all emphatic in the belief that the wrong driver had been on trial.

They reiterated those thoughts at Wilkerson's May sentencing hearing. A total of six jurors ultimately offered public support for Wilkerson, and argued for leniency. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Teresa Sanders, a veteran of nearly 100 jury trials, acknowledged she had never seen anything like it. At their urging, she sentenced Wilkerson to three years of probation.

Interestingly, the jurors didn't just talk about how Wilkerson deserved a break.

They held Varker responsible.

Listening to them in the courtroom, it struck me that these women should have made dynamite pro-prosecution jurors. The women who spoke were all white, middle class, in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. They were no-nonsense types: mothers, teachers, auditors. In any normal trial, they'd probably side with law and order.

Instead, the jurors were angry that the prosecution went after Wilkerson with such force when Varker was off the hook.

"It's a tragedy, it's horrible, but the person that should be paying for it is not in this room today," the forewoman, an IT compliance analyst named Gail Dempsey, told Judge Sanders. "Today, she's off gallivanting around somewhere."

"This is a rich man, poor man case," added juror Ellen Thomas, a retired teacher. "The rich parent is allowed to get their child free of any charges. The poor man is held responsible for everything that happened."

Varker was lucky that they didn't come after her with tar and feathers. But rather than feel grateful, she's seemed determined to prove the jurors right.

After Varker pleaded guilty to DUI last summer, prosecutors dropped all other charges against her. But at her sentencing in October, the 18-year-old could have still faced up to 180 days in prison.

The victim's mother pleaded with the justice of the peace handling the case, John Tolby, to go for the max. But her friends promised that Varker had matured since her passenger's death one year earlier. Varker's lawyer wrote of her "remarkable character." Family friends noted that she was spending more time with her family, at home. And Varker's "best friend," Nina Jimenez, vowed that she had "grown superbly."