A former Superior Court judge with a contentious history on the bench was arrested Sunday after allegedly driving drunk to a Salmon Creek supermarket and striking two vehicles.
John P. Wulle, 65, was listed on the Clark County Jail roster Sunday evening but has since been released. He is scheduled to be arraigned on a charge of DUI, a gross misdemeanor, at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday in Clark County District Court.
Wulle was a Superior Court judge from 2001 until he was unseated in the 2012 primary election by David Gregerson. Before that, he served four years as a District Court judge and was an assistant state attorney general for 14 years.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed in District Court, Clark County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched at about 1 p.m. Sunday for a reportedly drunk driver in the parking lot of Safeway at 13023 N.E. Highway 99.
A witness, Lareana Larson, told officers that she was stopped at a traffic light at Northeast 20th Avenue and Highway 99, to turn left into the Safeway parking lot, when a silver Toyota Solara tapped her vehicle from behind twice. The two vehicles then drove into the parking lot, and she saw the Solara pull into a parking spot and crash into a vehicle parked in front of it, the affidavit states.
Larson said she saw the driver, later identified by deputies as Wulle, climb out of the Toyota. He was carrying a bottle of vodka. She told deputies the man walked into the Safeway, leaving his vehicle running and still in gear, pushing against the parked vehicle that had been struck, court records said.
“She described that he appeared to be very intoxicated and could not walk straight,” Deputy Scott Gilberti wrote in the affidavit.
A passerby shut off the car and gave Larson the keys, which she then handed over to Gilberti, according to court documents.
Another witness, Sharon Betzing, told officers that she had parked in the Safeway parking lot and went inside to shop. When she came out of the store, she observed the Toyota was parked over the line in the parking spot and its front end was pressed up against the front of her vehicle, court records said.
Gilberti wrote in the affidavit that he, too, saw the Solara parked against Betzing’s vehicle. Dispatchers had previously advised the officers that the vehicle was registered to Wulle. The photo on his driver’s license also matched descriptions provided by witnesses.
Two deputies entered the Safeway to look for Wulle and found him at the checkout area attempting to buy alcohol. Wulle appeared to be “significantly intoxicated. He could barely stand upright without assistance,” Gilberti said in court documents.
Wulle was reportedly arguing with store employees, who would not allow him to purchase alcohol. As he was escorted out of the store, Gilberti said, “he stumbled so much that we had to physically assist him to walk,” the affidavit states.
Wulle allegedly told the deputies that he owned the Toyota, and he wanted to drive it home. Gilberti said Wulle’s speech was slurred and his words were jumbled. He had watery eyes and smelled of alcohol, court records said. Wulle told Gilberti he had consumed one beer. He continued to try to walk toward his car and kept saying he wanted to drive home. Gilberti wrote in the affidavit that “it appeared the he was intoxicated to the point that he did not completely understand why we were there.”
Deputies arrested Wulle. He subsequently took two breath tests that indicated he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.094 and then 0.088, shortly before 3 p.m., court documents show. In Washington, 0.08 is considered presumptive evidence of drunken driving.
Efforts to reach Wulle for comment Monday were unsuccessful.
According to Columbian archives, Wulle, while on the bench, was reprimanded in December 2012 by the Washington Commission on Judicial Conduct for impatient, undignified and discourteous conduct toward defendants on four separate occasions during a three-year period.
The commission charged Wulle with multiple violations for comments he made in his courtroom. He was accused of telling a juvenile that he was “stupid” for wanting to plead guilty without an attorney, raising his voice at a man using a Russian interpreter when the man argued that a paternity test didn’t use the proper DNA testing, and holding a juvenile in contempt of court and having him jailed after the teen swore in court.
At the time, Wulle said he regretted his actions, which he attributed to the stress of the job, but said he believed the commission had blown them out of proportion.
Wulle was also censured in 2007 for making inappropriate comments related to race and sexual orientation at a training conference in July 2006. In the censure order, several witnesses said Wulle smelled of alcohol. Wulle denied consuming alcohol and said he was suffering from a cold and taking cough syrup, which may have been misconstrued as the odor of alcohol.
Wulle also had many friends and supporters, particularly in the law enforcement community. On Wulle’s last day in judicial office, an honor guard of 60 officers formed at the entrance to the courthouse to bid him farewell.
