A California teacher who was arrested for showing up to her second-grade class with over twice the legal blood-alcohol limit is no longer facing charges because prosecutors said “it is not illegal to teach drunk.”
Wendy Munson, 57, was arrested last October after she started her day at Nuestro Elementary School while clearly intoxicated. When she was arrested, the story made national headlines.
However, this week, the Sutter County District Attorney’s Office said it would not be able to make any charges against Munson stick, so it was no longer pursuing the case.
“It is not illegal to teach drunk,” Jennifer Dupre, the district attorney, told NBC15.
The office did clarify the comments from Dupre in a post on Facebook.
“While the District Attorney’s Office agrees that it is highly inappropriate to teach while intoxicated, it is, unfortunately, not illegal,” her office said.
Sutter County Sheriff’s deputies confronted her just before 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 2. Munson was discovered by a coworker, who notified school officials that she was concerned the older teacher may have been drunk.
While with deputies, Munson failed a sobriety test, leading to her arrest. While at the station, officers discovered she had a blood-alcohol level that was still twice the legal limit two hours after being arrested.
The initial charges Munson faced included drunk driving, drunk driving with a BAC of 0.08% or higher, and child abuse with the possibility of great bodily injury.
However, the DA said that even with security footage, it would be difficult to prove and find her guilty.
“There was the possibility that she drank after she arrived at the school,” Dupre said.
Dupre also said that it would be difficult to enforce child endangerment laws because her office would need to prove Munson “would” harm the kids, not that she “may.”
“We couldn’t prove that her intoxication would endanger them,” Dupre said.
While Dupre said that Munson’s behavior was “not acceptable,” it was “unfortunately not criminal.”
It has not been made immediately clear if she was fired over the incident, though she no longer appears on the school district’s staff website.