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Jailed in Wedding Gown, Texas Bride Complains About Web Photo

Posted Mar 20, 2009 10:37 AM CST
By Martha Neil

A Texas bride arrested on her wedding night after her new husband was pulled over in March 14 drunk driving sweep, dubbed "March Madness," in Harris County had to spend the night in jail.

But that wasn't the worst of it. A photo taken by an unknown man of Jade Puckett sitting in a Clear Lake courtroom the next day, still in her wedding dress, has been plastered all over the Internet. Strangers haven't hesitated to make castigating comments, and some of the degrading names she has been called were racial in nature, she tells the Houston Chronicle.

Puckett, 26, pleaded guilty to public intoxication, in exchange for time served. (Authorities say they charged her when she became belligerent after the car in which she was riding as a passenger with her new husband was pulled over in the sweep. His driving while intoxicated case has not yet been resolved.)

However, she has filed a complaint concerning the photograph with the Harris County Precinct 8 Constable’s office, which is investigating.

“It had turned the best day of my life into my greatest nightmare,” she says in the complaint.

Although Puckett hasn't officially complained to the Harris County Sheriff's Department, it will also investigate her claim that she was intentionally humiliated while spending the night in jail there, the Chronicle reports in another article.

Puckett says she wasn't allowed to change out of her wedding dress, and complains that male officers several times opened the door of the cell into which she was put with more than a dozen other women to point her out.

Updated at 10:25 p.m. to include subsequent Chronicle coverage.

Comments

1.

LawProf
Mar 20, 2009 1:00 PM CST

How are we supposed to evaluate the legality and ethics of the situation without seeing the actual photo?  If it “has been plastered all over the Internet,” why don’t you have a link to the photo?

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2.

J.D.
Mar 20, 2009 2:00 PM CST

Yeah, I can’t find a photo anywhere. Except for the dramatic one in the HoustonChronicle link.

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3.

ECook
Mar 20, 2009 7:15 PM CST

This URL should take you to the photo: http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/M_IMAGE.11fd101b4ff.93.88.fa.d0.39e2af17.jpg

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4.

ECook
Mar 20, 2009 7:17 PM CST

Hint:  She’s not sitting in a church.

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5.

B. McLeod
Mar 21, 2009 8:06 PM CST

“Public intoxication”??  Does Houston still have “vagrancy” laws too?  Maybe next week’s survey question could be how many lawyers on this site live in a jurisdiction with a “public intoxication” law that is thought to be constitutional.

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6.

Bill Dugan
Mar 22, 2009 9:32 AM CST

I’ve seen the picture.  She is not 1/2 bad looking.  Too bad she’s no longer in the market for a guy.  Im sure men would llne up for her.

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