Idol Me Blog

Well, well, well… it seems that America’s Sweetheart has a less than perfect past. No, I’m not saying that we all don’t have some things in our own pasts that we wish we hadn’t done, only that we should be glad that (for the most part) our private lives stay that way - private.

The folks who try out for American Idol know that their pasts will be under a lot of scrutiny, and this year’s winner, Taylor Hicks, is no different.

It has been reported that Hicks had prior drug charges against him. Long story short: Hicks was a 21-year-old college student when he was pulled over on I-85 near Tuskegee, Alabama in July of 1998 and arrested for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia (a “pot pipe” in Hicks’ own words). But two years later a judge dismissed the charges after the arresting officer failed to show up in court.

Said the arresting officer, Trooper Jason Black, “I showed up several times for the case, but the one time I didn’t show up it was dismissed.” So does this mean that the times that the Trooper did show up for the court date, Taylor Hicks did not? Surely not, as this lady has researched Alabama law and has learned that, if a defendant does not attend a court-appointed appearance, a bench warrant is promptly issued for the defendant’s arrest.

So how did this occur? Macon County assistant D.A. Kalia Lane said of the matter that sometimes, “things slip through the cracks.”

So, Soul Patrol, be glad that Taylor Hicks “slipped through the cracks” and that the charges were dismissed in 2000. Otherwise, America’s new Idol may have gone the way of past Idol-hopefuls Corey Clark (awaiting trial for abusing his sister) and the Brittenum twins (arrested for prior forgery charges).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 11:25 am and is filed under Contestants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.