Mothers Against Drunk Driving has honored two Marana employees for their work at keeping drunk drivers off the streets.
Marana Police Department Officer Lucas Wilkinson, 37, and Assistant Town Attorney Laine Sklar, 27, were presented with two of MADD's annual DUI Enforcement Awards at a special ceremony earlier this fall.
Under this year's theme of Passport to Safety, MADD presented similar awards to 22 police officers — one from each of 22 different agencies — and four prosecuting attorneys, said Beverly Mason-Biggers, senior office administrator for the Southern Arizona MADD chapter.
All honorees were nominated by their departments, she said.
The award came as a surprise to Sklar, who said she didn't know she had been nominated until she received a letter from MADD inviting her to the awards presentation.
People are also reading…
"I was excited that my work on DUIs was being acknowledged," she said.
Sklar has worked for Marana since being admitted to practice law in Arizona in October 2006. During that time she has tried a dozen DUI cases and has lost only two, she said.
When she found out about her award, her first thought was to call the Marana Police Department to see whether Wilkinson had been nominated, she said.
She has worked with him on many DUI cases and always felt he deserved recognition for what he does.
"It's great because we have prosecutors and police officers who are very passionate about their work," she said.
MADD was impressed partly by Sklar's trial success but also by the amount of training she's taken in order to present DUI information in court, Mason-Biggers said.
Wilkinson stood out because of the 45 DUI and drug arrests he's made in the past year — while working hours most people don't know exist.
"He gives up his time with his family at nights and weekends and holidays to go out and make sure we're safe," Mason-Biggers said.
Wilkinson is known to give advice to colleagues on how to detect an impaired driver and administer eye-gaze tests once such a driver has been stopped.
People most commonly ask him how he finds so many impaired drivers, and he said the main thing is staying out in public and running traffic stops.
Actions such as wide right turns, unsafe lane changes, driving without headlights and making abrupt stops are all cues a driver might be impaired, but Wilkinson said he doesn't try to assess impairment until after he's pulled over a driver.
"If you see a violation, either a moving violation or a non-moving violation, you make the stop," he said.
Wilkinson's DUI arrest numbers are impressive, said Mason-Biggers, but more important is the high quality of his arrest reports and his knowledge when it's time to testify in court.
"It starts with stopping them on the road and getting them all the way through the court system and finding them guilty and holding them accountable," she said. "Between the two of them (Wilkinson and Sklar), Marana is really the better for it."
