Illustration by Jeremiah TeutschThe rumor fit the "tough on crime" persona DA Susan Reed has cultivated over the dozen years she's been in office: in March, galled by the second death in six months of a police officer at the hands of a suspected drunk driver, the County's blowsy and blunt chief prosecutor stormed into a staff meeting and announced that the most generous plea her attorneys were allowed to offer a first-time DWI defendant is two years probation.

That, incidentally, is the maximum sentence short of jail that a jury can give a defendant who takes his or her chances and goes to trial, and it's more time than judges have typically handed out from the bench. In short, it's not much of a deal, but however she delivered the news, it's the current state of affairs in Bexar County.

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