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To Prosecute, or not to Prosecute

Dr. Flora Hessling, professor of Legal Studies, presented Haley Workman with the Award for Excellence in Legal Studies at the Spring Academic Convocation in March.


By Abigail Hill

The subtle glow could be seen for miles. The Sussex Tech High School football stadium had always lit the sky the way a candle lights a jack-o-lantern. And as the local residents well knew when that light took the sky, the big Friday night game was on.

In 2005, Haley Workman, a senior at Seaford Senior High School, was on her way to such an occasion. Driving her Mitsubishi Eclipse, she had three friends along for the ride. Workman, varsity cheerleading captain, was transporting three junior varsity cheerleaders to the game to watch the neighboring cheerleading squads from Laurel and Sussex Tech.

Workman was sitting still in her car at 6:10 p.m., waiting to turn left at a green light when there was a sudden crash. A Ford Truck plowed into Workman’s vehicle at approximately 60-65 mph. She was rear-ended by a drunk driver and in that instant, two of her friends were seriously injured. Workman did not suffer any serious injuries, but one of the passengers suffered a fractured skull and the other, severe lacerations to her face and serious back and knee injuries. The two were transported to hospitals by helicopter. Fortunately, everyone survived but the driver at fault received only one year of probation. The driver was a 16-year-old boy.

In Delaware, there is a Zero Tolerance Law, which states that "... Anyone under the age of 21 years, who drives, while consuming or after having consumed alcoholic liquor, shall have his or her driver's license and/or privileges revoked for a period of 2 months for the first offense and not less than 6 months nor more than 12 months for each subsequent offense.”

However, the legal system failed to enforce this law in the case of Workman’s accident, because the boy had not reached the “of age” legal limit for drunken driving. The boy was let off lightly, despite Zero Tolerance Laws and how close he was to this limit. “It was a miscommunication of the laws, which let him get off with a slap on the wrist," Workman, now a senior at Wesley College, said. “He didn’t really get punished as much as he deserved.”

After this incident, Workman became interested in criminal justice and decided she wanted to become a lawyer specializing in prosecution. Law had always been an interest of hers since her father, Rodney Workman, was a sergeant in the Delaware State Police. But now she had found her calling.

Today, deep in the Wesley College library in a room about the size of walk-in closet, hidden by mounds of archives, between the Legal Webster and Britannica and through the United States Code, you would find a soft-spoken but opinionated 21-year-old aspiring lawyer named Workman. Since her first year at Wesley, she has held a work-study position in the legal archives on campus, sorting, organizing, and filing away new pocket parts -- pages stating the new cases and how they have changed the law -- into the back of law books. Archiving has allowed Workman to stick her nose into various books, embracing her love to read and her desire to learn law.

“I love to read and my mom said that I was good at arguing, and those are two of the things that lawyers do most,” Workman said.

After high school, Workman attended Delaware Technical Community College for two years and majored in English education. After earning her associate's degree, she came to Wesley to further her eductaion but chose to switch her major to legal studies, which she felt would better prepare her for law school. She will graduate from Wesley with her bachelor's degree in May 2010.

Workman applied to law schools last winter. A flyer posted on a bulletin board at school which promoted an open house at Baltimore University (BU) School of Law had caught her eye. Workman convinced her mother to go, so they took the trip to campus and took a tour. At that point, she had already applied to the University of Maryland as well as William and Mary School of Law, her first two choices. But, she was told by one of the deans of admission at BU that she might be eligible for a scholarship if she put in her application soon. Workman started typing up her application on her laptop on the car ride home and submitted it that same weekend. And three days before Christmas, she got a letter stating that she had been accepted to BU's School of Law and would receive a full ride.

“It was shocking and not something I ever expected, and a relief because who has an extra $200,000 to go to law school?” Workman said. “It was great.”

Excited about her next step in higher education, Workman has attempted to define her concentration through an internship this semester with the Prosecutor's Office in Georgetown, Delaware. She has been to court on an attempted murder case and is currently working on a high profile rape case where the defendant may get life in prison.

The internship has allowed Workman to experience different aspects of the profession and she is now more open to other areas of law, aside from prosecution. “Working with the Prosecutor’s Office has made me realize that prosecution is not as interesting where I live in Georgetown as it is in big cities and federal courts,” Workman said. “I may explore different areas such as personal injury, malpractice or contract law.” Still unsure of the specifics of her future career, Workman is happy that she has three years of expense-free law school to figure it out.