text: Legal issue In October 1982, Carson pled no contest to a misdemeanor count of driving with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit, while the charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without a license were withdrawn by the prosecution. This case stemmed from an arrest in February 1982. After having been pulled over by police shortly after leaving an Italian restaurant with his wife, Carson was fined $603 and placed on three years of probation. Municipal Court Judge David Kidney ordered Carson to attend a driver's education alcohol program and restricted his license for 90 days to trips to and from work and those classes. Though his lawyer Robert Shapiro advised Carson to take his case to trial believing they had a winning case, Carson was looking to move on from the scandal and wanted to avoid the media attention that a trial would bring. Carson commented on the matter in a monologue of the Tonight Show saying, "I regret the incident, And I'll tell you one thing, You will never see me do that again."
  Religion
  As an adult, Carson was not a regular churchgoer, although during his childhood he was raised as a Methodist and during high school attended Christian Endeavor meetings at the local church.
  Marriages
  In October 1949, Carson married Jody Wolcott in North Platte, Nebraska. The marriage was volatile, with infidelities committed by both parties, and ended in divorce in 1963.
  Carson married Joanne Copeland the same year, on August 17. After a second protracted divorce in 1972, Copeland received a settlement of $6,000 per month in alimony until she remarried or until Carson's death (she received it until his death in 2005). She also received "a pretty nice little art collection." She later had a second marriage that also ended in divorce, and died in California, aged 83, in 2015. She had no children.