Convicted of Drunken Driving, Md. Judge Must Take Daily Breath Test Before Hearing Cases
Convicted of drunken driving last year following an accident that caused minor injuries to another driver, a 68-year-old Maryland judge who acknowledges a long history of alcoholism has now agreed to take breath tests before hearing cases.
Washington County Circuit Judge W. Kennedy Boone III bought the machine himself, and a court bailiff or other law enforcement officer tests him in the morning when he comes to work and after he returns from lunch, the Associated Press reported.
Boone, who blew an 0.18 after the accident and was put on probation after pleading guilty, according to the private reprimand (PDF) imposed by the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities in a separate legal ethics case was fair.
“The sanctions are certainly totally appropriate and I’m prepared to live by them,” he states.
Boone was also reprimanded in 2008 for referring to three black female public defenders as “The Supremes” and telling a defendant to get “an experienced male attorney.”
