Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Legal Blog Watch

Legal News

: Legal Blog Watch

Judge Required to Submit to Daily Sobriety Test

By Brendan McKenna

Maryland Judge W. Kennedy Boone III has a new ritual before taking the bench each day: He must submit to a blood-alcohol level. The requirement stems from the 68-year-old judge's DUI guilty plea last year, following a collision in which another driver was injured. The judge, whose blood-alcohol level tested at more than twice the legal limit afterwards, was sentenced to three years' unsupervised probation and fined $1,000. Boone is quoted in this Associated Press report as calling the sanctions against him "totally appropriate" and saying that he is "prepared to live by them." Still, one can't help but wonder what litigants' reaction would be if they learned that the judge hearing their case has this requirement hanging over his head. As one of my fellow law students said, "It's kinda weird." Guest blogger Ruth Carter is a law student in her final semester at Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on January 27, 2011 (boomark / email).