Judge Pleads Guilty To Reckless Driving, Refusing DUI Test

BY DANIEL GILBERT
Bristol Herald Courier

MARION, Va. – On its face, the agreement Michael Keith Blankenship reached on Tuesday with a prosecutor looked like a good deal.
Blankenship pleaded guilty to reckless driving and refusing a breathalyzer test, after prosecutor Chris Russell dropped a driving under the influence charge stemming from a March 1 traffic stop. The defendant was sentenced to his driver’s license being suspended for one year, and a $100 fine.
But there’s more.
Blankenship is a judge, and his convictions may jeopardize his seat on the juvenile and domestic relations bench, which he assumed in 2005.
According to his attorney, Blankenship has been suspended with pay by the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, an arm of the Supreme Court of Virginia charged with investigating judicial misconduct.
The JIRC’s procedures are confidential, and do not become public record unless it files a formal complaint with the supreme court.
For a judge to commit any legal infraction violates the Canons of Judicial Conduct, the ethical standards to which judges are held accountable. Such a violation can be grounds for disciplinary action against a judge.
Blankenship has a separate charge of hit-and-run pending from an incident earlier this month in Powhatan County, Va. – the second scratch in two months on his previously blemish-free driving record.
Michael Barbour, Blankenship’s defense attorney who is also representing him on the pending charge and before the JIRC, said his client will appear before the commission for a hearing in June, and has no plans to resign from the bench.
Barbour released a written statement following Tuesday’s hearing, which described Blankenship as managing an “extremely difficult medical situation involving his mother.”
“While Judge Blankenship believes that the stress and fatigue that he was experiencing as a result of his mother’s situation may well have adversely affected his judgment and actions on March 1st, he also recognizes that he and no one else is responsible for his actions.”
Blankenship’s mother remains hospitalized, Barbour said, with “very significant medical problems that aren’t subject to any improvement.”
Blankenship was under evident emotional strain on Tuesday when asked him for comment.
Standing with his wife and his pastor while waiting for the elevator, Blankenship froze and stared without speaking. He trembled noticeably before breaking eye contact and turning away.
“I think he would prefer not to comment,” said his pastor, who declined to speak further.
The trio then took the stairs.
Russell, who is commonwealth’s attorney in Buena Vista, Va., said a state trooper had noticed Blankenship driving erratically on March 1 while heading north on Interstate 81. After pulling over the vehicle, the trooper noticed “an odor of alcohol,” and that Blankenship’s eyes were “bloodshot and glassy.”
Blankenship refused to submit to a breath exam or field sobriety test, and would not leave his vehicle until he was arrested, Russell said in court Tuesday.
Lacking harder proof of intoxication, Russell said he was not confident enough to bring a DUI charge. Barbour said he thought the plea agreement “reflected the facts.”
There is some precedent in Southwest Virginia for a judge convicted of a misdemeanor. Donald R. Mullins, a circuit court judge in Tazewell, was charged with DUI in 1999 while driving in Mercer County, W.Va. He was convicted a year later on Nov. 2, 2000, court records show, but he did not step down until September 2001 – a few months before his term was set to expire.
During the time Mullins’ charges were pending, the JIRC was prevented by law from investigating him for judicial misconduct. The law, at that time, barred the JIRC from investigating and suspending a judge when the alleged misconduct related to “matters which are the subject of a pending criminal case” until the final disposition of that case. The JIRC never filed a formal complaint against Mullins.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Mullins said neither the JIRC nor his DUI conviction was a factor in his decision to retire.
“I had been there for a long time,” Mullins said, “and a friend of mine was interested in the position.”
On March 19, 2001, the General Assembly amended the Code of Virginia to broaden the JIRC’s authority. It struck that language precluding an investigation while criminal charges were pending.

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