DUI charges dropped against judge

(MCT) — Charges were dropped Wednesday against a veteran Cook County judge accused of drunken driving last fall in Willowbrook, his attorney said.

Judge James Gavin was charged with misdemeanor DUI after police pulled him over Oct. 28 for using the shoulder to pass another motorist on southbound Illinois Route 83 after he had exited a tobacco store.

Police alleged that Gavin, 55, smelled of alcohol and failed an eye-gaze test before refusing to submit to other field sobriety and blood-alcohol testing. His license initially was suspended for his refusal to submit to the tests. But, on Dec. 7, DuPage County Judge Liam Brennan ordered that Gavin’s license be returned, ruling police lacked sufficient evidence to stop Gavin.

On Wednesday, at a hearing in which the defense sought to quash the arrest and suppress evidence, Brennan ruled that the act of driving on the shoulder absent other evidence of impairment was insufficient for the case to continue.

“The problem I have is all the other things that we typically look for to support a DUI arrest simply are not here,” said Brennan, according to a transcript provided by the defense. “Mr. Gavin was polite, oriented to time, place and person. I don’t think in the context of all the other things we expect to see and don’t see that there was reasonable grounds for his arrest.”

Paul Darrah, a spokesman for DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors were left with no other option after Brennan’s ruling but to dismiss the case.

Darrah said Gavin plead guilty to improper passing for driving on the shoulder, and was sentenced to 12-months court supervision.

Gavin’s attorneys, David Sotomayor and Ted Gailan, said Gavin did not consume alcohol before the traffic stop. Sotomayor said his client was, however, chewing tobacco and spitting it into a cup, which perhaps the officer mistook for the smell of alcohol.

“He has always maintained his innocence,” Sotomayor said. “At no time did Mr. Gavin try to assert his position as a judge to make the arrest not happen or influence the officer in any way.”

Gavin, who was elected to the circuit court in 1996, declined to comment through his attorneys.