Retired Judge James Weaver Arrested Again for Drunk Driving

DES MOINES, Iowa

A retired Muscatine County judge was arrested for a third time over the weekend on a drunken driving charge.

According to Iowa State Patrol officials, 56-year-old James Weaver of Blue Grass was arrested Saturday afternoon in Scott County on charges of operating while intoxicated, speeding, seat belt violation and disobeying a traffic-control device.

Weaver, who served as an associate judge from 1982 to 2004, posted $5,900 bond and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning.

If convicted of a third drunken driving offense, he faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $7,500.

An attempt to reach Weaver on Monday morning at a number listed for the Weaver Law Office in Muscatine wasn't immediately returned.

According to the state patrol, Weaver was southbound on Highway 61 on Saturday afternoon when a trooper clocked him for speeding, saw that he failed to stop at a traffic-control device and wasn't wearing a seat belt.

The trooper caught up with Weaver at the Blue Grass exit and detected a strong odor of alcohol on the former judge's breath as well as bloodshot eyes.

Weaver failed a field sobriety test, and when he arrived at the Scott County Jail a breath test showed his blood alcohol content was 0.166, more than twice the legal limit for driving of 0.08, the patrol said.

Weaver pleaded guilty to his first drunken driving offense in November 2002 after a Scott County deputy saw his car hit a utility pole. In December 2004, he was charged with second offense drunken driving after his arrest a month earlier. In that incident, police said a caller complained that a "reckless driver" had almost caused an accident.

Around the same time, Weaver was allowed to retire from the court system with a permanent disability because he was found to suffer from major depression and alcohol abuse.

In April 2005, Weaver was sentenced on the second offense drunken driving charge. He was committed to the Iowa Department of Corrections for two years to be served at a work release center and ordered to participate in alcohol treatment.

Weaver appealed his judgment and sentence to the Iowa Court of Appeals, saying the judge in his case abused his discretion. The appeals court rejected the argument.

Corrections officials have said that Weaver was released from the work release center in the spring of 2007 after serving only 25 days. He was resentenced to one year of unsupervised probation after a district court judge heard arguments on a motion to reconsider his sentence.

Last March, the Iowa Supreme Court suspended Weaver's license to practice law based on the second drunken driving arrest and critical comments he made to the media about the judge overseeing his case. The license has been reinstated, court records showed.

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