Don’t judge.
A Michigan judge was busted for crashing his car into a bus while driving drunk — with bodycam footage showing him unable to count backwards or even recite the alphabet.
John Chmura, 63, who has been on the bench three decades, had allegedly drunk more than twice the legal limit when he rear-ended a public SMART bus in March in Sterling Heights, a suburb north of Detroit.
Chmura stumbled out of his car and immediately identified himself as a judge to the responding officers, according to bodycam footage newly obtained by the Detroit News.
Chmura said he had just come from an event and when asked how much he had drunk, replied, “I don’t know. Evidently too much.”
Chmura failed two field sobriety tests.
In one, he slurred his words when asked to count backwards from 87 to 78 — blowing past 78 and then suddenly counting back upward instead, the footage shows.
The judge was also asked to recite the alphabet from C to N, which he started to attempt before stopping and asking the officer to repeat the instructions.
Chmura admitted that his performance was “not OK.”
He initially refused a breathalyzer test, but later consented, police said.
The test revealed that Chmura had a blood alcohol content of 0.162%, just over double the legal driving limit of .08% in Michigan. A blood test later showed his BAC was more than 0.19%, according to C and G News.
Chmura was arrested and charged with driving under the influence with a BAC of 0.17% or higher.
Two bus passengers were treated for minor injuries at the scene after the March 25 crash, officials said.
Because Chmura oversees cases brought by the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office, a St. Clair County prosecutor has been assigned to the case, ClickonDetroit reported.
Chmura, who was elected unopposed to a six-year-term in 2024, is scheduled to appear in court again in August. He has been a judge in Michigan’s 37th District Court in Warren since 1996.
Defense attorney David Kramer, who is representing Chmura, declined to comment on specifics of the case but said that Chmura “is a very respected jurist with a fine reputation, and we’ll deal with this case as it comes.”
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