Former Mount Prospect school bus driver Betty Burden, charged with a DUI after uneventfully dropping off 50 students, already has been fired. But she has not been convicted of a crime and actually plans to enter a plea of not guilty to felony aggravated DUI, her Illinois DUI lawyer told the Chicago Tribune.
Betty Burden was formally indicted in Cook County Circuit Court last week after her March 9 arrest on suspicion of drunk driving while dropping off students from Lions Park Elementary School. Her blood-alcohol registered 0.226, nearly three times the legal limit, according to police cited in the article.
The district's transportation supervisor, Vincente Ramirez, also was fired in the wake of the DUI, as reported by the suburban paper Journal & Topics. Police and school officials said Vincente Ramirez allowed Betty Burden to complete her route even though a co-worker raised concerns that she was intoxicated, according to the Tribune story.
Illinois DUI attorney Ernest Blomquist, representing the former bus driver, told reporters his client plans to enter a not guilty plea at her arraignment scheduled for May 26:
"She's pretty wrecked by the experience."
Perhaps that's a poor choice of words, but at least she didn't wreck the bus and reportedly drove just fine the day she was arrested.
FindLaw tells us that most DUI cases do not reach the trial stage, as the results of breathalyzer tests often are considered very solid and incriminating evidence. The Tribune article does not discuss how Betty Burden plans to defend against the charges but Ernest Blomquist told Chicago Daily Herald reporters that he is "prepared to contest this."
He said he has a lot of questions about the events that led up to the stop and arrest, that "there's a lot of fight left in this case." Chicago DUI lawyers may provide some theories about the possible defense strategy; but it might have something to do with probable cause, as defined by LawBrain.
Related Resources:
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Your Rights: Search and Seizure (FindLaw)
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Allegedly Drunk Bus Driver Contesting DUI Charges (FindLaw's Chicago DUI Blog)
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Find a Chicago DUI Attorney (FindLaw)
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