A Socorro [NM] judge faces a drunken-driving charge after he drove off a dead-end road in southwest Santa Fe about 1 p.m. Friday with an open bottle of vodka in his government-owned minivan, police said.
Tom Fitch, the 62-year-old chief judge of the 7th Judicial District, had a breath-alcohol content more than twice the legal limit, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said.
It was a bad day for Judge Fitch, who later had a heart attack. He must have been hammered. He thought he was on a highway when he was on a frontage road, and he drove over grooved pavement and past a 4 by 8 foot reflective "dead end" sign before driving off the end of the road and down an embankment. All at 1:00 on a Friday afternoon! Details (and pictures of what he did to his "government-owned minivan") here from the Free New Mexican.