Judge pleads guilty to hit-and-run charge

By MICHAEL COPLEY/Media General News Service

Wytheville Juvenile and Domestic Courts judge Michael Keith Blankenship, 44, was in Powhatan General District Court Friday charged with a hit and run that caused property damage. The former Wythe County prosecutor pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor and received a $200 fine and an order to pay restitution on the damage caused by the crash.
The April 27 hit and run that resulted in an uprooted tree and damage to a telephone-line box was the judge’s second driving related offense in two months. He was arrested on March 1 in Smyth County after a Virginia State Police trooper noticed Blankenship’s vehicle swerving onto the grassy median of Interstate 81. The officer reported that Blankenship appeared to be intoxicated, but the judge refused a field sobriety test and afterward refused breath and blood screenings.
Blankenship pleaded guilty to reckless driving and unreasonably refusing a blood and/or breath test on May 20 in Smyth County General District Court, charges that had been reduced from driving under the influence. He was ordered to pay a $100 fine for reckless driving and received a one-year suspended driver’s license for the refusal charge.
Blankenship appeared before the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission in June for the string of infractions, but the proceedings of that commission’s investigation are confidential unless cause is found to enter a formal complaint with the Virginia Supreme Court. Blankenship was placed on paid leave by the commission following the March and April scrapes and did not indicate that he would resign his bench.
Since his first arrest in March, Blankenship repeatedly has declined to comment on his legal troubles.
Michael Copley writes for Powhatan Today.