A judge, ruling in a dispute about evidence, has sided with a rookie legislator who was arrested for drunken driving in a Des Moines suburb back in February. Representative Kerry Burt, a Democrat from Waterloo who played football at the University of Iowa, was picked up in Ankeny and charged with first offense drunk driving.
A judge has ruled the breath test Burt took in the early morning hours of February 11th cannot be used as evidence in the case. According to the judge, the cop should have told Burt his commercial driver’s license could be revoked if he failed the test.
Burt, who works as a Waterloo fire fighter, has lost his commercial driver’s license and, because of that, he’s been laid off from his job. Burt was a defensive back on the Hawkeye football team and earned first-team All Big Ten honors in his senior season back in 1987.
This past February, Burt was picked after Ankeny cops said they saw him driving a damaged S.U.V. Burt told police he hit a concrete barrier on Interstate-35. His trial on the drunken driving charges is set for July 13.