Man gets jail time after multiple driving offenses
A man pleads no contest to two counts of driving on a suspended license - his seventh and eighth convictions - and gets 366 days in jail.
By CARY DAVIS
Published May 29, 2003
NEW PORT RICHEY - "What do you have to say for yourself?" the judge asked the defendant on Wednesday.
"I'm not going to drive any more," came the reply.
Scott Patrick Burke had made that promise before. He couldn't keep it and so here he was, in shackles and a blue jail jumpsuit, taking his punishment.
Only this time, there would be no more probation, no more second chances for a man who has amassed more than two dozen license suspensions and revocations.
Burke, 23, pleaded no contest Wednesday to two counts of driving on a suspended license - his seventh and eighth convictions for that offense. His plea also covered a violation of probation charge stemming from a previous conviction for driving on a suspended license.
Burke entered the plea after Senior Judge Robert Beach offered a sentence of a year and a day in state prison on all the charges, with no probation to follow.
Burke is a rarity in a criminal justice system that rarely puts people in prison for driving on a suspended license.
Burke managed to earn a trip to prison despite the lack of a serious criminal record. All but one of his arrests are traffic related, and he has never been charged with injuring another motorist.
But even among traffic scofflaws, Burke stands out.
He has been cited four times for speeding and three for careless driving. At least 11 times he has failed to pay traffic fines. He has racked up eight arrests for driving on a suspended license.
A license that, at last count, had been suspended 25 times.
Despite that record, a state sentencing score sheet prepared for Wednesday's hearing did not call for Burke to spend any time in state prison.
The state first took away Burke's license when he was 19, to little effect.
He kept driving. And kept getting caught.
He picked up his sixth charge for driving on a suspended license Nov. 11, 2002. The arrest prompted a story in the Pasco Times, in which Burke was quoted as saying his days of ignoring traffic laws were over.
"I really want to get out of jail and go home to my kids," he said then in a jailhouse interview.
Then, on Jan. 23, he was picked up again for driving on a suspended license. Because the state had already bestowed on him the label of "habitual offender," Burke should have been handcuffed, charged with a felony and taken immediately to jail. Instead, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper wrote him a ticket and sent him on his way.
Burke seems to have benefitted from that oversight when he appeared in court four days later and pleaded no contest to the November suspended license charge. The trial judge, unaware of the newest case, sentenced Burke to house arrest and probation.
Two weeks later, Burke was back to his old ways. He was caught driving Feb. 11 by a Pasco sheriff's deputy. Again, that should have gotten him arrested on the spot, both for driving on a suspended license and for a probation violation.
But again, contrary to standard procedure, the deputy let Burke off with a ticket. Eventually, prosecutors issued a warrant for two felony charges of driving on a suspended license, and Burke was arrested May 6. He was found hiding in the attic of his home on Delray Drive in New Port Richey.
