San Diego

A Superior Court judge who pleaded guilty to the second drunk-driving charge brought against him in six years was ordered to enroll in an 18-month alcohol-education program and had his driver’s license suspended for a year.

Judge Thomas Ashworth III, chief judge of the Family Law Court in downtown San Diego, was not present Monday when his attorney entered the plea before Jerome Stevenson, a retired Municipal Court judge from Riverside County.

Stevenson was asked to hear the case because all San Diego Municipal Court judges said it would be a conflict of interest for them to sit in judgment of a colleague.

Ashworth’s attorney, Thomas Warwick, said his client was arrested April 3 and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17%, more than twice the 0.08% level at which a driver is considered legally drunk.

Ashworth was convicted of a similar misdemeanor drunk-driving charge in May, 1985 and was placed on probation. Ashworth was appointed to the bench in 1986 by former Gov. George Deukmejian.

Ashworth, 56, received what is considered to be the standard minimum sentence in a case of his kind. In addition to the license suspension and education program, Ashworth was given five years’ probation and fined $990.