DUI Trial For Ex-Joliet Councilman Reset For April

NEW LENOX, IL - A former Joliet City Councilman who got arrested by the Illinois State Police during the summer of 2016 on charges of drunken driving will go on trial for the second time come April. The Herald-News, Joliet's newspaper, reported that a new trial date for Jim McFarland was set for April 18. McFarland had a jury trial at the Will County Courthouse in October, but his case ended in a mistrial because the jury was deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the primary charge, DUI.

However, Herald-News reporter Bob Okon reported this week that the original jury found McFarland not guilty of the traffic offense of improper lane use but guilty of speeding. However, the Herald-News article indicates the speeding offense will not be pursued at the retrial set for April. McFarland is being represented by Joliet criminal defense attorney George Lenard. Lenard is also the same lawyer who is defending Sean Woulfe, the young man from Beecher who is charged with 16 counts of reckless homicide for last summer's tragedy that killed Lindsey Schmidt and her young children at a rural intersection in Will County.

McFarland was arrested in July 2016 on Interstate 80 near New Lenox, according to previous Joliet Patch articles. McFarland's high-profile arrest was the subject of numerous articles in the Patch. By September 2016, McFarland resigned his seat on the Joliet City Council. McFarland wrote the city indicating he and his family were moving to "a different community" as his reason for quitting.

The previous month, August 2016, Patch reported that an Illinois State Police trooper said the councilman had "glassy, bloodshot eyes" and that a "strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emitting from his breath as he spoke."

"Before I could ask if he had been drinking, he said, 'I haven't been drinking' and that he was coming from work," the trooper said in his report. "I asked him to be straight up with me about how much he had to drink. He responded with 'three drinks.'"

McFarland failed field sobriety tests and refused a portable breath test, the report said.

File image via Joliet Patch