HARRISBURG — A state court says a Cumberland County judge acted with compassion, but against state regulations, when he overturned a five-year driver’s license suspension for a woman who was deemed a habitual drunken driver.

The Commonwealth Court ruling says Judge Thomas Placey should have upheld the suspension, despite the Maryland woman’s claims that she was traumatized.

The state court heard the dispute after the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation appealed Placey’s decision voiding the five-year license suspension.

The Maryland woman claimed she incurred her three DUI arrests within six weeks in mid-2011 because she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted.