CHICORA — Citing public safety, a district judge Tuesday revoked the bond of a woman being held in jail for allegedly driving under the influence for a fourth time.

Melissa McKinney, 58, of Harrisville was charged Dec. 11 with driving under the influence of a controlled substance after she allegedly crashed her car into a utility pole on Route 8. With this being her fourth offense, her charge was a felony.

At the time, she told police that the sun was in her eyes, and during her preliminary hearing Tuesday public defender Maura Palumbi cited this as a reason for the crash and asked Judge Lewis Stoughton to drop the charge.

McKinney drove through a traffic light, “swerved past four to five cars” into oncoming traffic, a criminal complaint states, before swerving back to her right and into a pole.

Along with the DUI, McKinney was charged with unauthorized use of registration, driving uninsured, running a red light, driving on the wrong side of the roadway, illegally overtaking a vehicle and careless driving.

McKinney drove a white Ford Taurus. She was out of the vehicle when police arrived.

“These were evasive maneuvers meant to avoid a wreck, correct?” Palumbi asked the arresting officer, Trooper Casey Fuller. The trooper agreed.

And while McKinney allegedly admitted to police that she had consumed the narcotic suboxone and gabapentin, an anticonvulsant, Palumbi noted the sobriety tests Fuller conducted do not measure the severity of one's impairment the way a breathalyzer would measure for alcohol consumption.

“We have a reasonable explanation for what happened here. It was a sunny day, and my client took care to avoid other cars,” Palumbi said. “Once she recovered from the sun glare, she swerved away from oncoming traffic and prevented any further harm.”

Stoughton said he was initially open to reducing McKinney's bond, but once he realized that McKinney's DUI was drug-related, he decided not to remove the bond since there is no drug equivalent to SCRAM, an ankle monitor that tests for alcohol consumption in a person.

Instead, he decided to revoke McKinney's bond altogether after noting McKinney's three other DUI offenses were made within the past six months.

“I'm not going to make this about money. Your client is a danger to society,” Stoughton said.

Palumbi countered that McKinney doesn't have access to her car after it was towed from the accident. She asked Stoughton to consider placing McKinney on house arrest, which would allow McKinney to continue caring for a handicapped elderly man with whom she lives.

But Stoughton said he wasn't willing to do that.

“Do not take it personally,” Stoughton said to Palumbi. “It's about public safety, 100 percent. If you had a multimillionaire sitting beside you I'd make the same decision.”

After the hearing, McKinney was taken back to Butler County Prison.

Stoughton's decision, Palumbi noted, assures that McKinney will stay in the jail for Christmas and the holidays.