D'Anne Leigh Mica attorney police lacked probable cause: judge dismisses dui charge against leigh mica
D'Anne Leigh Mica attorney police lacked probable cause: judge dismisses dui charge against leigh mica, Prosecutors dropped a DUI charge against D'Anne Leigh Mica, daughter of U.S. Rep. John Mica, after an Orange County judge granted a defense motion to suppress the woman's initial stop by the police, according to court records and sources familiar with the case.
The younger Mica was arrested earlier this year on a charge of driving under the influence after police said she was stopped with a blood-alcohol content more than twice the legal limit. judge dismisses dui charge against leigh mica,
But Mica's attorney, Stuart Hyman, argued that the stop leading to the arrest was faulty because the arresting officer — from Maitland Police — was outside his jurisdiction when he stopped the woman in Winter Park "to check on her well being."
Basically, he did not have sufficient probable cause to follow the woman and make the stop.
"You can't go outside of your jurisdiction to 'check' on people," Hyman said Monday. "He said it was for 'well-being.' . . . He didn't suspect she was impaired. He had no authority to stop the vehicle in another jurisdiction."
The officer needed a more compelling reason to make the stop outside his jurisdiction, Orange County Judge W. Michael Miller ruled.
Miller granted the motion to suppress the stop back in early May, according to court records. Prosecutors initially planned to appeal the ruling but last week decided to drop the case.
Despite evidence that followed the stop and Mica's arrest, the insufficient rationale for the stop essentially poisoned the rest of the state's case against the woman.
The officer did note that she had wandered over a line once or twice, but Hyman said those were isolated incidents that occurred in or around a curve. "It was not a continuous weaving," he said.
"If going over the line puts people in jail, then we're all going to jail," Hyman said.
He also suspected the prosecution could not find a case that would support the legality of such a stop.
Danielle Tavernier, spokeswoman with Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar's office, said: "The law was just against us. We couldn't pursue the case."
A police report indicated that Mica, a 34-year-old public-relations executive, was driving east on Horatio Avenue early on Jan. 8 when her black SUV drifted back and forth.
An officer stopped her and asked if she was OK. He noticed the smell of alcohol on her breath and that her eyes were glassy and bloodshot, he wrote in the report.
Mica, of Maitland, told the officer she was coming from Tom and Jerry's bar in Winter Park but that she was there only momentarily, according to the report.
Later she told him she was coming from a Mexican restaurant in downtown Orlando and admitted drinking a couple of vodka cocktails, the report states.
She failed two field sobriety tests, according to the report.
She also failed two officer-administered breath tests, blowing a 0.192 percent and a 0.198 percent. The legal limit is 0.08 percent.
Mica's case file for the DUI is thick and filled with a series of motions Hyman filed, challenging everything from the initial stop to the validity of her breath test.
As for any questions or suspicion that politics might have played a part in the case, Hyman dismissed them immediately.
"One of the most well-respected judges in Orange County made this ruling," Hyman said. "He looked at the evidence. He looked at it impartially. The facts are the facts. . . . When you're in politics, someone is going to take a shot at you or your family."
