State drops DUI charge against John Mica's daughter -- Records show a judge agreed with D'Anne Leigh Mica's defense attorney that police made a bad

stop when they pulled her over in January.

June 07, 2010|By Anthony Colarossi and Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel

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.

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."

asically, 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.