Alachua County Driver Has License Suspension Vacated
An officer from the University of Florida Police Department observed a Jeep traveling on Stadium Road. The vehicle turned onto Woodlawn Drive, then west on S.W. 2nd Avenue. The officer stated that he observed the vehicle drifting in its lane of travel and crossing the lane divider. The vehicle then turned onto S.W. 34th Street, where the officer noticed that the vehicle was traveling below the speed limit.
The officer then conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle and made contact with the driver. The officer noticed that the driver had bloodshot eyes and had to ask multiple times for the driver’s insurance card. The officer had the driver step out of the vehicle and asked her to participate in field sobriety exercises, which the driver agreed to do. Ultimately, the driver was arrested for DUI and transported to the Alachua County Jail to provide a breath sample, which the driver agreed to provide. The two breath samples were 0.134 and 0.132.
The driver hired Meldon Law. The DUI attorneys at Meldon Law filed an application for a formal review hearing through the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle (DHSMV) to challenge the basis of the driver’s license suspension. During the hearing, the attorney from Meldon Law made three motions to invalidate the license suspension based on a lack of reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop the driver’s vehicle, lack of reasonable suspicion to detain the driver, and finally, a motion to invalidate based on issues with the breath test. The hearing officer later issued an order setting aside the license suspension.
DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients’ cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client’s case. (Date of Suspension: November 21, 2019).
