Court dates delayed for suspect in offifficer’s’ death
‘Incompetence’ impeding process, her attorney says.
The woman accused of killing one Delray Beach police offifficer and critically injuring a second April 8 while she allegedly drove drunk in Key West is experiencing new delays in making her fifirst court appearance.
L ac y Marie Morris, 32, faces multiple charges that i ncl ude DUI manslaugh - ter in the death of Officer Christine Braswell. She was arrested Tuesday in Broward County and was expected to face a magistrate judge there on Wednesday, but that didn’t happen, as authorities planned to move her to a court in Monroe County.
Morris left the Broward C o u n t y J a i l o n T h u r s - day, but not for Key West. Instead she spent the night in a Miami-Dade County jail with a scheduled magistrate appearance Friday morning, said Evan Hoffffman, Morris’ attorney.
But when Hoffffman arrived in court Friday morning, Morris was not on the hear- ing calendar, possibly leaving her in custody there through the weekend.
Hoffffman said Friday afternoon that he has “no idea” when his client will face a judge and said it’s “unconscionable” that Morris hasn’t appeared before a judge days after her arrest.
“I’m at my wits’ end with these people,” Hoffffman said.
In 20 years in practice, I have never seen this level of incompetence.”
Key West police say Braswell died and Officer Bernenda Marc was seriously injured when the scooter on which they were riding crashed into the passenger side of a Nissan driven by Morris. The two were offduty and on vacation in Florida’s southernmost city.
Police said Morris was turning into a convenience-store parking lot when she pulled in front of the Yamaha Zuma scooter being operated by Braswell with Marc riding as a passenger.
The arrest warrant states that Morris’ blood-alcohol level was 0.173 and 0.175, more than two times over the state’s legal limit of 0.08.
Aside from DUI manslaughter, Morris faces charges of DUI causing serious bodily injury, DUI with property damage and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana. Police allegedly found a partially smoked marijuana cigarette on the flfloor board of her vehicle.
Hoffffman said the confusion could’ve been avoided if he had been allowed to have Morris surrender in Key West on either Thursday or Friday as he had discussed with police before they took her into custody Tuesday, hours after a judge issued a warrant for her arrest.
He said he would be spending Friday inquiring “why authorities thought it prudent to arrest (Morris) two counties over when we were cooperating whole time.”
If this is how the c ase is going to start, there are some issues that have to be resolved,” Hoffffman said.
Morris is being held on $170,000 bail.