BY DAVID OVALLE
Three years after he was
charged in a wee hours car wreck in Coral Gables that killed a young paralegal,
ex-cop Peter Muñoz wants a judge to dismiss his criminal case.
The former Coral Springs police
officer is making the request after a Miami-Dade judge, in a little-noticed decision,
tossed out evidence that showed Muñoz was drunk, with blood alcohol measuring
nearly three times the legal limit.
The decision forced prosecutors
to drop a DUI manslaughter charge. Now, Muñoz is asking the same judge to throw
out the remaining charge of vehicular homicide in the death of Jennifer
Gutierrez, a 23-year-old mother and student.
The case is scheduled for a
court hearing on Friday.
Muñoz was driving his
Volkswagen south on LeJeune Road in July 2011, just after 4 a.m. He plowed into
Gutierrez, driving a BMW, who had entered the intersection while trying to make
a left from Aledo Avenue north onto LeJeune.
Gutierrez, a Miami-Dade college
student, was rushed to Ryder Trauma Center and died less than two hours later.
Muñoz, 27, was hospitalized. A
toxicology report showed he had a blood-alcohol level of .229, nearly triple
the legal limit. Gutierrez, who was driving on a suspended license at the time,
also had evidence of Xanax and cocaine in her system.
Coral Springs police fired
Muñoz soon after the crash.
Several months after he was
charged, his defense attorneys attacked the validity of the search warrant,
executed by rookie Coral Gables traffic homicide investigator Jesus Rodriguez,
for blood vials at the hospital.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dennis
Murphy agreed with the defense that the detective, in a search warrant, should
have included the fact that there was a six- to eight-foot hedge that might
have obstructed the sight of the woman pulling into the intersection. The State
Attorney’s Office, in October 2012, had to drop the DUI manslaughter charge.
Sally Matson, a victims
advocate for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the group joins Gutierrez’s
family “in their sadness when a case is compromised by a technicality.”
“MADD is way too familiar with
cases where a life is lost for a 100-percent preventable crime,” Matson said.
“It is especially disappointing when an officer who was sworn to protect and
serve made the choice to commit a crime which resulted in the loss of an
innocent life.”
The case lingered for months as
both sides hired accident reconstruction experts to examine the evidence.
In May, Muñoz’s lawyer asked
the judge to dismiss the final charge, saying his speed was no more than 16
miles per hour over the 40 mph speed limit — not enough to convict on a
vehicular manslaughter charge.
“The death of Ms. Gutierrez was
not caused by the defendant’s operation of his motor vehicle in a reckless
manner likely to cause [death],” attorney Alan S. Ross wrote in his motion.
In the past, Florida courts
have thrown out vehicular homicide convictions based chiefly on a high rate of
speed.
Earlier this month, an appeals
court tossed out the conviction of Luis Luzardo, who had been speeding in
daylight on Tamiami Trail when a carload of tourists tried to make a left turn
into an amusement park. Luzardo tried to veer but still hit the car, killing one
British woman.
The appeals court said that
Luzardo might have been negligent or careless but that the case did not reach
the proper “level of recklessness.”
In Muñoz’s case, prosecutors
say jurors should decide whether Muñoz is guilty.
The ex-cop was reckless because
he was actually speeding at 65 mph — all while “weaving in and out of lanes” in
the dark that morning, according to the state’s expert and witnesses.
“All these facts, taken
together, show ... the defendant operated his vehicle in a grossly reckless
manner without the safety of others,” prosecutor Beatrice Gonzalez wrote.
