BY KEITH LACEY
A Sudbury woman fired from her job as a ?Bud Girl? after being convicted of impaired driving will have to wait a couple more weeks to find out whether or not her conviction will be overturned.
Justice Patricia Hennessy of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice listened to two hours of argument by defence counsel Ted Conroy and assistant Crown attorney Andrew Slater as Conroy appealed Lisa Mitchell?s August conviction for drunk driving.
Mitchell was charged by police with impaired driving and blowing over the legal limit after the car she was driving hit a hydro pole following a Super Bowl party last Jan. 27.
Mitchell garnered national headlines when she testified at trial she was fired by Labatt?s Brewery from her job as a Bud Girl,where she promoted Labatt?s products, after being charged with drunk driving.
Mitchell testified that after working last year?s Super Bowl party, she and several friends went to another bar. At the end of the evening, she asked her boss, a Labatt beer sales representative, for cab fare home.
Mitchell testified she was told ?cab fare wasn?t in the budget? and she decided to drive home with six other
passengers in her car.
Beer was always available free of charge whenever she worked as a Bud Girl, said Mitchell.
Her trial heard she blew almost twice the legal limit allowed to drive in Canada.
Conroy argued Thursday the trial judge, Justice J.D. Bark, erred in accepting the arresting officer?s reasons for formulating reasonable and probable grounds to arrest Mitchell that evening.
There were insufficient signs of impairment to suggest Mitchell was legally inpaired, said Conroy.
The officer did smell alcohol on Mitchell?s breath, but her evidence of slurred speech and red eyes are just as
easily explained by the fact Mitchell was crying hysterically because she?d damaged her father?s car, said Conroy.
Instead of arresting Mitchell at the scene, the officer should have made her blow into a roadside screening device, he said.
?The arrest was something you do as a last resort,? said Conroy.
A second officer on the scene didn?t notice any signs of impairment by Mitchell and testified to this at trial, he said.
There are 12 to 15 significant signs of impairment and Mitchell didn?t show any signs for most of them. ?Simply put...the officer jumped the gun? in arresting Mitchell without reasonable and probable grounds, he argued.
Slater disagreed saying it?s not mandatory for officers to order a roadside screening test when they believe impairment is obvious.
You need reasonable and probable grounds to make an arrest on blowing over the legal limit, but the test for impaired driving is simply whether or not the arresting officer observes clear signs of impairment and there were many significant signs with this accused, said Slater.
The second officer who testified about not noticing any signs of impairment with Mitchell had no direct contact with her until about two hours after her arrest, said Slater.
In this case, the arresting officer had more than a dozen reasons to believe Mitchell operated her vehicle while impaired, said Slater.
They include the fact there was an accident, the officer observed the vehicle miss a turn and hit the hydro pole, the fact the vehicle moved from the scene of the accident, Mitchell?s emotional state, a strong odour of booze,
glossy eyes, slurred speech and fact the officer had to assist Mitchell to her cruiser, said Slater.
Hennessy is expected to submit her final decision in writing within two weeks.
