Driver guilty in DUI deaths

The man, who last year hit and killed three USF students and seriously injured one, could spend his life in prison.

By SARAH SCHWEITZER

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 9, 2000

TAMPA -- Warned that outbursts in the courtroom would not be tolerated, members of four families held hands in silence Friday afternoon as the verdicts were read.

Mitchell Houston James, 40, was found guilty of three counts of DUI-manslaughter and one count of DUI-causing bodily injury.

The verdicts, which could carry a life sentence, came after nearly a week of testimony about the night James ran a red light and slammed his white Cadillac into a car carrying four University of South Florida students. Three students died, and a fourth was seriously injured.

Deputies found James lying across the floorboard of his car, his bleeding head resting on a 12-pack of Budweiser beer.

"I believe Floridians should rest easier knowing that his man will no longer be on the streets," said David Dawson, a charter boat captain from New Jersey whose 19-year-old daughter, Leanna Dawson, was one of the students killed Nov. 29, 1999, at Fletcher Avenue and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

Dawson, the driver of the car carrying the students, and passenger Majid Tahri, 20, were killed instantly. Jaclyn Ayala, 18, died at a hospital. A fourth student, David Sanders, suffered serious injuries.

James, who has a previous DUI conviction, will learn his fate Jan. 9 when a sentencing hearing is held before Circuit Judge Cynthia Holloway.

Dressed in a double-breasted olive suit, he cocked his chin as the four guilty counts were read Friday and mouthed words of comfort to his family as a bailiff led him out of the chamber.

"It's okay" he whispered, hobbling out of the courtroom with the aid of a cane. James suffered a broken leg and hip and head injuries in the crash.

The three men and three women on the jury deliberated for nearly four hours Friday, an interminable wait for the students' families, who considered the case a slam-dunk for the prosecution.

"It just seemed so open and shut," said Tami Sbar, a relative of Tahri, a native of Morocco who had come to Tampa to study just weeks before the accident. "As it dragged out, it was like, "Do they understand?' "

Sbar, a former prosecutor, said the evidence had been overwhelming: the witnesses who testified that James blew through a red light and James' elevated blood-alcohol level, which tests put at three times the limit at which a person is presumed to be impaired.

"It just seemed simplistic," said Sbar, who now practices family law. Tahri's parents, who live in Morocco, did not attend the trial.

Jeani Schmuecker, Leanna Dawson's mother, said she also expected a quick verdict.

"I honestly thought within an hour we would get a guilty verdict," said the private chef from Bethel, Conn. "When it didn't come, I got concerned."

Schmuecker said the past year has been one of shuttling between Florida and Connecticut for court hearings. "My life has been on hold," she said. "There has been no time for grieving."

Just two weeks ago, she said, papers were finalized on the sale of her partnership in a restaurant. She could no longer bear to be a part of a venture that sold alcohol.

"I didn't want to be associated with a bar anymore," she said.

Tim O'Brien, a detective in Bronx, N.Y., who lost his daughter, Jacklyn Ayala, in the crash, has found some solace in his work.

"He has become even more of a workaholic, if that is possible," said his wife, Melba O'Brien, also a detective in the Bronx. But she said she struggles with the aggravated batteries and homicides she is assigned to investigate. She finds herself unfocused, unmotivated to do her work. She has kept her job, she said, by dint of understanding and compassionate bosses.

"Mitchell James not only killed (Jacklyn)," she said. "He killed me too."

Recent coverage

USF trio memorialized before trial (November 30, 2000)

Driver charged in deaths, injury of USF students (December 3, 1999)

Service shares grief, memory of 3 students (December 1, 1999)

USF students lives 'over in a second' (November 30, 1999)

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