It took Brant Mickelson eight arrests to have his fifth DUI charge dropped.
After being ticketed on the felony charge in Lincoln in September 2009, he moved back to North Dakota and missed his first court appearance, which set in motion a series of events unusual for a drunk driving case.
A Lancaster County judge issued a warrant for his arrest, and, seven times over seven years, law enforcement detained him on it -- in North Dakota, Minnesota and Illinois.
Each time, Nebraska authorities declined to bring him back to face the charge.
In March, the state finally decided to extradite Mickelson, 55, after he sat in jail for a week when Homeland Security detained him at Chicago O'Hare International Airport upon his return from missionary work in the Philippines.
And now, a Lancaster County district judge has ruled the state violated Mickelson's constitutional right to a speedy trial and dismissed the case against him.
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The state was "grossly negligent" in failing to pursue Mickelson sooner, Judge Susan Strong said in her order Tuesday.
"A mistake or error in refusing to extradite can be overlooked on one or maybe even two occasions, but to fail or refuse to extradite on seven separate occasions is inexcusable," she said.
Mickelson and the state both were to blame, she said, but the state was more at fault.
"Although (Mickelson) cannot avoid the reality that the delay was initially caused by his own actions, the government must accept responsibility for the majority of the delay," she said.
At a hearing in September, prosecutors gave no explanation for the seven-year delay, she said.
But on Friday, Lancaster County Attorney Joe Kelly said the sheriff's office made a mistake in how the warrant was entered in the national law enforcement database. It should have approved extradition from all states, but instead said Lancaster County only would extradite from neighboring states.
"Prosecutors had no knowledge of the mistaken data entry or that he was being detained and then released in these other jurisdictions," Kelly said. "Prosecutors are not involved in that part of the process."
The policy always has been to extradite on a charge like this, Kelly said. That hasn't changed.
Mickelson's attorney, Darik Von Loh of Lincoln, said he never has seen a case in which the state declined to extradite so many times, then pursued it.
"After a certain period of time, you should have the ability to live your life again, free of concern of a warrant," he said Thursday.
Mickelson admitted to Strong that he broke his promise to go to court and never took care of the warrant because he didn't have the money, according to the order.
In September, Von Loh asked Strong to dismiss the charge, alleging among other things that the state had violated Mickelson's right to be brought to trial within six months of being charged.
Twice in that time, he was detained. But instead of sending law enforcement to bring him back from Jamestown, North Dakota, he sat in jail 10 days each time before being released, Strong noted in her order.
Meanwhile, Mickelson got sober, got a job with a tree trimming service and got involved in his church, which led to mission trips to the Philippines, where he married and had a child, Von Loh said.
He's trying to bring them to the U.S. and is relieved the warrant is no longer looming, the attorney said.
Von Loh said the state should pursue extradition if it wants to prosecute. If it doesn't, he said, it should drop the charge.
"People have a right to move on," he said.