DUI Consequences

November 21, 2012

Driving Under the Influence Charge for Bobby Brown: A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year for ‘My Prerogative’ Singer

2012 will not go down as a very good year for recording artist Bobby Brown, who just got arrested (yet again!) for driving under the influence in Los Angeles, several months after losing his former beloved, Whitney Houston.

The 43-year-old Brown pled no contest to a DUI charge back in March and managed to get himself out of rehab in August. Just weeks after getting out of rehab, however, he got stopped in the Topanga area: the celebrity gossip website TMZ reported that Brown had been seen weaving between lanes. The strange behavior prompted a police cruiser to stop him under suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. He also exhibited symptoms of LA DUI and had an odor of alcohol. He failed his field sobriety tests and got booked into a jail in Van Nuys.

Brown was released on his own recognizance. Hopefully, he’ll get the help he needs to manage his multiple crises. On top of dealing with the DUI charges and the death of his ex-wife, Brown also received a tepid reception to his new album — the first he released in over a decade and a half.

Multiple stresses can lead to helplessness
One of the most common beliefs about alcohol addiction is that drivers who drive DUI when they ‘know they shouldn’t’ are somehow ‘giving in’ and behaving in a weak manner. Alternative theories about addiction, however, suggest that the drive to consume alcohol or drugs — or engage in other reckless, negligent, or dangerous behaviors — may stem not from a weak constitution but rather from a distorted drive to reassert control in a chaotic world.

Think about your own life. Think about your own Los Angeles DUI arrest. How did you feel in the days and hours leading up to your arrest? Did you feel completely in control of your life? Or did you feel out of control and helpless? Odds are, you felt that latter.

This is an important revelation, since it suggests that drivers who are arrested for crimes like DUI may need help gaining control over their lives and becoming more empowered. Instead, they are often counseled to ‘surrender’ their power and beat themselves up. The criminal justice system certainly assists in this negative regard by condemning drivers to punishments that may or may not fit the crime.

All of this is not to say that you may not bear culpability for what happened – or responsibility for your life.

However, it may be misguided to treat your problem as a simple problem of “lack of will.” The diverse forces that motivate your behaviors, actions, and habits can be complex stuff, indeed. These forces can touch upon psychological factors as well as physical factors.

What you need now is a thorough, comprehensive strategy to assess where you are at, legally speaking and otherwise, in the wake of the DUI arrest.

Get in touch with Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers for effective, compassionate, and insightful guidance regarding your charges and your life in general.

November 19, 2012

Expect More Pasadena DUI Arrests: CA Office of Traffic Safety gets $450,000 Grant for 100 DUI Task Force

by Michael Kraut

The California Office of Traffic Safety recently received a grant of $450,000 to enforce DUI laws in Pasadena and elsewhere.

The 100 DUI Task Force, as it’s known, has been charged with a litany of tasks, including conducting DUI checkpoints and saturation patrols and running programs to target repeat offenders. The Task Force is very active during holidays known to be flashpoints for DUI activity in Pasadena and elsewhere, such as New Year’s Eve, Cinco de Mayo, Saint Patrick’s Day, and Super Bowl Sunday.

On the one hand, we should applaud the work of this Task Force and be grateful that police officers are out there, putting their lives on the line, searching for ways to improve public safety and get dangerous drivers off the road.

November 5, 2012

Pregnant Zombie Arrested for DUI: Hopefully Your Burbank DUI Mug Shot was Prettier

by Michael Kraut

Whether you got arrested for driving under the influence in Burbank on “All Hollow’s Eve” or not, odds are that the experience was spooky and disorienting, and not in a good way.

DUI stories have a way of becoming surreal and macabre – both for DUI suspects and for victims of the crash and investigators. Burbank DUI bloggers and national “News of the Weird” scouts from places like Huffington Post were riveted last week by a strange Halloween DUI story out of Birmingham Alabama.

Allegedly, a woman dressed as a pregnant-zombie-who-had-been-shot-in-the-head was found passed out in her car the morning after Halloween. Initially, passersby thought that she had actually been shot in the head. These people called the police, who found that the woman was just wearing a Halloween costume. The costume itself was amateurish, but when the frightened passersby saw it in context, it certainly looked gory and real. Plus, they found her on the morning after Halloween, not on Halloween itself. As one Birmingham police officer said, “you can see why someone thought she had been shot.”

Local officers woke the woman up, looked through her vehicle, and then arrested her on charges of DUI.

Obviously, getting a charge like driving under the influence in Burbank is not pleasant. But it’s certainly better than getting shot in the head and left to die in your car.

Nevertheless, you face a superabundance of challenges and questions that you will need to address in the days and weeks ahead. For instance, will your license get suspended? Will you have to spend significant time in jail? What should you be doing right now to prepare for your legal battle? Have you written down your own account of what happened – including quotes from officers or from any witnesses? Did you make any statements to authorities or to anyone investigating the case that could compromise your case or cause you potential legal problems?

Have you found and retained a Burbank DUI criminal defense attorney yet?

These and other questions are probably whirling around your head, even as you try to process what happened to you. It can be difficult to prioritize and strategize, since you’re not an expert in Burbank DUI law, and you’re also almost certainly dealing with emotional “blowback” from the arrest as well as “day-to-day” life concern re: your job, family, and relationship obligations.

The practiced and efficient team at Burbank’s Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers can assist you in developing a proper defense and making good sense of your options. Attorney Kraut is a highly respected, knowledgeable, and successful criminal defense lawyer who has the compassion and relationships to provide you excellent service.

October 31, 2012

How Not to “Tee Up” Your Pasadena DUI Defense: Drive 85 Miles Per Hour the Wrong Way on a One Way Street…

by Michael Kraut

We’ve said it before on our Pasadena DUI defense blog, and we will say it again: many DUI defendants dig themselves a very deep hole, legally speaking, even after they’ve been stopped and interrogated by police.

Driving under the influence in Pasadena, in and of itself, can indeed lead to tremendous penalties. Even a misdemeanor conviction pursuant to California Vehicle Code Section 23152(a) or 23152(b) can set you up for punishments ranging from big fines and fees to insurance rate spikes to jail time. However, when you make additional “bad decisions” after your stop, such as fleeing from the scene, committing hit and run, or driving the wrong way down a one way street to escape a checkpoint or detection by police, you may make your defense massively more complicated.

Consider, for instance, the case of an underage driver pulled over on October 10th for DUI in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania… after clocking nearly 110 miles per hour on a street with a 35 miles per hour speed limit!

The underage driver had been zooming along Penn Avenue in her Audi at 109 miles per hour (as clocked by local law enforcement) before pivoting on to Pennwood Avenue, Hay Street and Walls Avenue. She then gunned it the wrong way down on one way street before police finally caught up. The driver now faces a litany of seven charges, including DUI as a minor (first offense), driving without a license, exceeding the speed limit by 80 miles per hour (!!), reckless driving, providing false ID to law enforcement, and driving under the influence with general impairment.

The driver initially gave the police a false name, then she recanted and agreed to participate in field sobriety tests, which she allegedly failed. She also blew a breathalyzer test twice, which showed that she had a BAC of 0.13% and 0.14%, respectively. The legal limit for Pasadena DUI, as you probably know if you’re a long time reader, is just 0.08%. So this woman tested at nearly double that amount.

One bad decision spiraling into many bad decisions – a common story in Pasadena DUI cases

Many defendants wind up “kicking themselves” the days and weeks after their arrest because they obviously “should have known better.”

In reality, you may have only made one really bad decision – i.e. to get behind the wheel while not quite sober. But prosecutors may ultimately hit you with multiple charges, each of which can carry heavy punishments, like jail sentences and costly fines.

To respond effectively, you need both a practical and deep theoretical understanding of relevant case law. Attorney Michael Kraut of Pasadena’s Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers has helped many people in similar situations to yours come up with powerful, solid, and inventive legal defenses. As a former prosecutor, Attorney Kraut understands how prosecutors like to approach cases like yours, and he can craft and pivot your defense accordingly.

October 29, 2012

Driving DUI in Los Angeles, New York, or Anywhere: Never a Good Idea, Especially If You Drive a School Bus

by Michael Kraut

What should be done to prevent school bus drivers from driving under the influence of alcohol in Los Angeles, New York, and other big cities? Where do we draw the line between the need to respect the freedom of individuals and the need to protect kids from reckless, careless DUI driving?

New York legislators and policy makers are mulling over these and other similar questions this week, in the wake of new legislation proposed by New York state Senator Charles Fuschillo and Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice, that would require school bus drivers to blow into breathalyzer devices before being able to drive kids around.

If this New York law passes, it would be the first of its kind in the country; and it might set a president for how lawmakers here in California try to stamp out the problem of driving under the influence in Los Angeles.

Why Are Lawmakers So “Ginned Up” to Stop DUI Bus Driving?

The answer is pretty simple: a spate of DUI bus driving incidents over the past month have alarmed parents, lawmakers, and the general populace.

Here are three:

1. On October 3rd, Frederick Flowers, a 66-year old bus driver, crashed into a house while carrying five kids in his school bus.

Police believe that Flowers passed out behind the wheel prior to the crash. The kids, who ranged in age from 5 years old to 8 years old, miraculously survived without injury.

2. Less than two weeks later, 40-year old Robert Stundis got stopped and arrested for driving a school bus under the influence.

He tested to have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.23%. That’s nearly 3 times the maximum allowable BAC level of 0.08%, according to Southern California DUI law. Police found a half empty bottle of vodka on his school bus and charged Stundis with endangering the welfare of children, DWI while driving a school bus, and DWI with child passengers.

3. Lastly, on October 22nd, 47-year old James Sommer, crashed into a tree while trying to park his school bus.

Authorities later arrested him under suspicion of DWI; one girl, 12-year old, had to go to the hospital with minor injuries.

Obviously, this rash of bus driver DUI arrests is viscerally distributing. But would it be helpful to compel school buses to install interlock ignition devices? How could we measure the results of such an initiative? And would any increase in safety persist for years or decades? Would legislation be worth the expense and legal battle?

These questions are certainly intriguing, but if you’re struggling with a DUI charge yourself, you are probably less interested in how to change the world (or fix society’s larger problems) than you are in avoiding jail time, minimizing your punishments, and figuring out how to rebuild your life and reputation after your arrest.

To that end, talk to Mr. Michael Kraut of Los Angeles’s Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers about your legal needs. Attorney Kraut is an ex-prosecutor who spent 14 plus years “on the other side” trying to put defendants for DUI crimes behind bars. Now, as a defense attorney, he uses his knowledge of the mindset of prosecutors – and the relationships he has cultivated over the years – to deliver excellent service for his clients.

October 22, 2012

Failed A Beverly Hills DUI Breathalyzer Test? Maybe It Wasn’t the Alcohol That Did It! (Wait Till’ You See What This Woman Drank…)

by Michael Kraut

As someone who recently failed a breathalyzer test for driving under the influence in Beverly Hills, you are probably feeling ashamed, humiliated, and terrified about the potential legal consequences.

Even if you didn’t cause any damage or hurt anyone – and thus you cannot be subjected to punishments per California Vehicle Code section 23153(a) or 23153(b) – you no doubt fear going to jail, having your license stripped, and paying potentially thousands of dollars in fines and fees (and that’s the tip of the iceberg).

On the other hand, you may be prematurely judging yourself as “guilty.”

In fact, a surprising amount of research suggests that many breathalyzer tests for Beverly Hills DUI and DUI elsewhere, can be flawed and potentially extremely misleading. A variety of factors can lead to false positives. For instance, if you are diabetic, you may wind up in a pathological metabolic state known as ketoacidosis, in which you produce compound known as ketones; these can cause a “positive” to register on a Beverly Hills DUI breath test.

A similar “skewing towards the DUI positive” can happen if you’re on a restricted carbohydrate diet. Low carb dieters often enter a metabolic state known as ketosis, during which they produce similar compounds to the compounds that diabetics produce when they are in ketoacidosis. In fact, one of the big (and misguided) criticisms of low carb diets has to do with confusion over healthy ketosis and unhealthy ketoacidosis. These are actually two very different metabolic states.

Getting back to the point… many different things can throw off a breathalyzer reading, including what you have recently eaten, how the officer calibrated the machine, how deeply you blow into the machine, and so forth.

Sometimes people do really weird things that can ALSO influence BAC readings.

Consider, for instance, a crazy story reported out of Middletown, Connecticut, where a local woman nearly crashed her car on October 5th after losing control. Local police put her through the paces of a field sobriety test and also gave her a blood alcohol test. They found that she had a BAC of 0.17% — which, as regular readers of our Beverly Hills DUI lawyer blog know, is over twice the legal limit for DUI here in Southern California, per CVC 23152(b).

What’s interesting about this woman is that she drank half a bottle of hand sanitizer before getting behind the wheel.

You read that right: half a bottle of hand sanitizer. Yikes!

According to reports, the amount of alcohol she consumed was equal to 32 shots of vodka. No wonder she had a BAC of 0.17%! One wonders whether the woman suffered from a condition known as Pica, which is a disorder characterized by a craving to eat nonfood items, such as sand, dirt, plastic, metal, and all sorts of other crazy stuff.

In any event, if you need help dealing with your Beverly Hills DUI case, get in touch with attorney Michael Kraut today to set up a free and thorough case consultation.

October 17, 2012

Burbank DUI Sports News: Mark Ditka Busted for DUI for Forth Time – Bad News for the Bears Even As Their Session Is Starting Out Pretty Well…

by Michael Kraut

Even if you’ve been arrested for driving under the influence in Burbank, and you’re not a sports fan, you likely are familiar with the Chicago Bears’ legendary old coach Mike Ditka – if not for his football legacy then at least for his appearance in snarky TV ads (or maybe his football-related wine label).

But Ditka’s brand has been challenged by the strange behavior of his sons, Mark and Michael.

Michael has been arrested multiple times for driving under the influence –including a stop in April 2011 that we discussed at length here on our Burbank DUI blog. Curiously, in the 2011 case, Michael lashed out that he had been stopped because if his family name.

His brother, Mark, meanwhile, has also been in the headlines for DUI arrests multiple times – in fact, last Sunday he scored his fourth DUI arrest in Deerfield, a suburb of Chicago. According to local news reports, police saw him driving erratically and pulled him over. They found Hydrocodone pills in his car (a prescription opiate – which Mark apparently had no prescription slip for). Plus, Mark lacked insurance and had been driving on a suspended license. When he refused to take a blood or breathalyzer test, he was arrested and held on a $25,000 bond.

Ditka was arrested last year around the same time, according to the Chicago Tribune, for driving with a BAC of around twice the legal limit. In Burbank, that limit is 0.08% BAC, as defined by California Vehicle Code Section 23153. That case was tossed because Ditka’s chewing tobacco likely skewed the results of his breathalyzer test. In his other two DUI arrests, he managed to get the charges lowered.

But Ditka’s situation illustrates both dangers and opportunities for people who have been arrested multiple times for driving under the influence in Burbank.

On the one hand, with a properly positioned and executed defense, you can do things like effectively challenge a breath test reading. After all, as we’ve discussed dozens of times here on this blog, breathalyzer tests can be compromised due to innumerable factors, including the presence of chewing tobacco; whether you are a diabetic or not (ketones produced by ketoacidosis on the breath can artificially inflate your BAC rating); and diverse other factors.

On the other hand, if you get arrested and convicted for multiple DUIs in Burbank or elsewhere, prosecutors can enjoy more and more different kinds of legal leverage against you.

For instance, if you are arrested and convicted for three DUIs within a 10-year period, prosecutors can try to convict you of a felony for what would ordinarily be a misdemeanor offense. Likewise, as you get more and more DUI convictions, you will face an escalation in penalties, such as the amount of money you have to pay in fines and fees, the length of your jail sentence, the extent and severity of your probation, the amount of time you have to spend in alcohol education classes, the duration of your California license suspension, and much more.

To respond aggressively and effectively to the difficult charges against you, look to the Burbank DUI criminal defense team at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers to equip you with a sound legal defense. Attorney Kraut is a highly respected and highly motivated ex-prosecutor who uses his Harvard Law School education and deep connections with the Los Angeles DUI community to get excellent results for his clients.

October 12, 2012

Nightmare on the 10: Bad News Bears Actress, Sammi Kane Kraft, Killed in a Los Angeles DUI Accident

by Michael Kraut

Fatal Los Angeles DUI accidents are always horrific, but they are somehow more so when they involve young people and children.

Last week, Sammi Kane Kraft, one of the stars of the 2005 remake of the movie Bad News Bears (with Billy Bob Thornton as the coach), died when a car she was in got rear ended by a truck on the 10 Freeway at around 1.30 in the morning. Kraft was a passenger in the Audi – her friend, 21-year-old, Molly Kate Adams was driving. Police say that Adams had been driving under the influence in Los Angeles at the time of the crash – she survived with moderate injuries.

Kraft and Adams had been returning from a night out checking out bands, when the tragedy struck.

October 1, 2012

Burbank DUI News Blotter: Three Year Jail Sentence for Women Who Caused Three Accidents in Just One Hour

by Michael Kraut

January 10th was not a good day for 23-year old Allison Smolinski. If you’ve been arrested for driving under the influence in Burbank or elsewhere in the Southland, chances are (hopefully) your event was less dramatic and devastating than Ms. Smolinski’s.

According to news reports, Smolinski piloted her 1997 Nissan Pathfinder into three different accidents within a single hour, climaxing with her smashing the SUV into a house in Wheaton, Illinois. People inside the home had been watching TV, and fortunately no one inside was hurt.

But Smolinski suffered a neck injury, and her passenger, a 27-year old male, sustained a major gash to his head. Prior to the explosive conclusion to the accident-spree, Smolinski allegedly smashed a car on Blanchard Street and banged into another car on I-290. Reports suggest that she might also be implicated in a rollover crash on another highway, I-355, where witnesses said that some driver had been “swerving all over the road.”

Smolinski has been in jail since January. Since she has already served several months in prison, and she only need to serve 85% of the total jail sentence per state law, she might be eligible to get parole in only two years or so.

Nevertheless, Smolinski’s situation is a dramatic example of how Burbank DUIs or DUIs anywhere in Southern California or the rest of the country can radically alter one’s future in ways that you could hardly predict. Imagine, for instance, if your family member got hurt or even killed in the rollover accident on I-355. Imagine if Ms. Smolinski had smashed into your home instead of the home on Wheaton Street.

The big question before you is: How can you pick up the pieces of your life and reputation after your Burbank DUI arrest?

This is not an easy question to answer.

In fact, the relevant laws, such as California Vehicle Code Section 23153(a) and 23153(b), which cover injury DUIs in Burbank, are pretty subtle. If you don’t have a respected and compassionate Burbank DUI criminal defense lawyer on your side, such as Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers here in the Valley, you may have a difficult time intuiting the right way to build a defense and fight your charges.

Don’t make a major strategic mistake – get in touch with a member of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers today to go over what you can do — and, even more key, what you shouldn’t do — to defend against your charges and start to pick up the pieces after your overwhelming experience.

September 26, 2012

Careful What You Say After Your Pasadena DUI: For Instance, Don’t Post “LOL! I Got a DUI!” on Facebook, Like 18-Year-Old Paula Asher Did

by Michael Kraut

Your recent Pasadena DUI arrest was no laughing matter…or at least it shouldn’t have been.

Unfortunately, recently arrested defendants have a peculiar way of getting themselves into lots more trouble by doing dumb things after an accident/arrest.

Consider the case of Kentucky teenager, Paula Asher, who wound up getting a two day jail sentence for posting about her recent DUI accident on Facebook. Her message was simple and flip: “my dumb a** got a DUI and hit a car LOL.”

Local police said Ms. Asher hit a car carrying four teenagers and then tried to drive away from the scene of the accident. No one was hurt, fortunately. If you injure someone while DUI in Pasadena, you could face felony charges – with a possible jail sentence of greater than one year – according to California Vehicle Code sections 23153(a) and 23153(b).

Ms. Asher’s “LOL” comment infuriated the parents of the four teenagers she hit, and they complained to the judge at a July 20 hearing. The judge ordered the teenager to take down her Facebook page, but Asher did not comply. As a result, the judge sentenced her to two days in jail for contempt. She eventually relented and apologized, but still, damage had been done.

Asher’s case powerfully illustrates two key points:

1) What you do after your Pasadena DUI stop and arrest matters.

You can still say or do stupid things that can make your situation far more uncomfortable, legally speaking.

2) Our reactions to traumatic events often surprise even ourselves.

Odds are that Ms. Asher was not literally “laughing out loud” after she hit that car. She likely was just trying to process a scary event in her own way – her words just came out wrong. Understand that you may say or do things that are not in line with your values, or that you would never do “in real life.”

It can be difficult to protect yourself and those you love from harsh consequences from a Pasadena DUI. To that end, connect with the team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers in Pasadena for experienced, grounded advice. Attorney Kraut is no stranger to DUI cases – he spent 14 years as a city prosecutor prior to becoming a criminal defense lawyer, so he knows how prosecutors tend to treat Pasadena DUI defendants like you. He can advise you carefully and methodically to help you get best results.