DUI Crime and Punishment

November 19, 2012

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

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 16, 2012

Lakers Ebanks Busted for Driving Under the Influence in Hollywood – More Woes for L.A. Basketball

by Michael Kraut

Devin Ebanks, a reserve forward for the L.A. Lakers, got busted for Hollywood DUI last week, according to CHP records.

The 23-year-old was stopped at Hollywood Boulevard and El Centro Avenue at around 2:30 in the morning, after an officer saw him commit a traffic violation. Ebanks was later released on $5,000 bail. Apparently, he had just been chilling out at a Roxbury night club to celebrate a woman’s birthday. (He told his followers on Twitter to join him at the club.)

Notwithstanding the arrest, Ebanks managed to play for the Lakers against the Golden State Warriors the very next day; he’s on contract with them for $1.4 million — an agreement he made back in August. Ebanks has only averaged an anemic 2.5 points in 2012, however, and he is still reeling from accusations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2011.

DUI in Hollywood Defenses

How should someone like Ebanks build and follow through on a Los Angeles DUI defense? You need to take a look at the charges in context. For instance:

• Does the defendant have any prior criminal convictions, especially for past DUIs?

The more DUI convictions you rack up, the more ‘legal ammunition’ prosecutors have to throw at you. For instance, if you get convicted for two+ Hollywood DUIs within 10 years, prosecutors can try to transform a misdemeanor DUI charge into a felony charge;
• What happened during and after the stop/accident/arrest?

Were you stopped and booked at a checkpoint? Did you get into an accident before getting arrested? Did police put you through a field sobriety test and arrest you after seeing you exhibit symptoms of Hollywood DUI? How were the DUI tests calibrated and conducted? Were there police errors? Were there any factors that could have thrown off your breathalyzer reading?

• Did complicating or quirky factors play a role?

For instance, did someone else crash into your car or cause the accident somehow? Did your vehicle malfunction and cause you to swerve off the road, thus prompting the police attention that led to your Hollywood DUI arrest?

An efficient, smart DUI defense strategy

Hollywood DUI criminal defense lawyer, Michael Kraut, of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers, and his team are standing by to help you understand your challenges and construct an intelligent response. Get in touch with Attorney Kraut today for a free consultation.

November 7, 2012

If Arrested for DUI in Glendale, Don’t Drive the Wrong Way Down a One Way Street and Then Knee the Arresting Officer in the Groin

by Michael Kraut

If you or a loved one or colleague recently got arrested for driving under the influence in Glendale, your situation is obviously intense, scary, and overwhelming. Unfortunately – as we’ve catalogued numerous times in this blog over the past several months – DUI suspects often engage in tremendously dangerous and dumb behavior during and after the arrest sequence that redounds to cripple their legal defensive options.

Ideally, your Glendale DUI arrest was significantly less drama filled than the arrest of 37-year-old Andrea Weber, a British woman arrested in the town of Beatrice on Highway 136 last Wednesday evening. According to The Daily Mail, a paper in the UK, Weber got busted for a variety of charges, such as felony child abuse, flight to avoid arrest, assault, and the UK equivalent of driving under the influence. (In England, they obviously have different DUI laws, but these in many ways run parallel to the standards for Glendale DUI, as defined by California Vehicle Code Section 23152(a) and 23152(b) – or, if you injure someone, the “upgraded” felony CVC laws – 23153(a) and 23153(b).)

The Daily Mail reports that police saw Weber driving on Highway 136; they followed her car as she zipped down a one way street. The police pursued and eventually got her to pull over in a middle school parking lot. The police found two kids in her back seat. As the police chatted with the children, Weber tried to get back into her car. When a officer tried to stop her, she kneed him in the groin. Unsurprisingly, she was then restrained and arrested and hit with a bevy of charges, some of which we described above.

The moral for you, if you’ve been charged with a Glendale DUI
As embarrassing as your arrest might have been, what’s past is past. You cannot undo the damage you’ve done to property, people, and your reputation. However, you don’t have to let the past be a prison, either. Everyone makes mistakes. Your ability to rebound from your bad decision making might even surprise you. In fact, many famous figures in both American and British history have rebounded from incidents like Glendale DUI to become powerful leaders, humanitarians, etc.

You can almost view this as a learning experience – hopefully one that won’t cost you too extravagantly and won’t lead to massive jail time – and hopefully one that did not involve serious injuries to anyone or loss of life.

Glendale DUI defense attorney Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers and his team are standing by to help you unpack your potential legal defense options and help you systematically defend against the charges. Attorney Kraut is a Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor. He’s a highly respected “maven” of Los Angeles DUI law, who is often called upon by the Los Angeles Times, KTLA News and New York Times to weigh in on important local DUI cases.

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 24, 2012

If Only Your Glendale DUI Punishment Would Be as Lenient: Pittsburgh Steelers’ Alameda Ta’amu Faces Two Games without Pay for DUI… and 14 Other Criminal Charges!

by Michael Kraut

After recently getting arrested for driving under the influence in Glendale – and possibly for other charges on top of that – you face a scary and, quite frankly, fraught legal future.

But the world is unfair.

Sometimes, people can commit truly egregious actions and receive little to no penalties. Consider, for instance, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Alameda Ta’amu, who was arrested early Sunday morning (i.e. Saturday night) for 15 separate criminal charges, including DUI, aggravated assault, misdemeanor accident causing damage, resisting arrest, felony fleeing police, and other assorted “bad stuff.”

A sports writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review suggested that the Steelers should have cut Ta’amu for the DUI incident. But the management decided just simply to dock his pay for two games. Mike Tomlan, the Steelers’ coach, told a local radio station “we deem his actions as a detrimental effort and we are treating it as such… the other ramifications and so forth of the situation, I am not at liberty to discuss at this time, but we thought it was very important that we act quickly in terms of addressing this and we can focus our efforts on the men that are planning and getting ready to meet this week’s challenge… Obviously, it’s a disturbing incident, one that we take seriously as members of this community.”

How does this all relates back to your Glendale DUI charge?

If you committed far fewer violations than Ta’amu allegedly committed, you can nevertheless wind up with a variety of unpleasant punishments, not limited to a long time behind bars; huge fees and fines; a tremendous spike in the amount of money you pay for car insurance, if you can still get a car insurance; a suspension of your driver’s license; intense probation; and damage to your reputation at work and your social life that may take months or even years to rebuild.

Your Glendale DUI situation may seem unfair – and you may feel a range of emotions including but not limited to depression, overwhelm, frustration, fury, and helplessness. The key to moving forward in your life is to start to understand what options might be available to you.

To that end, you may benefit a lot by getting in touch with attorney Michael Kraut of Glendale’s Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers. As a Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor of Glendale DUI crimes, Mr. Kraut understands on a firsthand basis how prosecutors will likely treat your case, and he can develop a DUI defense that’s most appropriate and that has the best chances of getting the best results.

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.

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.

September 21, 2012

Avoid Long Beach DUI by Using Your New iPhone 5 Safely

by Michael Kraut

No one wants to get charged with Long Beach DUI – or DUI anywhere in Southern California, for that matter. But if you’ve just recently bought a new iPhone 5, and you are drooling over the awesome features and making fun of your friends who still have “dinosaur” iPhones – it might behoove you to engage in a little prophylaxis.

As we talked about in our last blog post, people who text or otherwise manipulate their iPhone 5s while driving – particularly while driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs – are at a highly elevated risk for causing accidents and injuries. To prevent disaster — or to clean up your act after you’ve been charged with Los Angeles DUI — consider these tips for enjoying your iPhone 5 safely:

1. Shut off the phone – and the ringer – for short trips.

You need your iPhone 5 with you to provide an emergency communications channel for your family. But if you’re just hopping in the car for a short jaunt down the 405 — which means that you must be driving in middle of the night, since that’s the only time when the 405 is not log jammed with perpetual sig-alerts! — just turn off the phone. Don’t give yourself the temptation to check your phone or hear a call. Rip the band-aid off.

2. Track your “near misses.”

If you’ve become addicted to texting while driving or chatting on the phone while driving — and you know it’s time to stop before you get hit with a driving DUI while distracted in Long Beach charge — then start to notice/track your bad habits. Any time you catch yourself checking your phone — or even getting the urge to check your phone! — make a mental note, and then write in a journal afterwards about the experience. Get to understand yourself. Without appropriate self-knowledge – into your behaviors, habits, and yearnings – you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle. Pay attention to the triggers that drive you to make dangerous choices, and figure out how to deal with those triggers before you even get behind the wheel.

3. If you’ve gotten into a car crash while DUI in Long Beach or while texting, now is the time to begin to change your ways.

Yes, some damage might have been done – and you might have even caused injuries or damage. And, yes, you may inevitably have to face penalties, such as fines and fees, license suspension, insurance rate bumps, and even jail time. But you can choose to learn lessons from your experience and thus become a safer driver and a better Long Beach citizen.

You don’t have to go through this by yourself!

Connect with the team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers in Long Beach for powerful assistance. Attorney Michael Kraut is a former prosecutor and well respected Long Beach DUI criminal defense lawyer. Get in touch with him and his team to coordinate an appropriate strategy.