DUI Punishment

January 13, 2014

Not All Beverly Hills DUI Stories End Like This (Police Officer Saves DUI Man Who Drove Car into a Pond)

As someone who’s recently been arrested for DUI in Los Angeles, you probably have a negative opinion towards the police right now. As you reflect on the night (or day) of your arrest, you may ruminate about the punishments on deck for you, possibly including:

• Suspension of your California driver’s license;
• Forced installation of an Interlocking Ignition Device (IID) in your car or truck;
• Fines, fees, legal fees, and other sundry costs;
• Forced alcohol school;
• Restrictive probation terms;
• Jail time;
• Major spikes in your auto insurance premiums;
• Etc.

Consider, though, a tremendous story out of South Carolina. A Sumter police officer dove into a freezing pond to rescue a DUI driver, who had driven his vehicle into a pond. Officer Quentin Eley saw several cars gathered by the side of Second Millpond Bridge flashing their hazard lights. He approached and discovered that a car had driven into the water, and a person was trapped inside.

Officer Eley then made a daring decision to strip off his protective equipment and dive into the freezing pond, where he rescued 38-year-old Ioan Marcell Cimpean from what would have almost certainly been a drowning death. (Cimpean did not need any treatment at the hospital; authorities subsequently sent him to a local detention center on a DUI complaint. Cimpean secured his release, after paying a $2,267 bond.)

The Chief of the Sumter Police, Russell Roark, sung Officer Eley’s praises “he dove into the water without regard for his own safety… he was able to open the door and find Mr. Cimpean… for someone to take off their weapon and as much of their equipment as they can, and dive into freezing cold water to save somebody, it’s hard to put into words how proud I am actually of him and of the Sumter Police Department.”

This isn’t to say that the Beverly Hills police officer who arrested you for DUI was a hero. Police officers – like everyone else – can make egregious mistakes and even intentionally do things wrong to complicate DUI cases. However, it does illustrate the depth of humanity that many officers have… and the lengths to which good people will go to serve and protect.

If you’ve been struggling with Los Angeles DUI charges, what are your next steps? Will you go jail? What kind of defense can you put up? For help about answering those questions, connect with Harvard Law School educated, ex-Deputy District Attorney, Michael Kraut, today for a free consultation about your legal needs.

December 13, 2013

Los Angeles DUI Legal Update: National Transportation Safety Board wants BAC Cutoff Dropped from 0.08% to 0.05%

by Michael Kraut

As regular readers know, the Los Angeles DUI limit, as defined by California Vehicle Code Section 23152(b), is 0.08% BAC, as it is for most of the country.

However, that might all be about to change, thanks to a new initiative spearheaded by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). According to the NTSB Chairman, Deborah Hersman, “most Americans think we have solved the problem of impaired driving, but in fact, it’s still a national epidemic … on average, every hour one person is killed and 20 more are injured.” Investigators want to alter the recommendations to reduce alcohol impaired crashes, citing research that suggest that cognitive and visual impairment begins to decline at a BAC of 0.05%, rather than at 0.08%. The NTSB also says that America is behind the pack: over 100 countries worldwide have their BAC max set at 0.05% or lower.

It’s understandable why the NTSB wants to crack down and enforce more draconian Los Angeles DUI rules. But let there be no doubt – at least compared to the current paradigm, the measures the safety board wants to pass are, indeed, draconian. They include:

• Mandatory installation of interlock ignition devices (IIDs) for all offenders (currently, only one in four DUI offenders, nationwide, gets an IID);
• Stricter compliance with IID rules;
• The Board wants to boost the number of high visibility anti-DUI enforcement efforts, such as saturation patrols and sobriety check points;
• The NTSB wants police in Los Angeles and elsewhere to utilize passive alcohol sensors to look for alcohol in the ambient environment.

The NTSB and other concerned groups cite scary facts. Some statistics suggest that people who are under the influence of alcohol cause 60% of all wrong way accidents. Check out the report for yourself at http://go-usa-gov/Te: “reachingzero:actionstoreducealcoholimpaireddriving.”

The NTSB and the National Highway Traffic & Safety Administration (NHTSA) want to help states like California improve the effectiveness of their anti-DUI programs by finding and communicating best practices.

But not everyone is on board with the proposed changes to Los Angeles DUI limits.

The American Beverage Institute’s Managing Director, Sarah Longwell, lashed out against the NTSB’s recommendations, calling them “ludicrous.” She told reporters “moving from 0.08% to 0.05% would criminalize perfectly responsible behavior … further restriction of moderate consumption of alcohol by responsible adults prior to driving does nothing to stop hardcore drunk drivers from getting behind the wheel.”

Per government statistics, if you’re at or above 0.08% BAC, you’re 169% more likely to get into a crash than a sober driver would be. But if you’re at 0.05%, you’re just 38% more likely. That may make the NTSB’s case seem bulletproof. But consider that drivers who do not sleep for 24 hours are at least as impaired as Los Angeles DUI drivers.

By that logic, should we criminalize “insomniac driving” the same way that we criminalize DUI? If not, why not? After all, studies show that driving while exhausted is just as dangerous as driving DUI.

It’s easy to gin up moral outrage at DUI driving. Obviously, it’s a problem that any responsible Los Angeles DUI defense attorney wants to stamp out as well. We all want to drive on safer roads and protect ourselves, our friends, and loved ones. The question is: how do we do this? What laws and rules and societal norms should be adopted and enforced? Furthermore, HOW should those rules and norms be enforced?

If you’ve recently been arrested for driving under the influence in Los Angeles, these questions are far from theoretical for you. Fortunately, the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers in Los Angeles is standing by to provide sensible, accurate Los Angeles DUI defense help. Connect with us today for a free consultation with an experienced ex-prosecutor.

November 27, 2013

Los Angeles DUI Attorney Blog Analyses Ambitious New NTSB Guidelines

by Michael Kraut

In a recent blog post, this Los Angeles DUI defense blog summarized some of the dramatic anti-DUI recommendations proposed on May 14th by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The Board, together with groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), wants states like California to institute a rash of enforcement and policy measures, including:

• Mandatory interlock ignition installation for anyone convicted of DUI;
• More research on administrative license revocation (which lets police seize your license during an arrest);
• Most dramatically, lowering the DUI legal limit from 0.08% to 0.05%.

According to uncontested statistics, 30% of all fatalities on U.S. roads are tied to DUI driving. Three decades ago, 21,000 people annually lost their lives to DUI. That number has plummeted to around 10,000 deaths a year. That’s still 10,000 too many, but we’re certainly headed in the right direction.

President Obama has gotten behind strong anti-DUI laws. Since he committed to making U.S. roads safer, we’ve seen a substantial national decline in DUI accidents. But when taken in international context — over 100 other countries on the planet have DUI limits of 0.05% BAC or lower — our current laws and Los Angeles DUI limit of 0.08% seem downright lax by comparison.

Bill Maher sarcastically tweeted: “Nanny-staters, enough! Now they want to lower the legal blood alcohol limit from 0.08 to 0.05? I’m just glad George Jones isn’t alive to see it.”

But is there another side to this story?

Unsurprisingly, the American Beverage Institutes does not like the NTSB recommendations.

The group worries that lowering the BAC way down to 0.05% would criminalize perfectly responsible behavior. Depending on your height, genetics, metabolism, sex, and dozens of other factors, you could reach 0.05% after just one drink!

On the surface, the NTSB recommendations sound smart. They could very well save lots of lives, if they were implemented effectively. But would the recommendations create more criminals? Would they criminalize normal and safe behavior?

Furthermore, are we focusing too much on Los Angeles DUI behavior? Why not crack down on people who chat and text on their cellphones while driving — or who drive while extremely fatigued? After all, many studies (such as a famous one done at Virginia Tech several years ago) suggest that texting while driving is actually MORE dangerous than driving DUI in Los Angeles.

Should texters be given the same punishments as DUI drivers? Should they be forced to spend years behind bars, pay thousands of dollars in fines, go through “texting behind the wheel rehabilitation” programs, and so forth?

This blog obviously cannot resolve or even articulate all the challenging questions raised by the NTSB recommendations. That said, you’re probably less interested in this general discussion and more keen on getting practical help with your DUI arrest and defense.

Look at the team here at Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers for sensible, sensitive insight into your case. Call attorney Kraut and his team to help structure a DUI defense today.

August 30, 2013

Los Angeles DUI for Lamar Odom: Career Ender for Former Lakers and Clippers Star?

by Michael Kraut

At 3:56am this morning, Lamar Odom was stopped and arrested in the Valley for driving under the influence in Los Angeles. Odom spent over 31 hours in jail before he was released on a $14,000 bond. His court date has been set for September 27.

Police stopped the 6’10” forward — who played pro ball for 14 years for the L.A. Lakers and the Clippers — after officers saw his white Mercedes weaving all over the 101. Cops tried to pull him over, but he kept driving past Van Nuys and Woodman Ave. He finally stopped at Coldwater Canyon and submitted to field sobriety tests. (The “FSTs” can include balancing tests, like the stand on one leg test, as well as tests of mental acuity, like the count backwards from 100 by 3s test).

Per a CHP report, Odom didn’t exactly pass his exams with flying colors:

“[Odom showed] objective signs of intoxication and was unable to perform field sobriety tests as explained and demonstrated.”

Sometimes factors such as fatigue, nervousness and general lack of coordination can explain why people fail FSTs. As a pro athlete, Odom would have a hard case to make that “general lack of coordination” screwed him up on the FSTs. Of course, he HAS been struggling on the court recently. One anonymous NBA executive told the Los Angeles Times “Lamar can’t play anymore.” The once highly celebrated forward put up lousy numbers (for him) last year with the Clippers, “averag[ing] career lows in points (4.0), assists (1.7) and minutes (19.7).”

Since Odom refused to take a DUI breath test or DUI blood test, his CA driver’s license was automatically stripped from him for a full year. If he’s convicted of Los Angeles DUI, he’ll face more than just the “standard” punishments for misdemeanor DUI, which can include jail time, fees and fines, mandatory DUI alcohol classes, probation, and license suspension. He’ll also face possible disciplinary action from the NBA… assuming he’ll be signed as a free agent, which is not guaranteed.

Days before his Los Angeles DUI stop, Odom got into a fender bender on the 101 with Adolfo Flores, a sports reporter for the L.A. Times, in the car with him.

Several months ago, he got into a major fight with a paparazzo, who had been pestering Odom about rumors that the b-ball star had been cheating on his celebrity wife, Khloe Kardashian Odom. Enraged, Odom allegedly threw a bag of the photographer’s stuff onto Hollywood Blvd. (The D.A. didn’t have enough evidence to file charges in this case.)

In the wake of the arrest and other off-the-field shenanigans, Odom’s high profile pals from the basketball world weighed in with words (and tweets) of concerned support.

Magic Johnson, the most famous Laker of all time, tweeted: “I hope my man and former Laker, Lamar Odom is doing okay,” to which Phil Jackson tweeted” “Double ditto, LO.”

If you’ve recently been arrested for driving under the influence in Los Angeles, you probably need smart, effective legal representation to protect you against dire legal consequences (only some of which are described above.) Trust Harvard Law School educated attorney, Michael Kraut, to construct a powerful and savvy defense for you. Mr. Kraut is a former Deputy District attorney for Los Angeles (14+ years as a prosecutor) who has racked up a stellar record as a Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer. He’s also a regular DUI commentator on national news programs, such as Good Morning America.

July 12, 2013

Beverly Hills DUI Golf Cart Stories: Back in the News! (Unfortunately, This One Involved a Significant Injury…)

by Michael Kraut

Our Beverly Hills DUI blog has catalogued numerous instances of “golf cart DUI.”

At first blush, this crime sounds funny – like something out of a Caddyshack outtake. But it can actually be a quite dangerous situation.

Consider, for instance, a recent scary case out of Charlotte County, Florida, where deputies arrested Nickoles Chanza (22) for driving a golf cart while DUI and injuring somebody. Chanza and three friends were tooling around in a golf cart in the neighborhood of Harbour Heights on Sunnybrook Road, when the driver took a rapid left turn and onto Marine Terrace and tipped the cart. Nicholas McDaniel, 21, was not strapped in; he fell off and hit his head hard on the pavement.

Rescue workers took McDaniel to Lee Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. Chanza, for his part, was arrested and hit with a DUI with serious bodily injury charge as well as improper operation of golf cart.

He was jailed on a $25,000 bond.

Not such a “funny situation” in this context.

And that leads us to a bigger point, which is that Beverly Hills DUIs often are “a lot less bad” than they could be:
• If you were under the influence — and you got stopped at a checkpoint — be thankful that you didn’t hurt anyone or do serious damage.
• If you did hurt someone, be thankful that you didn’t kill someone.
• And if you did kill someone – hopefully you didn’t, but if you did – be thankful that you didn’t kill more people or kill yourself.

The fact is that driving under the influence is fundamentally a dangerous act.

Fortunately, you can make progress towards not only “cleaning up” after your Beverly Hills DUI arrest but also with respect to improving your civic awareness.

Get in touch with ex-prosecutor and highly effective Beverly Hills DUI defense attorney, Michael Kraut, today to discuss your charges and develop an effective action plan going forward.

June 28, 2013

Los Angeles DUI Celebrity News Update: Reese Witherspoon “So Sorry” About Disrespect to Officer After Her Husband’s DUI

by Michael Kraut

Stories about celebrity DUIs in Los Angeles typically focus on the drivers who wreak havoc, hurt people, or say or do dumb things at checkpoints.

But that’s not always the case.

Consider the fascinating DUI arrest of CAA agent, Jim Toth, husband of actress Reese Witherspoon. On April 19th (as this Los Angeles DUI blog and other sources reported), Toth got stopped in Atlanta on suspicion of DUI. Witherspoon, who was in the car, made ridiculous, panicked statements to the officer — including accusing him of not being a “real” police officer – comments which got her arrested for attempting to intervene and disorderly conduct.

She has since profusely apologized.

She recently appeared on Good Morning America to talk about her new independent film, Mud. Host George Stephanopoulos brought up the DUI — and Witherspoon’s less than elegant comments to the officer: “You’ve been under the spotlight your whole adult life, and this doesn’t sound like the Reese Witherspoon we’ve grown to know.” Witherspoon agreed and said “I have no idea what I was saying that night. I saw him arresting my husband, and I literally panicked. And I said all kinds of crazy things. I told him I was pregnant. I am not pregnant. I am so sorry.”

Witherspoon said she particularly regretted the disrespect, because she has police officers in her family, and she works with police every day: “I know better. It’s just unacceptable.”

She also discussed how difficult it was to talk to her young children about the acts. She told Stephanopoulos “we are taking responsibility and doing everything in our power to make it right. You just have to be honest with them [her kids].”

The Oscar winning actress’s weird post-DUI behavior is not atypical.

In fact, lot of people arrested for driving under the influence in Los Angeles behave in ways they never imaged they could behave. Some people leave the scene of accidents — obviously a big no-no. Others lash out at police officers or break down emotionally.

In fact, many of the stories that we discuss here on this Los Angeles DUI blog are “newsy” because they highlight this tendency that DUI drivers often exhibit — to exacerbate problems after the fact. It’s bad enough if you get stopped at a Los Angeles DUI checkpoint and blow a 0.16% BAC on the breath test (twice the limit, per California Vehicle Code Section 23152(b)). It’s worse if you complicate the situation by punching an officer, driving away from the scene of the crime, lying, or engaging in other fishy behavior.

So why do people do this? Why do they metaphorically “throw good money after bad” – i.e., put themselves at risk for enhanced/additional charges for no reason?

This is a Los Angeles DUI blog, not a psychology blog. But undoubtedly our primitive brain is (at least to a degree) responsible. When we see threats in nature (be they saber-tooth tigers or police cars with flashing red lights), we engage in defensive behaviors: freeze, flight, or fight.

• The “freeze” behavior corresponds to a driver’s failing to respond to officer questions.
• The “flight” response corresponds to hit and runs or attempts to flee Los Angeles DUI checkpoints.
• The “fight” behavior corresponds to the lashing out – ranging from Witherspoon’s verbal misbehavior in Atlanta to other suspects’ attempts to fight with officers.

To unpack what’s happened to you and figure out the best way forward, connect with a Los Angeles DUI defense attorney at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers. Mr. Kraut is an experienced and battle-tested lawyer who worked work many years as prosecutor (Senior Deputy District Attorney for LA).

June 19, 2013

How Much Damage Did Your Beverly Hills DUI Cause? This Guy’s Cost $60 Million!

by Michael Kraut

Even a first time Beverly Hills DUI misdemeanor conviction can lead to substantial jail time, hundreds of dollars in fees, required installation of an IID device in your vehicle, and mandatory alcohol classes.

Your insurance rates may also go up precipitously. (Imagine if you had to pay $2,000 or $3,000 or more every year in car insurance… just because of your DUI!)

These costs don’t even touch on the harder to measure indirect costs, such as a job loss, trouble with your marriage or key relationships, and so forth.

But even if your Beverly Hills DUI accident caused a LOT of damage — for instance, maybe you fishtailed off Wilshire and smashed into the facade of the Beverly Hills Hotel — what you did wouldn’t hold a candle to what John Cota did.

On November 7, 2007, Cota, a 60-year-old ship captain, plowed a tanker containing 53,000 gallons of oil into a bridge’s support tower… while DUI and/or on drugs. The accident drenched the San Francisco Bay in oil, destroyed tons of wildlife (literally), and tarnished beaches for miles around. Officials later said the crash caused the deaths of 2,000 birds and cost the local government $60 million to clean up.

Cota took a test two hours after the accident. Police failed to find intoxicating substances in his blood, although recent evidence suggests that he had been taking a variety of medications for migraines, anxiety, and pain. These meds easily could have interacted to interfere with his driving/boating performance. Coast Guard officials later suggested that Cota’s prescription medications likely impaired his judgment. (If you or someone you know has been arrested for drug DUI in Beverly Hills, the team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers can help.)

Eight years prior, Cota was booked on DUI charges. His struggle with alcohol and his history of taking strong medications are both well documented.

Picking Up the Pieces After Your Beverly Hills DUI: What Will YOUR Punishment Be?

In the abstract, it’s practically impossible to even “ballpark” what your Beverly Hills DUI punishments might be. Factors that the justice system will take into consideration include:

• Your previous DUI history (if you have any);
• The severity of the crash;
• Your BAC level;
• Whether you committed other crimes while DUI, such as hit and run;
• Whether you got overly aggressive with police officers;
• Whether the officers calibrated and conducted your BAC and blood alcohol tests correctly and Constitutionally.

No legal team can guarantee results, but your choice of Beverly Hills DUI lawyer can matter – substantially. Connect with a former prosecutor and highly educated Beverly Hills DUI attorney, Michael Kraut, for insight into your situation and help moving beyond your humiliating and scary experience.

May 27, 2013

Beverly Hills DUI Quiz, Part II — 11 More Cases (Made up or Real)?

by Michael Kraut

Hopefully, you’ve taken our first Beverly Hills DUI “true or false” quiz. If not, skip back to the previous post to do so. Today, we’re going to test your knowledge of DUI trivia yet again by giving you another 11 scenarios and letting you guess which ones are true and which are false.

1. Police have arrested people for driving under the influence:

• on motor scooters (driving at 6 miles per hour);
• on pink electrical Barbie cars (driving 3 miles per hour);
• on skateboards;
• on lawnmowers;
• on adult tricycles;
• and on tiny pocket bikes!

2. After consuming a dozen beers, an Amish man “got behind the wheel” of a horse-drawn buggy and promptly got arrested for driving while intoxicated. He apologized, calling himself a “bad amish.”

3. During a party at Kappa Delta Sorority in Missouri, a 20-year-old woman consumed 20 “non-alcoholic” beers for her birthday and then got behind the wheel of a car. She was pulled over by police and tested to have a BAC of 0.06% — a BAC spike driven entirely by the small amounts of alcohol in the supposedly “non-alcoholic” beverages! (For reference, the legal limit for Beverly Hills DUI is 0.08% BAC, per CVC 23152.)

4. Out in Indiana, a man who was severely under the influence of alcohol hijacked a plane to show off to his girlfriend. He was so out of it that he missed the runway and had to make an emergency landing in a field of soybeans. Unsurprisingly, he was arrested.

5. One of the earliest Barnum & Bailey Circus attractions featured a stuntman, whose act involved drinking a flaming bottle of rum while riding a lion bareback. During one show, the stuntman caught the lion’s mane on fire, prompting the big cat to throw him off its back, killing him in front of a packed house. Curious fact: The stuntman was a former police officer!

6. Like something out of “A Fish Called Wanda,” a man hopped into a steamroller while significantly under the influence of alcohol. He then proceeded to ram the steamroller into a nearby car, in an attempt to flatten it. Police stopped him and arrested him for DUI.

7. The highest blood alcohol concentration for anyone ever stopped for a DUI in Southern California (or elsewhere) was 1.67% BAC. The woman lapsed into coma, but she miraculously recovered from a BAC level more than three times what’s normally considered a lethal BAC level.

8. Out in Spain, a disabled man who had a yen to visit a local house of prostitution drove his mechanical bed down the streets, while under the influence. Police stopped and arrested him.

9. If you bring any amount of alcohol into the state of Utah — unless you are a licensed dealer of said alcohol — you can be arrested and charged with a crime.

10. The winner of the 1994 Iditarod Dog Sled Race in Alaska had his championship crown stripped, when race officials discovered that he had been drinking whisky while driving his dogs through the finish line.

11. In Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin’s KGB ran a secret program that encouraged agents to drink vodka and then drive around the streets of big cities, like Moscow and Leningrad, to terrify the populace and make people crave the “law and order” of the regime.

Hopefully you enjoyed these DUI curiosities. If you need assistance dealing with a recent Beverly Hills DUI charge, please connect with the experienced, highly capable team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers. Mr. Kraut is a former Senior Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles (a high level prosecutor) who worked in that capacity 14 plus years. He and his team can help you construct a vigorous defense.

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March 18, 2013

Glendale DUI News Update — South Florida’s “Party Princess” Hit With DUI Manslaughter Charge in Death of Chef

by Michael Kraut

Hopefully your Glendale DUI accident and/or arrest was not nearly as horrendous as was 20-year-old Karlie Tomica’s.

The South Beach, Florida bartender recently pled not guilty to DUI manslaughter charges stemming from the hit-and-run death of Stefano Riccioletti, a chef at the local Shore Club. The Circuit Judge in the case set bail for the so-called “Party Princess” (her Twitter handle) at $77,000 because of the brutal facts about the fatal crash.

Local police from Miami Beach allege that Tomica sped into Riccioletti, while he was walking to work early morning January 28. The following description is pretty graphic, so feel free to skip to the subsequent paragraph if you don’t want to have to read these difficult words: “the impact was so violent that her car was severely damaged, covered in skull fragments and brain matter… A nearby street barricade was painted in blood… Tomica refused to stop, and started driving several miles to her 17th floor condo, even as a good Samaritan followed and tried to get her to stop.”

Ultimately, the police caught up with her and took her to the station, where they gave her a toxicology test. They found that she had a staggeringly high BAC of 0.225%. For you record keepers, that’s nearly three times the legal limit for driving under the influence in Glendale. Meanwhile, they also found she had stolen another woman’s driver’s license (likely to use to buy the alcohol).

It’s really a very sad situation. Not only will this woman now face a DUI manslaughter charge, but she will also face many ancillary charges. It goes to show that DUI drivers often engage in not just one but multiple acts of incompetence or bad decision making — creating a kind of a “bad move” snowball effect.

It would have been bad enough if she just hit and killed the chef while DUI. But she insisted on driving home after the fact, so now she will be saddled with an additional hit-and-run charge.

This “making a bad situation worse” behavior does NOT indicate a fundamental lack of moral fortitude. It just suggests that one bad decision can trigger multiple bad decisions. The famous rock group, Pink Floyd, put it best in their song “A Momentary Lapse of Reason”: “one slip, and down the hole you fall. It seems to take no time at all. A momentary lapse of reason that binds a life to life. It’s a small regret, and we won’t forget, there’ll be no sleep in here tonight.”

Of course, after your momentary slip (or slips) of reason, you still need and deserve a solid defense. Connect with the Glendale DUI defense lawyer Michael Kraut now for a free consultation. Attorney Kraut is a Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor who has plenty of experience and tremendous compassion for DUI defendants.

March 6, 2013

How Playing Tetris Too Much is (Kinda Sorta) Like Getting into a DUI Crash in Los Angeles

by Michael Kraut

If you’ve recently been in a DUI crash in Los Angeles, the memories of the disaster have likely seared their way into your brain.

When you close your eyes at night, you may re-imagine your DUI arrest in L.A. in vivid detail, particularly if you got seriously hurt or hurt someone else.

Those unpleasant memories can be almost impossible to dislodge by conscious effort.

Not to trivialize your experience in any way, but at least to an extent, what’s happening in your brain is similar to what happens in the brains of people who play video games, like Tetris, too long.

If you’ve ever played Tetris, you probably know how addictive it can be. As you learn intuitively how the shapes go together and how to make lines, you incrementally develop your skills and go faster and get more creative with your strategies.

The game is simple and intuitive, and it leads to a very satisfying “learning curve.”

When you engage in the repetitive behavior, your brain begins to focus on tetris, even when you are not consciously playing. This is why, long after you finish, you continue “playing” in your mind.

This phenomenon occurs not just after repetitive activities but also after INTENSE activities. The intensity of the Los Angeles DUI cemented a memory in your mind, much as the repetition of playing Tetris cements that memory of game-playing in the mind.

Of course, this is a dramatic oversimplification. The processes by which we make memories, retain and recall memories, and have emotional reactions that flow from them are incredibly complex and not even fully understood by the world’s top neurologists.

This isn’t to say that you will be forever haunted by images of your Los Angeles DUI accident.

Your first step towards making some sense of the chaos is to reach out and get reputable help.

The team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers is well known for helping DUI defendants like you develop strategic and workable defense strategies. Attorney Kraut understands the system on a very deep level — not just intellectually but also pragmatically. He served as a prosecutor for the City of Los Angeles for nearly 14 years. He has many great relationships, not only with defense attorneys and clients but also with prosecutors and police and judges.