DUI Category Archives — Page 13 of 24 — Los Angeles DUI Attorney Blog Published by Los Angeles & Southern California Criminal & DUI Defense Attorney Michael Kraut

July 9, 2012

Detroit Lions’ Aaron Berry Tagged for DUI – Lessons for Pasadena DUI Defendants

Last week, 24-year-old Aaron Berry, a cornerback for the Detroit Lions, was arrested for DUI near the University of Pittsburgh after smashing into multiple parked cars. If you’re a defendant in a Pasadena DUI case – or you’re a friend or a family member of a soon-to-be-defendant – what lessons can we unpack from this NFLer’s situation?

First, a summary of what happened.

According to local news sources, Berry plowed his vehicle into multiple parked cars and then tried to flee the scene. Police caught up with him just a short distance away and arrested him. No one was injured. Berry hit with a DUI and charges for failure to stop and render assistance.

In the wake of the crash, Berry issued an apology through his agent, saying “This is not the example I want to set for young people, and it’s certainly not what my team and coaches expect from me. I promise to do everything in my power to make sure this never happens again.”

What are some of the implications of Berry’s arrest – implications that might be practical for you, if you’ve been busted for DUI in Pasadena or elsewhere in the Southland?

1. Your situation is probably not that unusual.

As this blog and other news sources have covered, NFL players are getting arrested in droves for driving under the influence recently – practically weekly. This problem is widely acknowledged by sports experts. But the point is that Berry’s situation is not without precedent – and your arrest is likewise almost certainly not without precedent.

2. Managing a charge of DUI in Pasadena is a process; there is no “magic pill.”

Berry’s situation is probably complicated – in addition to the apology he has made, he likely will have to jump through hoops to rehabilitate his professional and personal image. Likewise, even the most effective Pasadena DUI criminal defense attorney in the world cannot wave a magic wand and make everything right again in your world instantly. That said…
3. A great attorney can make an enormous difference.

The team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers in Pasadena (790 East Colorado Boulevard, 9th floor, Pasadena, California 91101 Phone: (626) 345-1899) can help you identify best practices, construct a tight and battle-ready defense strategy for you, and connect you with other resources to help you get things together.

June 15, 2012

The Fallout of Justin Blackmon’s DUI: Urgent Lessons, If You’ve Been Booked for Burbank DUI

by Michael Kraut

Getting arrested for DUI in Burbank (or anywhere else in California) can feel terrible.

But the legal and logistical “hangover” from the arrest can often feel worse. The sense of uncertainty — the diverse and severe threats hanging over your head — can make you wish that Marty McFly’s “flux capacitor” existed in real life, so you could go back in time and prevent your DUI from ever happening.

It’s possible that ex-Oklahoma State football player, Justin Blackmon, feels this way, too.

Last weekend, Blackmon — who had just been drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars — got busted for driving under the influence in Stillwater, Oklahoma, after police saw him driving nearly twice the speed limit and swerving into oncoming cars. The officer who pulled Blackmon over reported noticing an odor of alcohol. He said that Blackmon had watery, red eyes, and that he admitted to consuming alcohol prior to driving. If you were recently put through the paces of a Burbank DUI field sobriety test, you probably could relate to the helplessness he likely felt.

After getting arrested, Blackmon blew a staggering 0.24% BAC on a breathalyzer test – that’s thrice the limit for Southern California DUI, as defined by California Vehicle Code Section 23152(b). What’s worse, Blackmon reportedly argued with the police. Aside from his legal trouble, he now faces potential career trouble. Sports reports suggested that the Jaguars may now present with him with a lowball offer during his contract negotiations. An official with the Jaguars told a sports network that “[Blackmon is] going to have to fess up, take ownership of the situation, and lay out a course for dealing with this thing “head on” or potentially risk serious trouble with the Jags.”

In the wake of his misdemeanor DUI arrest, he was also asked to meet with the GM and head coach of the team.

The potential punishments for your Burbank DUI conviction – even if you did not aggravate the DUI by harassing an officer, hitting someone, hurting someone, or doing something else flagrant and, in retrospect, dumb – can be terrifying and scary. It’s not just that you can face jail time, even if this is your first DUI, and you did nothing else wrong.

It’s that the long-term consequences for your license, your freedom, your insurance rates, your reputation, and your career prospects can dog you for years.

While a Burbank criminal defense DUI attorney at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers (2600 West Olive Avenue, 5th Floor, Burbank, California 91505 Phone: (818) 563-9810) obviously cannot promise solutions, Attorney Kraut has a reputation for being able to deliver fantastic, aggressive, and empathetic service. As a former Deputy District Attorney (city prosecutor) and regular contributor to well-known media, like the Los Angeles Times, Fox News, KTLA News – Attorney Kraut has the knowledge and understanding to help you put up the stiffest possible defense.

April 16, 2012

Life After a DUI near USC or UCLA

by Michael Kraut

Perhaps you were stopped for driving under the influence near UCLA on Westwood Boulevard after munching on one-too-many late night warm Diddy Reese cookies and sipping on beers with friends. Or maybe you were stopped on Vermont near USC for speeding and reckless driving after a frat house party. In any event, the lapse of judgment or reason has created massive havoc in your life. How might your UCLA or USC DUI arrest – and possible conviction – impact not only your freedom and ability to drive but also your academic and professional future?

The college years (and graduate school years) are times of experimentation. After being confined by your parents’ rules for so long, you can be tempted to “push the envelope” and test the limits of your school and society. Some experimentation is natural – and even healthy. Some rules were, indeed, made to be broken. But not rules like California Vehicle Code Section 23152 (a) or 23152 (b) – the laws that cover misdemeanor Los Angeles DUI.

If you are convicted of violating these CVC codes, penalties can come at you from many directions:

* You can lose your license for up to a year.
* You can be compelled to attend alcohol school and adhere to strict probation terms.
* You may have to spend substantial time behind bars.
* You may be compelled to install something called an interlock ignition device (IID) in your vehicle – this device prevents you from driving your car unless you can blow a “sober breath” into a breathalyzer like device.
* You may also have to pay court costs and fines and fees.

And those are just the direct costs of a Los Angeles DUI!

The indirect costs are often both more subtle and more damaging:

* For instance, your insurance rates can go up – costing you thousands of dollars over the next few years.
* If you get arrested again for DUI or any other crime, your future penalties can be spiked because of a past conviction.
* You could get into academic trouble.
* Even if UCLA or USC does not explicitly punish you, your “DUI drama” may distract you from your school work, impair your ability to attend classes or attend the job that you need to pay for school, and so forth.

The silver lining to this very dark cloud is that an experienced UCLA or USC DUI attorney can profoundly help you – either by getting the charges dismissed altogether or by getting them pled down to lesser offenses. A good attorney can also help provide guidance and resources to help you understand what went wrong – what were the underlying forces that drove you to break the law or get in trouble with the police.

To achieve your best scenario outcome, you may need to act with some haste and retain a top quality Los Angeles DUI attorney. Consider working with the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers’s own Michael Kraut – a widely recognized and celebrated Los Angeles DUI criminal defense attorney who has been featured on CBS, KTLA News, FOX News, and other sources. Mr. Kraut attended Harvard Law School and worked for years as a prosecutor. He can help you strategize to formulate the most appropriate defense. Call now: Local: (323) 464-6453 Toll Free: (888) 334-6344. The KLG is located at 6255 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 1520, Los Angeles, California 90028.

April 11, 2012

How to Make Your Long Beach DUI Situation Much, Much Worse – Just Do What This Guy Did…

by Michael Kraut

You or a friend or fellow student recently got arrested for DUI in Long Beach or DUI elsewhere in LA (like UCLA or USC). Frankly speaking, you’re pretty scared. You don’t want to go to jail. You’re nervous about the potential of losing your license, having to a transit through weeks or months of alcohol school and probation, and paying massive court fines and fees… when you can barely pay your student loans. While a Los Angeles DUI attorney can help you deal with your legal woes, you also might benefit from some introspection – from looking inside to determine what, if anything, caused you to get in trouble with the law.

Perhaps your Long Beach DUI arrest was a fluke – maybe you weren’t actually DUI and the breathalyzer malfunctioned. Or maybe you were right on the bubble — your arrest was a product of poor planning and slightly “off” judgment. But if you have a tendency to drive under the influence in Long Beach or elsewhere, you need to investigate your habits and beliefs now before they become even greater problems.

To take an extreme counter-example, consider the case of 48-year-old Bradley Noble, who was pulled over in Montana last Wednesday for his eighth DUI charge.

His sentence? 10 years behind bars.

He racked up his last DUI 10 years ago — back in January 2002 — and received a 20-year jail sentence with 5-years suspended. Two and a half years later, he was granted parole. But he was sent back to prison in June 2006 due to parole violations. Finally, near the end of 2006, Noble got released. But his troubles did not stop there. He was caught possessing alcohol on two occasions, in violation of his probationary arrangement. He was also caught driving a car four times since 2006 – also in violation of his restrictions. Sadly, the story ended with Noble’s alleged DUI recidivism. He got hit with a jail sentence of 15 years in prison with five suspended, and he must complete a pre-release program called the WATCH program before he can get parole.

You don’t want to rack up multiple Long Beach DUI convictions for obvious reasons. To that end, it’s helpful (and scary) to know what will happen if you become a convicted recidivist (get convicted more than one time). If you rack up three or more DUIs within a decade, prosecutors can escalate your charges and force you to serve much long jail sentences and pay higher fees and fines. A third Long Beach DUI within 10 years, for instance, can be ratcheted up from a misdemeanor to a felony – meaning you could serve a year or longer jail sentence.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for your defense – or for tackling the larger psychological, financial, and emotional problems that might have driven you to violate the law in the first place. That being said, a stellar, highly reputable attorney at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers (444 West Ocean, Suite 800 Long Beach, California 90802 Phone: (562) 531-7454) in Long Beach can help you make massive progress. Attorney Kraut served as a city prosecutor (Senior District Attorney for Los Angeles for 14-plus years) before switching over to become Long Beach DUI defense attorney.

April 4, 2012

Busted for DUI in UCLA or USC? The Consequences May Not Be Pretty…

by Michael Kraut

Getting arrested for DUI in UCLA or USC – or any other local Log Angeles school – can be an exquisitely unpleasant experience, whether you are a student or not. As any Los Angeles DUI attorney will tell you, if you’re convicted for a standard misdemeanor DUI — a violation of California Vehicle Code Section 23152(a), for instance — your possible penalties could pack a wallop: mandatory jail time, mandatory alcohol school, mandatory installation of an IID device in your car, strict probation, one year driver’s license suspension, heaping fees and court costs, long-term spikes on your insurance rates, and a big fat logistical headache. And that’s if you are an adult who didn’t hurt anyone while driving DUI and you had no prior criminal record!

If you’re underage and you get convicted for DUI near UCLA as well as possession of a fraudulent ID, your legal crisis can be escalated. And if you caused property damage or injuries (even minor ones) to other drivers, passengers, or pedestrians… let’s just say the punishments could be life-changing. An injury DUI in Los Angeles, for instance, might be charged per California Vehicle Code Section 23153 instead of CVC 23152. That may not be seen like a big switch. But the change empowers prosecutors to charge what would normally be a misdemeanor DUI as a felony. This means that, if you are convicted, you could face more than a year behind bars – and that’s for starters.

A UCLA DUI can also, unsurprisingly, cause you horrific academic fallout. If you’re on an athletic team, you could be kicked off the squad. You could also get into serious trouble with the school itself, depending on the nature of your crime. And even if you manage to sort everything out correctly, it wasn’t like you had “nothing to do” before the DUI. You could face time and money consuming headaches for weeks or months or even years to come. For instance, UCLA is pretty “get aroundable” for pedestrians. But what if you have a job or internship off campus? You used to drive to the job, but now what will you do? Will you take the bus? What if the bus doesn’t go to where you want to go? These questions and hundreds more like them can plague you and cause you uncertainty, stress, and anxiety.

Fortunately, the team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers (6255 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 1520, Los Angeles, California 90028) can help you understand what you are up against and deal resourcefully and strategically with the charges. Attorney Michael Kraut is a Harvard Law School educated former prosecutor (he spent 14 plus years as one of the city’s top district attorneys). He has been a featured Los Angeles DUI expert for KTLA News, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.

March 29, 2012

Whitney Houston’s Ex, Bobby Brown, Hit with DUI in Los Angeles Charges

by Michael Kraut

Just weeks after his ex-wife, Whitney Houston, drowned on the eve of the Grammy’s, singer Bobby Brown got stopped and arrested for driving under the influence in Los Angeles. The R&B singer (and founder of New Edition) was charged with driving on a suspended license as well as two Los Angeles DUI counts, including allegations that he exceeded the legal limit of 0.08% BAC, as defined by California Vehicle Code Section 23152(b).

The California Highway Patrol stopped Brown last Monday, when he was seen chatting on a cell phone. The CHP officer thought Brown looked intoxicated and forced the R&B legend to submit to a field sobriety test, which he apparently failed. Brown is due back in court on April 16. He faces up to half a year in jail if he’s convicted of all his charges. As any Los Angeles DUI attorney will tell you, Brown has a lot of work cut out for him if he wants to fight the charges and get his life back on track.

Unsurprisingly, the celebrity news buffs and commentators in the blogosphere have gone hog-wild discussing the psychological reasons why Brown might have driven DUI. His relationship with Houston was at once notorious and epic, and their mutual substance abuse problems have been catalogued and retold endlessly.

But rather than delve into celebrity dirty laundry, let’s reflect a bit about what we can learn from Brown’s charges and how to apply those lessons in our own lives.

1. Emotional stress can lead us to make poor driving decisions.

Obviously, it’s impossible to tell what, if any, role Houston’s death played in Brown’s DUI. But it’s reasonable to assume that it did play some role. When we go through periods of stress, disorientation, overwhelm, or panic in our lives, we may find it easy to reach out to alcohol, narcotics, or prescription drugs to relieve the pain. This is not necessarily the smartest or safest way to deal with emotional baggage, but it’s a fact of life for many people, so let’s just recognize that this happens.

2. Bad driving decisions tend to go together – and create disasters that are worse than the sum of their parts.

According to California Highway Patrol reports, Brown was talking on the cell phone without a hands free headset – a big no-no, an illegal act, in and of itself. He had also been driving on a suspended license. So he was already on thin ice. And then he drove (allegedly) DUI. All these various problems no doubt will complicate his Los Angeles DUI defense.

3. What you do after your DUI arrest matters a great deal.

Your choice of a Los Angeles DUI criminal defense attorney, for instance, can have huge ramifications for your ability to win freedom, reduce/eliminate your charges, and bring order back into your chaotic life. Mr. Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers is a known and respected former prosecutor (an Harvard Law School educated attorney) who focuses extensively on DUI cases. Whether you are a UCLA or USC student who was recently stopped for DUI at a checkpoint or a doctor facing a charge like Medicare fraud, Mr. Kraut can explain your options and help you develop a strategy.

March 28, 2012

What if Driving While Texting was Punished the Same Way We Punish Driving Under the Influence in Pasadena?

by Michael Kraut

Driving under the influence in Pasadena (or anywhere else on earth, for that matter) is a dangerous and reckless act. Countless studies show that drivers who are DUI are less capable of responding to surprises on the road, more likely to get into injury accidents and cause property damage, and so forth.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you do not need yet another lesson from a Los Angeles DUI attorney about why this behavior should not be done.

But here’s something interesting! We don’t recognize that other acts that we do behind the wheel may be as dangerous – or perhaps even more dangerous – than DUI. Take texting while driving, for instance. Now, you may be familiar with reports like the famous Virginia Tech study from a few years ago that found that truck drivers who drove while text messaging were something like 20 times more likely than non-texting drivers to get into injury accidents. That’s 20 with a “2” and a “0.” Other studies from reputable institutions (you can Google around if you’re really curious) have basically come to the conclusion: driving while texting is as dangerous as driving under the influence in Pasadena if not significantly more so.

That being said, most people have an extremely difficult time really “grokking” this concept. The legal system certainly has not caught up with the science. Yes, driving while texting in California is illegal, and you can get punished. But compare the punishments for driving while texting with the punishments for DUI in Pasadena: mandatory jail time, interlock ignition device installed in your car, massive fines and fees and other costs, huge insurance inconveniences, loss of reputation, mandatory alcohol school, and so forth and so on.

Imagine if you had even close to similar punishments for driving while texting. Try telling a teenager who text messages 60 times a day that she can’t text for the next six months. See what happens. Or imagine if a driver caught text messaging had to spend 8 weeks at a class about the dangers of texting while driving.

This is not to argue that we should necessarily be more lenient on people who break laws like California Vehicle Code Sections 23152(a) and 23152(b) but rather that things should be more even handed. If driving while texting is statistically the equivalent (or worse) of driving while DUI, shouldn’t we apply our moral standards appropriately?

Having said all that, if you’ve already been tagged for a DUI, you are probably less concerned with fixing the strange artifacts of our justice system than you are with avoiding jail time, keeping your license, and cleaning up after the stop and arrest.

To that end, talk to Pasadena DUI criminal defense attorney Michael Kraut. As a former prosecutor who established the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers (790 East Colorado Boulevard, 9th floor, Pasadena, California 91101 Phone: (626) 345-1899 ) after spending 14 years on “the other side,” Attorney Kraut boasts a terrific reputation not just among clients but among judges and his legal peers. He regularly provides expert commentary for news media like KTLA, the New York Times, Fox News, and the Los Angeles Times.

March 2, 2012

The Root Cause of Your Pasadena DUI Arrest?

by Michael Kraut

You recently got stopped for driving under the influence in Pasadena. Whether you got tagged at a checkpoint or pulled over on the 5 or 210, the arrest has thrown your life into chaos. It wasn’t as if your life was “perfectly in order” before. But now, you’re faced with challenges like a potential driver license suspension, jail time, huge court costs and other fees, spiked insurance rates, trouble at work, and the pain and embarrassment of having to explain what happened to your friends, colleagues, and family.

As any experienced Los Angeles DUI lawyer will tell you, putting out all these fires can be a complex and emotionally difficult business. However, in your rush to put out the fires, you may forget to do the deep, penetrating analysis that you need to do to prevent additional troubles, including future Pasadena DUI arrests.

You probably don’t need to be reminded that Pasadena DUI “recidivists” get punished more than first timers do. Each time you get rearrested, you face stricter punishments with respect to license suspension, alcohol school, fines and fees, jail time, and beyond. To get at the root cause of what created your situation, you need to be honest and objective – you need to be able to think and do some introspection.

February 17, 2012

DUI in Glendale Sports News Blotter: Broncos’ Knowshon Moreno Busted for DUI in his Bentley

by Michael Kraut

The Super Bowl may be over (sorry, Pats fans), but the Glendale DUI sports news keeps pumping out interesting stories. The Associated Press reports that Knowshon Moreno, a running back for the Denver Broncos, was pulled over in South Denver last week on charges that he had been speeding in a construction zone (going 70 miles per hour when the speed limit was 45 mph) and driving under the influence of alcohol.

Not great news for Moreno or the Broncos. Moreno is on the roster bubble—he is recovering from a torn ACL he suffered last year—and the Broncos’ stern written response may not augur well for his prospects next year (assuming he is well enough to play).

You might be wondering: What does Moreno’s relatively pedestrian arrest mean, if you’ve been charged with the driving under the influence in Glendale?

Good question.

We can extract several lessons from what happened to him:

1. No one is immune from Glendale DUI charges.

In some sense, it’s helpful to read stories about sports figures, politicos, legislators, and even police officers who have been tagged for crimes like driving under the influence. As a Los Angeles DUI lawyer will tell you, many defendants feel alone or isolated—full of self-blame and self-judgment. When you see just how many different people from diverse backgrounds get charged with this crime, you at least feel slightly less alone.

2. DUI is often psychologically driven.

No one can know what was going inside Moreno’s head before and after he got caught. But consider that he had torn his ACL and had been out for the season; he was on the so-called “roster bubble”; and he was still recovering from one of the Broncos’ most watched seasons in years (thanks to the heroics of QB Tim Tebow). All that pressure undoubtedly played some role in Moreno’s decision-making process. As a good Los Angeles DUI attorney will tell you, your underlying psychology can have an unbelievably profound influence on your capacity to build and execute a sound defense.

3. Your Glendale DUI arrest is just the beginning.

Your life is not over. In fact, you have a tremendous ability to influence your future. The bad choices you made may have profoundly negative effects: You could wind up serving significant jail time, suffer a long license suspension, be compelled to attend mandatory alcohol classes, be forced to install an interlock ignition device in your vehicle, and so on.

For instance, if you try to represent yourself or if you choose a poor Los Angeles DUI lawyer to represent you, your case could wind up compromised. On the other hand, by connecting with a Glendale DUI criminal defense attorney at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers (121 W Lexington Dr, Glendale, CA 91203 Phone: (818) 507-9123), you might be able to begin on the road not just to saving your license and staying out of jail, but also to dealing with the underlying problems that led you to this brush with the law in the first place.

Attorney Kraut understands what defendants need. He also understands what prosecutors need and how they operate because he was one—he served as a Senior Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles for nearly a decade and a half. He is widely recognized as one of the top authorities of Los Angeles DUI law. Attorney Kraut is widely sought after as a trusted commentator on Los Angeles DUI news by likes of the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Fox News, KTLA, etc.

February 15, 2012

Pasadena DUI Football News: Stanford Linebacker’s Arrest Throws His NFL Prospects into Doubt

by Michael Kraut

A Pasadena DUI arrest can be a devastating blow not just to your freedom and your pocket book, but also to your potential career advancement.

Witness a sad and frustrating story reported in the Stanford Daily last week: College linebacker Shayne Skov got stopped and arrested Sunday morning for driving under the influence and taken to a San Jose jail.

Skov had been one of Stanford’s top players—an NFL prospect and a “team leader.” He suffered a serious knee injury in a game at the University of Arizona; this blow knocked him out for the season. Insiders believe that, had he been healthy, he would have been one of the top inside linebackers in all the PAC12.

But now what? With his knee hurt and a DUI under his belt, what will become of Skov’s future, both as a player (and potential NFLer) and as a California citizen?

A Los Angeles DUI lawyer often must act not only as legal counsel but also as a “listening machine” to understand what’s really at the root of a defendant’s crisis. A Pasadena DUI arrest, for instance, might have many deep root causes:

• A psychological or even physiological dependence on alcohol or controlled substances;
• A “lapse of reason” provoked by a very emotional event (including happy events);
• A temporary and tragic misjudgment (e.g., thinking you only had two drinks when in fact you had four);
• Deep-seated psychological issues, which can stretch all the way back to childhood;
• Peer pressure;
• And beyond.

To develop the most rigorous possible defense, your Los Angeles DUI attorney will need to examine the facts on the ground, as well as the psychology. Why did you fail the Pasadena DUI breathalyzer test? What symptoms of DUI did you exhibit? Did the police act Constitutionally? Did the police make any errors in terms of stopping you, arresting you, or booking you?

Potential holes in the prosecution’s case might abound. But you need an accurate and experienced Los Angeles DUI defense attorney to exploit those holes. Moreover, you need to act quickly. If you do nothing or move too slowly, the punishments and penalties can mount up, and you may automatically lose your California vehicle license for a long period of time. Evidence that could potentially exonerate you or challenge the prosecution’s case may disappear or be forgotten. The prosecution may use your “lag time” to build a more solid case against you.

Fighting back effectively
A Pasadena DUI criminal defense attorney with the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers (790 East Colorado Boulevard, 9th floor, Pasadena, California 91101 Phone: (626) 345-1899 ) will help you identify “best practices” for your defense situation. In some cases, this might mean fighting all the charges and demanding complete exoneration. In other cases, it might mean trying to settle with prosecutors for a lesser charge. Each case is filled with nuances and potentially tricky elements. So it’s very important to choose the right lawyer for your needs. Attorney Michael Kraut is a Harvard Law School-educated former prosecutor. As such, he understands what your prosecutors are thinking, and he can help you make the right choices to respond to what they are planning.