DUI Category Archives — Page 3 of 24 — Los Angeles DUI Attorney Blog Published by Los Angeles & Southern California Criminal & DUI Defense Attorney Michael Kraut

February 22, 2016

Florida Supreme Court Pressures DUI Judge To Resign

What would happen to a judge convicted of a DUI in Los Angeles? When a court in Broward County, Florida, found a circuit judge guilty of that offense, she ended up losing her job.

On November 5, 2013, a 911 caller alerted police that a white Mercedes was driving erratically on Federal Highway in Boca Raton. When a police officer pulled the car over, Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Imperato told the officer that she was a judge. Instead of handing over her driver’s license as the officer requested, Imperato handed him her judge’s badge. (She later insisted that she wasn’t looking for special treatment because of her status.)

February 15, 2016

Should States Lower the BAC Limit for DUI Charges?

by Michael Kraut

In 2004, Delaware became the last state to set 0.08 as the blood alcohol limit for DUI charges. (California was a decade ahead of the pack; police could arrest anyone with a BAC of 0.08 for a DUI in Los Angeles beginning in 1990.)

But the National Transportation Board is saying that limit isn’t low enough. Included on its “Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements in 2016” is its desire to “end substance impairment in transportation.” That includes adopting a 0.05 BAC as the national standard for DUI.

The NTSB points out that one-third of all highway deaths in the last 15 years involve an alcohol-impaired driver. It says that, “When it comes to alcohol use, we know that impairment begins before a person’s BAC reaches 0.08 percent, the current legal limit in the United States. In fact, by the time it reaches that level, the risk of a fatal crash has more than doubled. That is why states should lower BAC levels to 0.05— or even lower.”
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February 10, 2016

Hawaiian Prosecutors Seek 24/7 Warrants for DUI Drivers (Part 2)

by Michael Kraut

Avoiding prosecution for a DUI in Los Angeles usually requires the skills of an experienced attorney. In Hawaii, however, it appears that all you have to do is live in the right jurisdiction to have a good chance of getting a DUI charge thrown out of court or at least stalled in the system.

An investigative report by Honolulu’s KHON2 television station found that courts on the island of Oahu throw out more than one in every four–almost one in every three–DUI cases because the police witnesses don’t show up or because the prosecutors or defense lawyers take too long to prepare for the trial.

Some of the problem apparently stems from the way that the Honolulu Police Department handle DUI cases; three, four or more officers need to show up as witnesses when the case goes to trial. With officers already stretched thin with other responsibilities, the odds are good that one or more won’t be able to make it to court when lawyers repeatedly request trial postponements. (The Honolulu Police Department says it is reworking its procedures and doing additional training so that fewer officers will have to appear as witnesses in each DUI case.)

February 3, 2016

Los Angeles DUI Celebs and Politicians Make the News [Vince Young DUI and More]

by Michael Kraut

Have you ever noticed how high-profile DUI arrests seem to come in spates? You’ll read nothing about celebrity DUI in Los Angeles for a few months, and then police arrest a number of stars and/or elected officials within a week or two.

On January 22, police in Austin, Texas, picked up former Tennessee Titans and Philadelphia Eagle quarterback Vince Young for driving under the influence. Young allegedly was speeding and drifting between lanes when officers pulled him over. The arresting officer said that the sports star was slurring his words, had glassy eyes, smelled of alcohol and was swaying as he walked.

Young apologized on his Facebook page after the charge against him–a single misdemeanor count of DUI–became public. So far his current employer, the University of Texas, has opted to keep him on the job.

January 25, 2016

Could You Lose Your Vehicle After A DUI?

by Michael Kraut

Suppose you lent your vehicle to a relative who had a problem with a Los Angeles DUI in the past. You thought that your relative had sorted out all the legal issues, but when police pull her over for a traffic violation, they charge her with driving on a suspended license.

That’s bad enough—but then you find that the state is going to seize your vehicle because of your relative’s misbehavior!

A woman in Moline, Illinois, is living that scenario. Last summer, 70-year-old Judy Wiese gave her grandson the keys to her 2009 Jeep Compass because he said he needed it to get to work. The young man told his grandmother that he had taken care of all his court obligations related to a 2014 DUI. He neglected to mention that didn’t include getting his license back.

January 20, 2016

DO Some Los Angeles DUI Offenders Get Preferential Treatment?

by Michael Kraut

Some celebrities arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles appears to get off with a very light punishment. Although justice is supposed to be blind, the truth is that people with money and/or connections frequently do get a better deal.

Take the case of the Texas teen whose defense for killing four people in a DUI accident was that he had “affluenza.” The attorney for Ethan Crouch, who had a blood alcohol content of .24 when arrested, claimed that his client had never learned to take responsibility because his parents’ wealth had shielded him from the consequences of his actions. Crouch received a controversially light sentence of 10 years of probation and treatment in a residential, in-patient treatment facility. (Apparently hisaffluenza hasn’t been cured; he fled to Mexico, and he is currently fighting extradition back to the U.S.)

Contrast that to the sentence imposed on a 23-year-old Texas man of moderate means who killed four people in a DUI accident at the South by Southwest Festival in 2014. Rashad Owens, who had a .114 BAC reading at the time of his arrest, received a sentence of life in prison. (There were a few aggravating factors, however: Owens was driving a stolen car at the time and fleeing from police.)

January 15, 2016

Courts Rule For and Against Accused in Two DUI Cases

by Michael Kraut

The results of court cases in other states may not directly impact the outcome of Los Angeles DUI arrests, but they sometimes indicate the direction in which the judicial wind is blowing across the U.S.

The State of Georgia has already made it harder for prosecutors to win DUI convictions because of a ruling that people suspected of DUI may be too intoxicated to give their true informed consent to a breathalyzer test. Now an administrative law judge has thrown out the state’s attempt to suspend the license of a driver accused of DUI.

Atlanta Police Officer Justin J. Brodnik pulled David Leoni over for exceeding the speed limit by 20 miles per hour. The officer smelled alcohol on Leoni’s breath and noticed that his eyes were watery. (Leoni said he had just woken up from a nap.)

Despite the fact that Leoni answered questions without any difficulty and didn’t have trouble passing a balance test, Brodnik arrested him for DUI. That meant the Department of Driver Services automatically suspended his license. The law judge ruled that the watery eyes and a moderate smell of alcohol weren’t enough to prove that Leoni was impaired, so he ordered the state to restore Leoni’s license.

January 13, 2016

Dumb Decisions By DUI Drivers to Start Off 2016

by Michael Kraut

Sometimes people who’ve had a few too many seem to go out of their way to make poor choices. Take the case of Juan Pablo Garcia, a 22-year-old Uber driver arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles on New Year’s Day.

As a Uber driver, Garcia didn’t have to pick up passengers, but he decided to respond to a 1 a.m. call from 19-year-old Arlene Mendez, who was looking for a ride. According to CBS Local Los Angeles, Mendez later related that she felt uncomfortable with Garcia’s driving almost from the start. Her fears increased when she peered over the back seat and saw that Garcia was hitting 80 miles per hour on city streets. Garcia ignored her pleas to slow down and ended up slamming into another vehicle, overturning his own car in the process. Fortunately, Mendez wasn’t seriously hurt.

December 21, 2015

Police Chief Calls for Tougher DUI Penalties After Officer’s Death

by Michael Kraut

The most devastating cases of DUI in Los Angeles involve the deaths of innocent bystanders. Every day, DUI drivers throughout the U.S. kill other motorists and pedestrians who have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Police officers, especially those working on traffic or DUI patrols, face even greater risks. They’re often the targets of DUI drivers who accidentally (or sometimes on purpose) run them down.

One of the most recent incidents involves a young, 24-year-old officer in Montgomery County, Maryland. Officer Noah Leotta, who had been with the department just two and a half years, tried to pull over Luis Gustavo Reluzco for a traffic stop. But Reluzco hit the officer instead, forcing him to the ground and causing a severe head injury. Leotta’s parents eventually had to make the heartbreaking decision to remove their son from life support. Leotta died on December 9, just six days after receiving his injuries.

December 14, 2015

The Damage Done By Los Angeles DUI Drivers

by Michael Kraut

Most arrests for DUI in Los Angeles don’t make the headlines. That’s actually good, because it means that the driver did not kill anyone, injure anyone seriously or cause extensive property damage.

But news reports from all around the country do carry stories every day about a DUI driver who has caused irreparable harm. In just a one-week time period, media sources reported on these incidents:

• A judge in Springfield, Massachusetts, revoked bail for a woman accused in an August crash that left a 16-year-old paralyzed from the chest down. The court had initially released Jomaris Colon on $2,000 bail. After Colon’s second probation violation, a judge ordered her back to jail for at least 90 days.

MASS Live reports that the victim, Alex Scafuri, had been skateboarding home from his school’s volleyball tryouts when Colon hit him. The 26-year old driver, who didn’t have a license, allegedly fled the scene after the accident.

The prosecutor claims to have videos from various stores that day that show Colon making alcohol purchases. Meanwhile, MASS Live website reports that Scafuri’s family is performing the painful task of clearing out all of the sports equipment that the teen will no longer be able to use.