Los Angeles DUI Attorney Blog

February 23, 2016

February 2016’s Three Most Unusual DUIs?

Although it’s the shortest month in the year, February usually seems to drag on forever. Maybe that’s why some DUI drivers–no doubt including a few charged with DUI in Los Angeles–have exhibited some rather unusual behavior this month.

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• When a Sumter County, Florida, deputy pulled over Christopher Beauchemin in the early morning hours of February 1, the 45-year-old was standing outside of his car and holding a palm branch. The vehicle was running but was still in gear. When the deputy questioned Beauchemin, the driver said he thought the branch was part of his car that had fallen off. After failing a field sobriety test, Beauchemin got a ride to the Sumter County Detention Center, where authorities charged him with DUI.

• A 29-year old woman from Kittanning, Pennsylvania, must have had it in for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) when she got behind the wheel on February 21. After sideswiping another vehicle, the woman, suspected of DUI, managed to hit no fewer than four separate PennDOT signs before her car flipped and rolled. She escaped with only minor injuries; there’s no word on how much damage the signs suffered.

February 22, 2016

Florida Supreme Court Pressures DUI Judge To Resign

by Michael Kraut

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 17, 2016

Lawyer Gets Unusual Private Hearing In DUI Case

by Michael Kraut

The average Joe or Jane charged with a Los Angeles DUI may sometimes wonder if there are two justice systems at work; one for every day folks, and the other for the well-connected. A recent incident across the country in Pennsylvania would probably reinforce their cynical attitudes.

On April 3, 2015, police noticed attorney Zachary A. Morey running a stop sign in Sinking Spring in Berks County. When the officers pulled him over, Morey failed several sobriety tests and his BAC measured three times the legal limit at 0.291.

According to the Reading Eagle, Morey had to appear in Judge Eleni Geishauser’s court for a hearing on the charges, which would typically result in the lawyer’s placement in the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition Program. (The judge can use this special pre-trial program for non-violent offenders who have no prior or a very limited record. If the defendant successfully completes the supervised program, the court dismisses the charges and expunges the case from the record.)

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.”
Continue reading

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 8, 2016

Hawaiian Prosecutors Seek 24/7 Warrants for DUI Drivers (Part 1)

by Michael Kraut

Will judges in California soon be working round-the-clock issuing warrants for blood alcohol tests for drivers suspected of DUI in Los Angeles? That’s what’s happening in Hawaii, thanks to a ruling last fall from the state’s Supreme Court.

The Hawaii Supreme Court said that police officers could not coerce drivers (by threatening them with jail or loss of license) to submit to a BAC. The ruling said that “the right to be free of warrant-less searches and seizures is a fundamental guarantee of our constitution.”

So unless a driver voluntarily gives consent–which most will not–or unless there is an emergency, jurisdictions in Hawaii that want to use BAC evidence in court now have to get warrants. But Hawaiian law also requires that the police measure blood alcohol within three hours of the alleged offense. The situation has left prosecutors scrambling to find ways to make it easier for judges to issue BAC warrants on short notice. Continue reading

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.

February 2, 2016

Dumb Things DUI Drivers Should Never Do

by Michael Kraut

Want to get police officers to pay more attention to you? Try pulling one of these dumb stunts when you’re at risk for a DUI in Los Angeles.

A woman from Baraboo, Minnesota, apparently couldn’t find her own vehicle when she stumbled out of a BP gas station and convenience store in Juneau County. So she did the next best thing–she got into a waiting deputy’s vehicle and drove away.
The deputy and a state trooper dealt with the unnamed 29-year-old woman and her intoxicated male friend at the gas station around 4 a.m. in the morning. The woman apparently got tired of the discussion and left. Fortunately, witnesses saw her take off and pointed the trooper and the deputy–who were riding in the state police car–in the right direction. They soon caught up with her and managed to pull her over.

Turns out, this wasn’t the woman’s first DWI charge; she already had two on her record.

Bradley James Mitchell, on the other hand, didn’t try to flee the scene when officers stopped him on suspicion of DWI. But the 38-year-old from Weirsdale, Florida, should have tried a different excuse for swerving across two roads late in the evening of January 13th.

Mitchell told officers his low blood sugar caused his erratic driving. But medics called to the scene confirmed that his blood sugar was just fine. After Mitchell failed sobriety tests, officers searched his car and found methamphetamine and Clonazepam. He was also driving on a license suspended because of a previous DUI. Continue reading

January 27, 2016

Judge Refuses Pleas in DUI Cases

by Michael Kraut

Pity the poor judges who have to spend multiple hours in court each week hearing cases involving DUIs in Los Angeles. The stories they hear about deaths and destruction caused by people driving under the influence are often devastating.
One judge in Laramie County, Wyoming, has had enough. A recent article in the online Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported that Judge Steven Sharpe is taking a hard line when it comes to plea deals for drivers accused of DUI. When faced with a repeat offender, he now won’t accept a deal unless it includes some jail time for the driver.

In a case highlighted by the Tribune Eagle, Jeremy Shutt, now 28, had appeared before the judge last year on his fourth DUI charge in four years. Under Wyoming law, that would make Shutt’s latest arrest a felony, which meant incarceration time.
Shutt’s attorney had negotiated a plea deal with the county: five years of probation, with three to five years in prison if Shutt failed to live up to his end of the bargain (i.e. stay sober and stay out of trouble). But the judge, noting that Shutt had spent only a single day in jail on this latest charge, said that wasn’t enough. He’d keep Shutt out of state prison, but only if Shutt agreed to spend 120 days in jail.

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.