Los Angeles DUI Attorney Blog

October 15, 2012

Long Beach DUI Lessons from Scary Injury Crash in Rancho Cucamonga – Three High School Girls Hurt

If you injured someone while driving under the influence in Long Beach or elsewhere in Southern California, you likely feel tremendous regret and panic. Whether the accident was your fault or not – or only partially so – you are probably confused about your legal rights, and you want to know what you can do to protect yourself.

Consider the following news item to help place your arrest into context.

Last week, in Rancho Cucamonga, 29-year-old Cory Holker apparently lost control of his silver Toyota Camry on Base Line Road as he tried to pass another car. The Camry flipped over a curb, smashed into a tree and spiraled around and hit three Alta Loma High School girls – two freshman and one sophomore. A local resident heard the accident and the screams and called 911. All three girls were taken to the hospital with injuries – and one had to be pried out from underneath the car – but fortunately, all three are expected to survive.

Holker, on the other hand, faces a difficult road ahead of him, legally speaking.

He allegedly failed a breathalyzer test at the scene – and even though Long Beach DUI breathalyzer tests are notoriously unreliable, as we’ve talked about many times on this blog, it’s still not a great piece of evidence for him to “explain away.” In addition, he was cited for speeding, failing to wear a seatbelt, and following another car too closely. Holker also has a substantial record of citations, and he now faces a felony Southern California DUI count as well.

When most people read stories like these in the news, they immediately feel empathy and sympathy for the victims – as well, they should. It’s easy for the not-involved to demonize DUI drivers, especially drivers who hit and hurt other people who do other ìdumb/illegal stuffî while DUI. But it’s important to be compassionate – not just towards victims, but also towards defendants. The reality is that there is often much more to most Long Beach DUI cases than meets the eye – or that can be conveyed through a simple news blurb or blog post.

Consider your situation, for instance.

Even if you believe that you were in the wrong or guilty of DUI or other driving-related crimes, odds are you do not see yourself as a cartoonish villain or in morally black and white terms. Your situation is complex, and you’d like a little bit of compassion as you struggle to understand what motivated you, what you can do in the future to prevent getting into similar situations, and what you might be able to do to repair any harm that you may have accidentally caused.

The team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers has tremendous experience and a unique perspective on Los Angeles DUI cases.

Attorney Kraut is a Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor – he spent the bulk of his career prosecuting DUI cases – and that experience gives him a powerful and informed perspective on the whole process. It’s helped him to be a more effective and intuitive Long Beach DUI defense attorney. Find out more about Attorney Kraut’s credentials and record for service here on this site, or get in touch with his team today for a confidential consultation about your defense options.

October 12, 2012

Nightmare on the 10: Bad News Bears Actress, Sammi Kane Kraft, Killed in a Los Angeles DUI Accident

by Michael Kraut

Fatal Los Angeles DUI accidents are always horrific, but they are somehow more so when they involve young people and children.

Last week, Sammi Kane Kraft, one of the stars of the 2005 remake of the movie Bad News Bears (with Billy Bob Thornton as the coach), died when a car she was in got rear ended by a truck on the 10 Freeway at around 1.30 in the morning. Kraft was a passenger in the Audi – her friend, 21-year-old, Molly Kate Adams was driving. Police say that Adams had been driving under the influence in Los Angeles at the time of the crash – she survived with moderate injuries.

Kraft and Adams had been returning from a night out checking out bands, when the tragedy struck.

October 10, 2012

It Should Be Commonsense Not to Allow Your 14-Year-Old Daughter to Drive DUI in Los Angeles…

by Michael Kraut

Just because you’ve recently been arrested for driving under the influence in Los Angeles doesn’t mean that you have no knowledge of right and wrong or no standards. Far from it! In fact, odds are, you probably resent being lumped in with other DUI defendants!

Understand that there is an enormous spectrum, when it comes to DUI offenses. On the one hand, there are the perennial, serial DUI offenders who get arrested and convicted multiple times. But this “species” of Los Angeles DUI defendant is surprisingly rare, and even people who fall into this category generally deserve more respect, empathy, and support.

On the other end of the spectrum, you can find people who commit minor mistakes – or who actually make no mistakes at all but rather wind up as victims of overzealous officers at Los Angeles DUI check points.

But anyone with a moral compass might wonder about what happened recently up in Napavine, Washington, where local state patrol officers arrested a 14-year-old girl from Portland, who had allegedly flipped a van while driving under the influence. The incident took place the Sunday before last on Interstate 5, near the town of Chehalis.

You might think that this was just a case of a rebellious teenager borrowing her parents’ van and going for a joy ride. Nope. Initial report suggests that circumstances were far weirder. In the van with her was a 51-year-old Portland man and a 16-year-old runaway girl.

The driver and both passengers suffered minor injuries in the rollover. But local reports from KATU suggest that it’s not yet clear how the three people know each other.

The 14-year-old girl, meanwhile, faces charges of driving without a license, driving DUI, and being a minor in possession of marijuana.

Who knows what was actually going on up there?

If you’ve been tasks with defending against similar (or even more severe) charges pursuant to your Los Angeles DUI arrest, you might appreciate the revelation that this case appears to be far more complicated than superficial analysis reveals. Indeed, many DUI cases are wrapped up with strange subtleties, and only a thorough investigation and detailed legal work can help defendants get cleared or at least put up their best possible defense.

Attorney Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers spent a significant portion of his life working as a city prosecutor (14 plus years as Senior Deputy District Attorney), so he has a really good feel for how prosecutors like to go after Los Angeles DUI defendants.

Attorney Kraut now uses that knowledge to help people like you with creative, legally taut defenses to their DUI charges. Get in touch with attorney Kraut and his team today to go over what he can do to protect your interests.

October 8, 2012

Did a “Pink Elephant” Cause Your Long Beach DUI Crash, Too?

by Michael Kraut

Your recent Long Beach DUI accident and arrest was humiliating enough.

Hopefully, no one got hurt. And hopefully, you did not compound your woes by offering a preposterous explanation for your behavior, like 31-year-old Samuel Phipps recently did when Delaware State Police stopped him on I-95 and hit him with his seventh lifetime DUI charge.

The 31-year-old told State Police that he had smoked a kind of drug known as “wet” – which consists of a marijuana cigarette laced with the PCP – prior to taking a ride in his Land Rover the Friday night before last. As he cruised southbound on I-295, he hallucinated and thought he saw a pink elephant in the road. Thus spooked, he veered off into the guardrail near Route 141.

According to a Delaware State Police statement, the trooper who found Phipps interviewed the driver, who told him “that the accident was a result of… swerving to avoid an elephant he observed running in the path of his vehicle.”

Phipps was busted for his unlucky number seven DUI offense and hit additionally with the charge of driving without insurance. Instead of being sent to jail, he was committed to the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution and held on a bond of $21,000.

If, like Phipps, you’ve been hit with multiple counts of driving under the influence in Long Beach or elsewhere, you could be facing substantial jail time, even if you did not hurt anyone and prosecutors thus cannot charge you per California Vehicle Code Sections 23153(a) or 23153(b).

In fact, as your number of DUI arrest/convictions increases, so does the leverage of prosecutors.

If you get convicted for three DUIs within a 10-year span in California, for instance, your third DUI – which would ordinarily be a misdemeanor – can be charged as a felony count, even absent any other legal violations. Plus, other penalties get ratcheted up: you’ll face longer time in alcohol school, a longer license suspension, stricter/longer probation terms, more fines and fees, and likely a bigger spike in your auto insurance rates, assuming that you can still drive and carry insurance.

Of course, if you’re getting arrested three or four or seven times for DUI – or for other crimes – you may need more than the help of a good Long Beach DUI defense attorney. You may also need therapy to deal with other crises in your life that may be compelling you to take refuge in alcohol or medications.

The team at law offices of Michael A. DeMayo can help you appreciate what you might be up against and give you practical, sensible, actionable advice.

Learn more about Attorney Kraut’s background as a Harvard Law School educated former prosecutor here on our website, or connect with us now for a free, completely confidential evaluation of your Long Beach DUI case.

October 3, 2012

Please Don’t Say That Your Burbank DUI Arrest Involved Speeds over 120 Miles Per Hour and Small Kids in the Back…

by Michael Kraut

Your recent arrest for driving under the influence in Burbank may have been humiliating, scary, and overwhelming. But hopefully you did not behave as carelessly as 25-year-old Derek L. Greene allegedly behaved. The Rhode Island native was arrested last Sunday night, after local police saw him speeding at 120 miles per hour on Interstate 95, with three kids in the back, ages 2, 3, and 4. Local troopers busted Greene for reckless driving and also tagged him with a DUI charge.

Your situation: uncomfortably similar to Greene’s?

If you just got stopped at a routine Burbank DUI checkpoint and busted for driving slightly over the limit, as defined by California Vehicle Code Sections 23152 (a) or 23152 (b), you might not put yourself in the same ìclassî as Greene. But be careful about ìexonerating yourselfî too quickly. When you drive recklessly – drive while on a cell phone, drive while fatigued, drive while DUI in Burbank, whatever – you’re not just affecting your own fate and the fate of your passengers. You’re potentially impacting strangers on the roads, including small children. So although you might not have driven 120 miles per hour with three small kids in the back – an obvious no-no in everyone’s book – you potentially committed a similar form of intransigence, only more indirectly dangerous.

The question before you now is: how do you clean up from your Burbank DUI arrest?

Obviously, prosecutors can hit you with a battery of charges, ranging from jail time to forced alcohol school to mandatory installation of an interlock ignition device in your car to huge fines and fees and so forth. And all of these punishments can have their own indirect repercussions. For instance, if you lose your California license, how will you get to work or school? How will you live your life?

You need to consider the legal implications – and your needs might be best met by connecting with the team here at Burbank’s Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers. Attorney Michael Kraut is a phenomenally experienced Burbank DUI criminal defense lawyer. After being educated at Harvard Law School, Attorney Kraut spent years (14+) working as a city prosecutor. His deep and diverse background helps him to provide extremely thorough and strategic assistance for his clients.

But beyond the immediate implications of your DUI in Burbank arrest, you also may want to think about what the event means in broader terms for your life, safety, and well-being.

For instance, maybe you were unfairly arrested – the breathalyzer test yielded a false positive, and you want to challenge that. If so, the team at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers can help.

But what if this was your fifth arrest for Burbank DUI? What if you’ve gotten in trouble with the law before? If so, you might benefit from some introspection. What created the problems in your life? What can you do to take responsibility and solve your personal crises, so you can avoid getting in trouble in the future and start to build towards the life that you want?

October 1, 2012

Burbank DUI News Blotter: Three Year Jail Sentence for Women Who Caused Three Accidents in Just One Hour

by Michael Kraut

January 10th was not a good day for 23-year old Allison Smolinski. If you’ve been arrested for driving under the influence in Burbank or elsewhere in the Southland, chances are (hopefully) your event was less dramatic and devastating than Ms. Smolinski’s.

According to news reports, Smolinski piloted her 1997 Nissan Pathfinder into three different accidents within a single hour, climaxing with her smashing the SUV into a house in Wheaton, Illinois. People inside the home had been watching TV, and fortunately no one inside was hurt.

But Smolinski suffered a neck injury, and her passenger, a 27-year old male, sustained a major gash to his head. Prior to the explosive conclusion to the accident-spree, Smolinski allegedly smashed a car on Blanchard Street and banged into another car on I-290. Reports suggest that she might also be implicated in a rollover crash on another highway, I-355, where witnesses said that some driver had been “swerving all over the road.”

Smolinski has been in jail since January. Since she has already served several months in prison, and she only need to serve 85% of the total jail sentence per state law, she might be eligible to get parole in only two years or so.

Nevertheless, Smolinski’s situation is a dramatic example of how Burbank DUIs or DUIs anywhere in Southern California or the rest of the country can radically alter one’s future in ways that you could hardly predict. Imagine, for instance, if your family member got hurt or even killed in the rollover accident on I-355. Imagine if Ms. Smolinski had smashed into your home instead of the home on Wheaton Street.

The big question before you is: How can you pick up the pieces of your life and reputation after your Burbank DUI arrest?

This is not an easy question to answer.

In fact, the relevant laws, such as California Vehicle Code Section 23153(a) and 23153(b), which cover injury DUIs in Burbank, are pretty subtle. If you don’t have a respected and compassionate Burbank DUI criminal defense lawyer on your side, such as Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers here in the Valley, you may have a difficult time intuiting the right way to build a defense and fight your charges.

Don’t make a major strategic mistake – get in touch with a member of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers today to go over what you can do — and, even more key, what you shouldn’t do — to defend against your charges and start to pick up the pieces after your overwhelming experience.

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 24, 2012

Burbank DUI Dangers: The New iPhone 5 is Great, but it Could Provoke DUI with Distraction Charges

by Michael Kraut

You just bought a new iPhone 5 — you want to immerse yourself in your new toy, not dwell on something somber, like Burbank DUI law.

But understand that cell phones and other personal digital devices can not only endanger your life (and the lives of other motorists) but the can also complicate your Southern California driving under the influence charges, especially if you hurt someone in a crash.

The iPhone 5 offers a fantastic bevy of features and updates – even if it isn’t as revolutionary and paradigm shifting as some of Apple’s other offerings from the past 5 to 10 years. There is a time and a place to explore those innovations. But behind the wheel is not that time or place!

In fact, if you text or update social media sites or “explore new apps” while driving, your risk for getting into an injury accident spikes substantially. In fact, research out of places like Virginia Tech and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests that people who text while driving are actually more dangerous than people who drive under the influence in Burbank and elsewhere.

The basic problem
When your attention is elsewhere – i.e., not on the road – your reaction time slows down.

We’re all used to the concept of “multi-tasking.” But humans did not evolve to multi-task. If you are typing in a number or a snarky tweet, your full attention is not on the road. Most of the time, that won’t matter. But if you have to make a sudden stop or deceleration or acceleration, you might lose several milliseconds – or even full seconds! – on your reaction time. And that loss of time can mean the difference between a safe trip home and a life ending catastrophe.

For instance, some studies suggest that steering capability decreases by over 90% when you text on your iPhone 5 (or other device). Another famous study out of Virginia Tech said that your risk of crashing increases by over 20 times (!!) when you text. Yet other research suggests that someone who is above the Burbank legal limit for DUI (0.08%) will have a reaction time decreased by around 12%; whereas a texting driver will have a reaction time decreased by 35%.

A big difference!

Driving under the influence and texting simultaneously can lead to DUI with distraction.

When you combine DUI with texting, you can create a super lethal cocktail – and you can also get into extra trouble with the law. Both DUI and texting/dialing your iPhone 5 can impede your reaction time and general thought process – but it’s unclear just exactly how much more dangerous this cocktail of behaviors might be.

Are the risks just additive? In other words… say your risk for getting into an accident increases by 10% if you text and 5% if you drive DUI. Does that mean your overall risk increases by 15% when you combine those behaviors? Or does the combination actually jack up your risk even more – by, say, 30%? Nobody knows, since science on the subject is pretty new.

Getting help
The team here at Burbank’s Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers can help you understand what you need to do to battle back against your charges, whether you have been hit with a DUI while distracted in Burbank charge or other DUI charges. Attorney Kraut is a former city prosecutor, and he can leverage his connections, intuition, and knowledge of the law to help you greatly.

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.

September 19, 2012

Even President Obama Cannot Save Amanda Bynes from Los Angeles DUI Charges

by Michael Kraut

Actress Amanda Bynes, star of Easy A and What I Like About You, has encountered some serious Los Angeles DUI troubles.

The CA Department of Motor Vehicles officially stripped her license last week, and prosecutors also formally hammered her with double hit and run counts. Bynes allegedly caused two accidents:

One where she banged in the back of a woman’s Toyota and then drove off, after she unilaterally “assured” the woman that no damage had been done;
One where she smashed into a sheriff’s patrol car with her BMW.

If convicted, Bynes could face up to half a year in jail and a fine of $1,000… on top of the full year license suspension.

Bynes’ response to her April Los Angeles DUI arrest earned her an additional few 15 minutes of fame. First, she refused both the breathalyzer and field sobriety tests, claiming “I don’t drink.” Secondly, and perhaps more infamously, she twittered her case to President Barack Obama: “Hey @BarackObama… I don’t drink…. please fire the cop who arrested me. I also don’t hit and run. The end.”

Bynes has denied any wrongdoing, and she has accused critics in the media of “writing fake stories about me.”

Although many did mock Bynes’ press strategy after her Obama tweet, her angry/impetuous reaction is not uncommon. In fact, most DUI in Los Angeles defendants struggle to communicate their situation to friends, family members, co-workers/clients and the public at large. It’s easy to overreact or underreact — to allow your reputation problems to consume you and to fall victim to additional stress, anxiety and potential legal trouble.

The best antidote to the confusion/frustration is to get strategic representation from a respected Los Angeles DUI criminal defense attorney. Mr. Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers worked as a prosecutor of DUIs and similar cases for the city for nearly 15 years. Prior to that, he attended Harvard Law School.

His sharp but compassionate approach to DUI defense may be just what you need to get your life back in order and to deal with your myriad stresses and potential punishments.