Los Angeles DUI Attorney Blog

October 21, 2015

Unusual Los Angeles DUIs Make Headlines… Including DUI in a Wheelchair

Arrests for DUI in Los Angeles aren’t usually big news unless the person arrested is some sort of celebrity. But sometimes a story about a DUI arrest—in any part of the country–is so unusual that online news outlets and social media provide widespread coverage. Here are two crazy breaking stories:

Wheelchair DUI for Florida Man

In Palm Bay, Florida, police just arrested 54-year-old Ronny Hicks on DUI charges. Nothing extraordinary about them—except that Hicks has been driving an electric wheelchair at the time. Visitors to a city park called police, complaining that Hicks was blocking a pedestrian path. When police arrived, they allegedly smelled alcohol on Hicks’ breath and said that he appeared to be highly intoxicated.

Hicks tallied not his first but rather his third DUI arrest in 10 years. Under Florida law, that could mean a fine of $2,000 and mandatory imprisonment for at least 30 days. (Three Los Angeles DUI convictions within 10 years leads to felony counts.) But Hicks’ attorney doesn’t seem to think that the most recent charge of DUI in a wheelchair will stick.

Alleged DUI Driver Hides in Church, Claims Dog Did It

Another Florida motorist, this time from Manatee County, came up with an unusual excuse when police finally caught up with him to question him about his driving. TV station WFTS reported that sheriff’s deputies spotted Reliford Cooper speeding and tried to pull him over. Instead of obeying, the 26-year-old took off, leaving the road and driving through two ditches before crashing into a house. But even that act didn’t slow Cooper down; he took off on foot and tried to hide in a church. The churchgoers, however, had none of it, and they chased Cooper out of their building.

The deputies finally got Cooper into handcuffs, which is when he allegedly told them that he wasn’t responsible for the erratic driving because his dog was driving the car. (The dog must have been invisible, because nobody has seen a trace of it.) The officers didn’t buy his story, since Cooper smelled like alcohol and marijuana. They charged him with DUI.

How should you respond to your recent and disarming charges? Call a qualified Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer (and ex-prosecutor) with nearly two decades of relevant legal experience.

October 19, 2015

Notable October DUIs – John Stamos, Cre Moore and Tim Chambers

by Michael Kraut

DUI arrests of sports and entertainment figures always make the news, and this October witnessed some serious charges.
The most prominent Los Angeles DUI arrest involved none other than “Grandfathered” actor John Stamos, whom police pulled over after receiving calls about an erratic driver.

The officers initially took Stamos to a hospital out of concern he had some medical condition. Police later charged slapped him with a DUI; tests allegedly determined that Stamos was under the influence of drugs while operating his vehicle. This misdemeanor charge could result in the former star of Full House spending six months in jail.

The sports world also saw two high-profile arrests this month. Cre Moore, the defensive back for the Kansas State football team, crashed his 2014 Ford F-15 in Riley County, Kansas, around 3 in the morning of October 4th. He left the road, hitting a pole and then a stone wall before coming to a stop. The 20-year-old Moore didn’t suffer any injuries, although his vehicle received major damage. But police who went to the scene allegedly did find several pills in Moore’s car, and they charged Moore with DUI and possession of depressants.

The head baseball coach at the University of Nevada, Tim Chambers, faces legal and job troubles after his arrest for arrest for driving under the influence on October 6th. After police charged Chambers with DUI, two counts of failure to maintain a lane and a violation of the proof of insurance requirement, the university immediately placed him on an administrative leave of absence until the courts resolve the charges against him. Chambers is in his fifth year of coaching the UNLV Rebels. The university has a zero-tolerance policy for alcohol for its athletes.

What should you do if you or someone you love faces a serious DUI count? Will you go to jail? Will you lose your license? Call Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer Michael Kraut immediately to understand your options and craft a strategic response.

October 14, 2015

How Much Marijuana Before It’s a DUI?

by Michael Kraut

Eleven U.S. states have now legalized or decriminalized marijuana. California, which approved of the use of the drug for medical purposes, also seeks to legalize the drug completely in the next few years. But the move to legalization raises the question of how marijuana impacts a driver. How much THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) would have to be in the bloodstream before police could charge someone with a DUI in Los Angeles?

A Florida state legislator, Dave Kerner of Lake Worth, believes that there should be a standard for determining marijuana intoxication when it comes to driving, just as there is a blood alcohol content for people who drink. He thinks that at 5 nanograms of active THC in the bloodstream, the courts should presume that the person is driving under the influence of cannabis.

Kerner introduced a bill into the Florida Legislature to make this standard the law in the Sunshine State. He named the bill the Naomi Pomerance Victim Safety Act in honor of a 16-year-old girl killed in a crash caused by a person high on marijuana. Kerner isn’t a marijuana opponent, however; he supports medical marijuana.

Other states are addressing this issue as well. Colorado, where marijuana is legal, already has a law that presumes that someone is operating under the influence if the THC level in the bloodstream is 5 nanograms or higher.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration says that data from road traffic arrests and fatalities indicate that after alcohol, marijuana is the most frequently detected psychoactive substance among drivers. Marijuana has been shown to impair performance on driving simulator tasks and on open and closed driving courses for up to approximately 3 hours.
“Decreased car handling performance, increased reaction times, impaired time and distance estimation, inability to maintain headway, lateral travel, subjective sleepiness, motor incoordination, and impaired sustained vigilance have all been reported,” according to the NHTSA. The organization has not taken a position, however on the use of THC levels to measure driver impairment.

Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer, Michael Kraut, of the Kraut Law Group Criminal & DUI Lawyers, Inc. is standing by to offer critical insight into your case and potential defense options. Call him and his team today to begin regaining control over your case and your life.

October 12, 2015

DUI Drivers Who Demand Attention – Setting Off Fireworks Is Not a Way to Lay Low

by Michael Kraut

Intoxicated drivers trying to avoid charges of DUI in Los Angeles should always try to avoid calling attention to themselves. If they attract the eye of a police officer, a pedestrian or another driver, they may find themselves spending several hours in jail. One man in California and two men in Delaware learned this lesson the hard way.

In San Manteo County, California, 25-year-old Daniel Moran probably couldn’t have found a better way of getting the police to come to him. When he set off fireworks around quarter to four in the morning of October 3rd, neighbors complained to authorities because they thought someone was shooting a gun. When sheriff’s deputies arrived they found that Moran didn’t have a gun, just fireworks. But they claimed he was intoxicated and driving under the influence and charged him accordingly.

In Newark, Delaware, police officers found 57-year-old John R. Owens passed out in a school bus parking lot. Owens had driven his Dodge Caliber into the parking lot of the First Student Transportation bus yard and hit one bus before exiting the yard. Apparently not satisfied with this first attempt, he drove back into the yard, hit a fence, and promptly passed out. Although Owens wasn’t injured in the crash, emergency medical personnel had to remove him from the car. They then transported him to the hospital to get checked out.

Getting arrested for DUI appears to be a habit for Owens; it was the seventh time he’s been up on these charges.

Meanwhile, in the southern part of the state, Samuel E. Pu Tzoy hit a Jeep Cherokee—causing it to flip several times—before crashing into the rear of a Lewes Police Department vehicle. Pu Tzoy got a great deal of attention thanks to this accident, and he now faces a great many charges. They include vehicular assault, driving under the influence of alcohol, leaving the scene of a collision resulting in injury, failure to stop at a stop sign, driving without a valid license, disregarding a police officer’s signal, reckless driving and other traffic offenses.

Designing and executing an effective defense against DUI charges (even simple ones) is not intuitive. Fortunately, you can trust the seasoned, highly successful Michael Kraut. Call a DUI lawyer in Los Angeles with nearly two decades of experience.

October 7, 2015

Déjà Vu for Chicago-Area DUI Arrest

by Michael Kraut

Police officers who constantly have to arrest people for a Los Angeles DUI probably experience a sense of déjà vu each time they stop someone suspected of a DUI. Or maybe they feel trapped in an endless loop that keeps repeating (like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day). But a suburban Chicago police officer arresting a certain DUI driver in mid-September had a good reason for getting that done-it-all-before feeling.

According to a local CBS station, the unnamed Riverside police officer had been sitting at a traffic light on September 19 at around three in the morning, when a car driven by 22-year-old Angel Calleros swerved towards him. That got the officer’s attention, and he pursued Callero’s vehicle, which was traveling 50 mph in a 30 mph zone and swerving between traffic lanes.

The officer pulled Calleros over on Harlem Avenue–and realized that he had arrested the same man, on the same street, on the same charge, just two weeks before. There were some differences in the experiences, however. For one thing, Calleros refused field sobriety tests at the time of his first arrest, and he agreed to them the second time. (Not that it did him any good–he reportedly failed all six.) In addition, the first time Calleros had been traveling 48 mph in a 35 mph zone. Police also found open liquor bottles (Jack Daniels and tequila) at the time of the first arrest.

Meanwhile, Calleros may have had his own déjà vu experience. Police arrested him for DUI (again), two counts of improper lane usage and speeding.

Unfortunately, multiple DUI arrests aren’t a rarity–online news sources carry many accounts of police charging drivers previously arrested on DUI counts for second and third incidents of driving under the influence.

To understand what to do to fight back against your charges, call Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer, Michael Kraut of Kraut Law Group Criminal & DUI Lawyers, Inc.. As a former (and highly successful) Deputy District Attorney, Mr. Kraut has fought on behalf of defendants like you for nearly 20 years.

October 5, 2015

Five Times the Legal Limit for DUI Driver (a Police Officer): What Happens Next?

by Michael Kraut

Police officers see all kinds of BAC numbers when they arrest people for DUI in Los Angeles. But officers don’t often come across a person whose BAC measures five times the legal limit–especially when the driver turns out to be another policeman.
Newspaper accounts say that Officer John Finley of the New York Police Department is lucky to be alive after an accident in which alcohol contributed. Back on August 8th, Finley slammed into a guardrail on the West Shore Expressway on Staten Island. He suffered head injuries, but they weren’t life-threatening. He was even conscious enough to talk, although witnesses reported that Finley—perhaps unsurprisingly, given his charges–slurred his words.

John Finley From: https://www.facebook.com/search/str/John%20Finley%20nypd/keywords_top

The police officers who worked the scene deferred DUI charges against Finley pending a review of his blood alcohol content levels. While they must have suspected something out of the ordinary, they probably didn’t expect that Finley’s BAC would measure at 0.43–more than five times the legal limit for driving. According to the New York Post, a 200-pound man would have to drink 23 beers (or the equivalent in other types of alcoholic beverages) in two hours to achieve that high a BAC score.

Just how impaired was Finley? The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has a chart on its website listing the different effects of various levels of alcohol in the bloodstream. In the range of 0.31 to 0.45 percent the impairments include loss of consciousness, danger of life-threatening alcohol poisoning and significant risk of death in most drinkers due to the suppression of vital life functions. In other words–Finley was fortunate not only to have survived his encounter with a guardrail but also to be alive at all.

Police eventually arrested Finley, a 25-year veteran on the force, on a charge of aggravated DUI.

If you need to develop a sound, systematic defense to a Los Angeles DUI charge, call experienced Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer, Michael Kraut, of the Kraut Law Group Criminal & DUI Lawyers, Inc..

September 30, 2015

Taking Care of Young Children After You’ve Been Arrested for Los Angeles DUI

by Michael Kraut

Many people have a cartoonish view of what a Los Angeles DUI defendant looks like.

Obviously, driving under the influence – or even close to under the influence – is dangerous business, and it can (and does) lead to thousands of death and countless injuries and traumas every year. However, DUI defendants are people too – people with jobs, lives and families.

What happens if police arrest you for this crime, but you need to take care of young children?

September 28, 2015

The Very First Time You Get Behind the Wheel After a Los Angeles DUI Arrest

by Michael Kraut

Before your arrest for Los Angeles DUI, you probably never gave much thought to getting behind the wheel – what it would be like to pull out of your driveway, tool down Olympic Blvd., and park your car in a parking garage after muscling through traffic on the 405.

But whether police stopped you hours ago on Sawtelle at a checkpoint, or you crashed on the 10 and hurt yourself and a passenger, you now have a very new perspective. So what might it be like the next time you get behind the wheel? And what can you do to make that experience better? Here are some things to think about.

1. It might be a long, long time before you get the chance.

An automatic license suspension, pursuant to California Vehicle Code Section 23152 or 23153 (if you injured someone), could prevent you from driving for six months, a year or even longer.

2. You might need to blow into an ignition device to start the car.

Several years ago, Los Angeles and other jurisdictions imposed a mandatory interlock ignition device (IID) element, which compels those convicted for even first time DUIs to install one of these devices. You can’t start your car without blowing a sober breath into the machine (like a breathalyzer device). IIDs can also be expensive to install and maintain.

3. You may have strange feelings, such as anxiety or fear, even if you are driving perfectly normally, and you are totally sober.

Standard DUI stops are known to cause post-traumatic stress syndrome. That said, the moment of your arrest is probably seared into your brain. It’s not uncommon for drivers convicted of DUI (or just arrested for DUI who later get the charges dismissed) to experience awkwardness and strange moments of depression and anxiety behind the wheel.

To understand what to do to fight back against your charges, call Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer, Michael Kraut of Kraut Law Group Criminal & DUI Lawyers, Inc.. As a former (and highly successful) Deputy District Attorney, Mr. Kraut has fought on behalf of defendants like you for nearly 20 years.

September 25, 2015

Dumb DUI Moves

by Michael Kraut

The last thing drivers arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles want to do is call attention to themselves; they don’t want friends, family or employers to know what’s happened. But stories about DUI incidents get a lot more play in the news media when they are out of the ordinary. Here are a few unusual stories that made local headlines.

The Chicago Tribune reported on 28-year-old Jeremy Walsh, who went into a grocery store, opened and chugged a bottle of vodka, left the store without paying for the liquor and then drove away. Officers called to assist observed Walsh’s vehicle crossing over the double yellow line on one of the roads in Naperville, Illinois. Walsh gave a false name and wouldn’t take a breathalyzer test or a field sobriety test. Police charged him with DUI, retail theft, driving without a license and obstructing identification. (Walsh really should have maintained a lower profile. After police arrested him, they found that the Kane County sheriff’s office already wanted him because he failed to appear at a court hearing on reckless driving and speeding charges.)

Then there’s Tara Monroe, a 20-year-old junior at Texas State University. After Monroe refused to take a breathalyzer test on her way home from a concert, her father came to campus and repossessed her car. Monroe’s solution—which gained national news attention—was to buy a kid-size, hot pink Barbie car to tool around campus. At least she can’t speed; the pink Barbie car doesn’t move above 5 miles per hour.

North Carolina resident Patrick Mercer, 29, made headlines when he taunted Tennessee police on Facebook. After Tennessee police posted photos of people wanted on outstanding domestic violence warrants, Mercer responded that he was in North Carolina and the police should come and get him. They did. Mercer ended up in jail charged not only with domestic assault but also with DUI, reckless driving, theft and harassment.

Designing and executing an effective defense against DUI charges (even simple ones) is not intuitive. Fortunately, you can trust the seasoned, highly successful Michael Kraut. Call a DUI lawyer in Los Angeles with nearly two decades of experience.

September 23, 2015

Police Learn to Distinguish Other Types of DUI

by Michael Kraut

Although the majority of cases of DUI in Los Angeles involve excessive alcohol consumption, police in California and other states are seeing more and more DUI incidents caused by illegal and/or prescription drugs.

The Los Angeles Police Department has been a pioneer in training officers to distinguish these types of DUI cases. In the 1970s, two LAPD sergeants worked with medical doctors, research psychologists and other medical professionals to develop a simple, standardized procedure for recognizing drug influence and impairment. Their work resulted in a Drug Evaluation and Classification Program (DECP), which jurisdictions throughout the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom now employ for training.

Connecticut held its first DECP training in 2011. More recently, the state’s drug recognition experts (DRE) conducted a training class in Manchester. According to the Hartford Courant, the course included 16-hours of initial training, a 56-hour drug recognition school and a 40-60 hour certification process.

The officers had to study the seven categories of drugs and the signature symptoms that users of each type display. The categories include narcotic analgesics (heroin and painkillers); depressants (alcohol and benzos); stimulants (cocaine and meth); inhalants (aerosols and solvents); hallucinogens (peyote and LSD); cannabis (marijuana and hashish); and dissociative anesthetics (PCP).
Police officers who took the course learned how medical equipment such as a blood pressure meter, oral thermometer, a pupilometer (which measures the pupil’s response to visual stimuli) and a stethoscope can help them identify which drugs a suspected DUI driver might have used.

There’s a real need for such programs. A study from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration showed an increasing number of nighttime weekend drivers will illegal drugs in their systems, rising from 16.3 percent of drivers in 2007 to 20 percent in 2013-2014.

Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer, Michael Kraut, of the Kraut Law Group Criminal & DUI Lawyers, Inc. is standing by to offer critical insight into your case and potential defense options. Call him and his team today to begin regaining control over your case and your life.