DUI attorney los angeles

Published on: February 16, 2019

DUI and Hit-and-Run in California: Making a Bad Situation Much Worse

Hopefully you never put yourself in a situation like the following scenario, but for the sake of discussion let’s consider it:

Suppose you’ve been out with friends for the evening. You’ve had a couple of drinks, and while you might be flirting with the legal limit, you feel in control of your senses for the time being. Against your better judgment, you decide to get behind the wheel.

Halfway home, you crash into another vehicle at an intersection you’ve passed a hundred times before. You don’t know where the other car came from, but you also don’t remember actually driving to this intersection before the crash happened. You panic. Perhaps you’ve been arrested for DUI before, and you don’t want the police asking questions. You decide visually that (probably) no one was hurt, so without getting out of the car—you drive off.

Published on: June 12, 2018

12 Fascinating Facts about Alcohol and the Human Body

by Michael Kraut

Los-Angeles-DUI-Defense-Lawyer-44-200x300

Two radiant champagne flutes on Christmas background

Humanity’s relationship with alcohol has always been a complicated one. Even before we had vehicles to operate—even before DUI became a significant risk—human beings have enjoyed the immediate effects of alcohol consumption only to “sober up” to extended risks like addiction, health issues and death. One key ingredient to avoiding DUI for the long term is understanding how alcohol interacts with your body. Most of us know that alcohol can damage the liver, but that’s not the only danger. Let’s look at 12 other facts about how the body responds to alcohol that you might not have realized.

1. Alcohol in Moderation Can Actually Be Good for You.

Published on: September 30, 2016

Three Cautionary Tales: Drivers Make DUIs Obvious

by Michael Kraut

Poor motor skills, the smell of alcohol and red eyes are all signs that someone could be DUI in Los Angeles. But police officers don’t always have to use those clues to know that something is wrong; the situations themselves can make it pretty obvious that the drivers have a problem.

• Ronald Brundige, age 26, of Depauville, New York, was pulling a car behind his vehicle when police stopped him on September 20th. They noticed what Brundige apparently did not—the car he was pulling was on fire. The officers towed Brundige off to jail, charging him with DWI, aggravated unlicensed operation and refusing to take a breath test.

• People who want to avoid DUI charges should try not to do anything that will attract police attention. A 16-year-old teen from Virginia learned that lesson the hard way when he drove into a lake near his home. The teen and a friend had been drinking by the water, but when they decided to leave the young driver put the car into reverse gear by mistake. The vehicle went backwards 25 feet into the lake. The teens made it out safely, but police had to send a rescue team to get the car out of the water the next day. The teen is now facing DUI charges.

Published on: August 29, 2016

Unexpected Penalties Under New Kentucky DUI Law

by Michael Kraut

Under the terms of Section 23550 of the California Vehicle Code, a driver convicted of DUI in Los Angeles three or more times within 10 years faces felony (rather than misdemeanor) DUI charges, which can result in anywhere from 16 months to four years in prison. Many states have similar laws. But what happens when those laws change?

Should the count of DUI convictions start when the law goes into effect, or does the lookback period extend all the way back 10 years prior to its implementation?

That question is playing out in Kentucky courtrooms today, according to an article on Louisville’s WDB.com website. Until the Kentucky State Legislature passed Senate Bill 56 earlier this year, the state’s lookback period for DUI charges had been five years. The new law extends that period to 10 ten years. But is it retroactive? Judges in different Kentucky counties have different interpretations, since the law did not specifically address that issue.

Published on: February 15, 2016

Under-the-Influence Mom Makes Underage Daughter Drive

by Michael Kraut

Underage drinking and driving often go hand-in-hand in Los Angeles DUI cases. But what if the driver is underage and the person who has been drinking is the one who ordered her to drive?

A 911 caller in Polk County, Wisconsin, alerted police to a car moving erratically along a local road. Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Hahn caught up with the vehicle at a public boat launch and went over to the car, probably expecting to find a driver operating the vehicle under the influence.

What he found instead was a 9-year-old girl at the wheel; she had apparently driven the car for miles. Her mother, Amanda Eggert, and the mother’s boyfriend, Jason Roth, were reportedly sitting in the car intoxicated. The girl’s 11-month-old sibling sat strapped into a car seat.

Published on: October 5, 2015

Daughter’s Plea Leads to Mom’s DUI Arrest

by Michael Kraut

What would you do if someone you cared for insisted on getting behind the wheel after a few too many drinks? Would you call the police and risk their arrest for a DUI in Los Angeles? Would you ignore the situation and simply hope that no one would get hurt?
A 28-year-old woman in Senoi, Georgia, faced that situation in September. In a move that the local police chief called “an act of courage,” the woman got in touch with police and asked for help.

According to the story on the Fox5 Atlanta website, Donna Dodgen was driving her daughter and 10-year-old granddaughter when the trio stopped at a local convenience store. The daughter went in to the store and asked the clerk to call police because her mother had been drinking and wasn’t in any condition to drive. (The daughter couldn’t drive herself, because she had previously been in a car accident in which she suffered a head injury.) She told the clerk she was worried about her daughter’s safety and her own. (It’s not clear why she and her daughter didn’t simply get out of the car and refuse to go any further.)

A police officer watched Dodgen leave the parking lot and sit at a green light for 30 seconds without moving. Before too long, he caught up with Dodgen and asked for her driver’s license. Dodgen allegedly kept trying to give him her credit card instead.
Then the officer gave Dodgen a sobriety test, which she reportedly failed. She also smelled of alcohol, according to police. They charged her with DUI, endangering a child under age 14, weaving on the roadway and driving under the minimum speed.

The daughter (who remained unidentified in the news story) told police that her mother had been driving erratically before the convenience store stop, unable to remain in the her lane and attracting the ire of drivers, who honked to signal their displeasure.

As a frequent contributor to respected media, like The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Good Morning America, Los Angeles DUI attorney Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers understands what it takes to build successful defenses in complex DUI cases. Contact him and his team today to schedule a consultation.

Published on: September 9, 2015

DUI Drivers Hit The Wall, The Fence, Horse Trailers—And A Train

by Michael Kraut

A collision with an inanimate object often brings to a halt the odyssey of a speeding and/or reckless driver suspected of a DUI in Los Angeles or in any other location.

Take the case of 65-year-old Huyesin Oflu of Frankford, Delaware. Before police caught up with him in the early morning hours of Wednesday, August 26th, he had managed to cross a median strip and two lanes of travel on DuPont Highway. Oflu then hit a fence, but that didn’t slow him down. He proceeded to ram two horse trailers, a fence (which he went through), a utility box and a road sign. Oflu’s vehicle ended up in the parking lot of a convenience store, where Delaware state troopers found him. They charged him with DUI, failure to remain in a single lane, failure to carry proof of insurance and littering.

Local police arrested Anna Stafford, 45, of Western Springs, Illinois, after they watched her hit a retaining wall while attempting to turn into a driveway. According to the La Grange Patch, the officers had responded to reports of a car swerving all over Wolf Road. When they caught up with Stafford they found an open bottle of alcohol in her car. Stafford’s subsequent arrest for DUI wasn’t a new experience for her; this incident marked the fourth time police picked her up for DUI.

While a moving train doesn’t exactly qualify as an inanimate object, the Union Pacific freight car that Brandy Jo Johnson slammed with her 2007 Honda minivan did bring her trip to an end. (The flashing railroad warning lights at the train track/road intersection had failed to stop her.) When they arrived at the accident scene, Franklin County police found Johnson’s minivan on its side down a nearby embankment; Johnson, almost miraculously, did not suffer serious injuries. She will face DUI charges, however.

Do you need help defending against a serious charge? Call a qualified Los Angeles DUI defense attorney with the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers immediately.

Published on: July 8, 2015

Switching Seats to Fool Cops into Thinking You Didn’t Drive DUI: Unsurprisingly, It Doesn’t Work!

by Michael Kraut

As this blog has documented over the years, people try a lot of crazy approaches to avoid being charged with a Los Angeles DUI. Some cry. Others flee the scene. Still others try to talk their way out of the charges.

One ploy that doesn’t work too well, however, is switching seats just before the police officer comes up to the vehicle. Just ask Jose Ruiz, age 29, of Providence, Rhode Island. When the police pulled him over, he quickly exchanged places with his passenger, maybe hoping the officer wouldn’t notice the swap. (He did.)

According to a local newspaper, the Warwick Post, when police spotted Ruiz initially, he was swerving into other lanes, and he just barely missed hitting a guard rail. When police pulled him over, they called his bluff and gave him a field sobriety test. He apparently didn’t do too well.

But trying to pretend he wasn’t driving wasn’t Ruiz’s only offense. He had been driving on a suspended license; his vehicle’s windows were too heavily tinted; and there were two bottles of Hennessy (cognac) in the car, one open and one closed. (Ruiz reportedly threw them in the back seat before he got out of the car; that worked about as well in terms of keeping him out of trouble as did changing places with his passenger.)

The final difficulty? Although the car was registered to Ruiz, the plates belong to a rental car company. Uh oh.

According to the Warwick Post, the police threw the book at Ruiz, charging him with misuse of plates, operating a motor vehicle with an open alcohol container, failing to use turn signals, roadway violations, and refusal to submit to a chemical test.

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

Published on: May 25, 2015

Cop Faces Higher Penalties under Michigan’s “Super Drunk” Law

by Michael Kraut

A blood alcohol content reading of .08 or higher is enough to get you charged with a DUI in Los Angeles. You face the same penalties whether or not your BAC is .09 or .16.

But that’s not the case in Michigan. The Great Lake State has what’s commonly referred to as the “super-drunk” law that applies to DUI arrests. Anyone who’s driving with a BAC of .17 or higher may face more severe consequences if arrested, even if it’s a first-time offense. One off-duty Michigan cop is discovering just how seriously the state takes such incidents.

Jamie Dubay, 39, is a 14-year veteran of the Sterling Heights Police Department. It was 1:30 in the morning of April 22 and Dubay was off duty when his 2012 Dodge Ram pickup truck left the road, hit several sections of a privacy fence and then ended up against a tree. An ambulance transported Dubay to the hospital, which admitted him for non-life threatening injuries.

The Macomb County Sheriff’s office, which took over investigation of the case from the Sterling Heights Police Department, charged Dubay with operating a vehicle with a high blood alcohol content. Although this is a misdemeanor charge, Dubay could face higher penalties than because his BAC was .27–more than three times the legal limit.

Of course, those are not the only consequences that Dubay may suffer. The Sterling Heights Police Department has suspended him, and he faces an internal investigation to determine how/if he has violated department policies and discipline.
Locating a seasoned and qualified Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer is a critical part of the process of reclaiming your life, your time and your peace of mind. Call ex-prosecutor Michael Kraut for a free consultation right now.

Published on: April 29, 2015

Are DUI Drivers a Threat to the Power Grid?

by Michael Kraut

Most drivers arrested for a Los Angeles DUI prefer keeping the legal proceedings quiet to avoid possible employment and social repercussions. But when an alleged DUI driver hits a utility pole, knocking out power to hundreds or thousands of people, it can be harder to keep the arrest under wrap.

At least some of Avista Utilities’ customers in North Spokane, Washington, have probably heard the name Hailey Barker in conjunction with DUI. The 20-year-old driver hit a telephone pole around 7:45 p.m. on Sunday, April 19th. More than 300 customers lost their power, some for a few hours and some for almost 10 hours. Fans of country music, who missed out on the 50th anniversary broadcast of the Country Music Awards, were probably not displeased to learn that police arrested Barker on suspicion of DUI and impounded her car.

Across the country, in Burlington, Vermont, John D. Callahan went up against not one utility pole but two on earlier that same day. Police found the 24-year-old man in his car, surrounded by downed wires, at a pole on Hinesburg Road around 3 a.m. Callahan’s roadside breath test registered 0.176 blood alcohol content, but the driver refused to take an evidentiary blood test during processing on a DUI charge. Green Mountain Power responded to the accident scene to restore power.

Finally, in Omaha, Nebraska, 29-year-old Darrell McElderry led police on a high-speed chase before hitting a street light and sending electrical wires onto 13th Street. Police arrested him early Sunday morning for a third-offense DUI, driving on a suspended/revoked license and driving the wrong way on a public road.

Do you need assistance constructing an appropriate response to a DUI charge? Look to the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers for insight and peace of mind. Mr. Kraut is an experienced Los Angeles DUI attorney with many relevant connections in the local legal community.