Articles Posted in Case Summaries

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Police officers who suspect a driver of DUI in Los Angeles must have probable cause before they can ask that person to take a breathalyzer test. But what constitutes probable cause? In Kansas, at least, police officers can no longer use some of the indicators that they used to employ.Kansas-Supreme-Court-DUI

According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, the Kansas Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Darcy Unrau, who appealed his conviction on DUI charges. Unrau’s lawyers argued that Officer Steve Koch, who arrested the driver, lacked good cause to ask the defendant to take a breathalyzer test.

Unrau had been driving 30 mph over the speed limit when Koch pulled him over in August 2014. After spotting a holstered gun in the vehicle, Koch asked the driver to get out. The officer admitted that Unrau had no problem talking or walking but said he smelled of alcohol. When Unrau’s passenger opened the glove compartment in the vehicle to take out the insurance information, a can of beer rolled out. Officer Koch subsequently found two other cans of beer, one opened, in the vehicle.

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When drivers arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles hire attorneys to represent them, they expect that their counsel will help them resolve issues quickly. But Jason William Gale had a different experience. He discovered—20 years after his DUI arrest!—that his attorney had not followed through in handling Gale’s 1995 DUI arrest in Grand Forks, North Dakota. So when Grand Forks prosecutors (finally) caught up with Gale about a year ago, they took him to court, where the judge found him guilty and fined him $500.north-dakota-dui-ruling-los-angeles-DUI-blog

Now the North Dakota Supreme Court has ruled that the 20-year delay violated Gale’s right to a speedy trial.

According to the Bismarck Tribune, Gale’s attorney in 1995, Henry Howe, reported to his client that the case was resolved and closed. Gale left North Dakota shortly after that time. But a background check for a security job Gale was applying for turned up an outstanding arrest warrant for the DUI case. Cass County, which was prosecuting the case, said it had sent three notices to Gale. However, Gale said the court had his address because of other legal actions and claimed that he had never received any such notice.

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Kansas has joined the list of states where courts have ruled against laws requiring suspected DUI drivers to take a breathalyzer or blood test without police first getting a warrant. A similar decision by a California court would undoubtedly impact many of the cases against drivers arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles.Kansas-DUI-case-SCOTUS

The Kansas State Legislature passed a law in 2012 making refusing to take a blood or breath test after a DUI arrest an offense separate from the DUI itself. The penalties for breaking that law were steep: a one-year license suspension plus two years of driving with an ignition interlock device. But in the ruling announced on February 26th, the Kansas Supreme Court found that law was unconstitutional.

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A recent ruling in a case involving a DUI in Los Angeles County has overturned the second degree murder conviction of a woman who hit a pedestrian and kept driving—with the pedestrian stuck to her windshield. Sherri-Lynn-Wilkins-DUI

In February 2014, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury convicted Sherri Lynn Wilkins of second degree murder and two counts of DUI in the death of Philip Moreno, 31, of Torrance California. A judge later sentenced her to 55 years in prison. But after her conviction, Wilkin’s defense attorneys argued that prosecutors unjustly introduced Wilkins long history of drug addiction and serious crime as evidence in the case.

The three-judge panel from California’s Second District Court of Appeal agreed. They noted that “The rap sheet reflected numerous arrests and several convictions, including for offenses such as drug possession crimes, prostitution, and thefts. We conclude admission of the rap sheet was prejudicial error requiring reversal of the murder and driving under the influence convictions.”

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Over the past year or so, anecdotal evidence suggests that lawyers who represent DUI drivers in states across the U.S. have been getting more aggressive in contesting their clients’ convictions. Now there’s another lawsuit–this time filed in Florida–which anyone who has lost a driver’s license because of a DUI in Los Angeles might want to watch closely.
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According to the Orlando Sentinel and other media reports, lawyers for Alfredo Crespin, a 58-year old man from Winter Gardens, Florida, are bringing a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV). Arrested for DUI on November 20, 2015, Crespin lost his license when police confiscated it after his arrest. Following the regular procedures, DHSMV then suspended his driving privileges for a year. On February 12th, 2016, the court found Crespin guilty of the DUI charges, and his driver’s license suspension remains in place.
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Can a police officer pull drivers over—and subsequently charge them with DUI—just because their vehicles crossed the center line? A Tennessee court has said yes. While it won’t affect anyone contesting a DUI in Los Angeles, the court’s ruling in the Volunteer State seems to be bucking a national trend that has made it harder for prosecutors to get DUI convictions.State-Linzey-Danielle-Smith-DUI

In a ruling that combined two different cases, State v. Linzey Danielle Smith and State v. William Whitlow Davis, Jr., the Tennessee Supreme Court found that police officers were acting within the law when they stopped the defendants for traffic violations in two separate incidents. The defendants, whom police charged with DUI, had argued that the officers had violated their constitutional rights prohibiting unlawful seizure because they did not have probable cause to make the stop.

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Small words can have a big impact. Just ask the thousands of drivers in Missouri who could see their DUI convictions thrown out of court thanks to the substitution of “or” for “and” in the instructions for Breathalyzer calibration. If a judge made a similar ruling regarding DUIs in Los Angeles, lawyers could submit dozens of requests to have their clients’ convictions overturned.Missouri Supreme Court-DUI

The ruling stems from an incident on July 12, 2013, when Lake Saint Louis, Missouri, police arrested Kristin Nicole Stiers for driving while intoxicated. When Stier’s attorney, Matt Fry, began looking into the results of the breathalyzer test—which registered her blood alcohol content as above the legal limit—he found that the state agency responsible for the calibration directions had made a mistake in its directions to state police.

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With the recent passage of a law permitting the use of medical marijuana in California, police officers will soon be dealing with its effects on arrests for DUI in Los Angeles. Will someone using cannabis for medical reasons be able to avoid DUI charges? A recent ruling by Arizona’s Supreme Court has denied medical marijuana users in that state an automatic out on DUI charges.
The Arizona court case stems from an appeal by two women, Kristina Dobson and Marvelle Anderson, arrested for DUI in separate incidents. Police originally charged them under two of Arizona’s DUI statutes. An A1 refers to operating a motor vehicle under the influence of a drug—in other words, when impaired. An A3 charge concerns the operation of a motor vehicle when a person has a detectable amount of a drug in their system.a1-los-angeles-DUI

Prosecutors eventually threw out the A1 charges against each woman but won convictions on the A3 charges. The women contested their convictions in Arizona’s appeals court, saying that the medical marijuana statute permitted them to have the drug in their systems. The appeals court ruled against them.

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Can the DMV penalize someone for a DUI in Los Angeles based upon a police officer’s observation of their behavior? Can you lose your license even if your blood alcohol content is borderline for a DUI charge?Ashley-Coffey-DUI-los-angeles

A ruling earlier this year by the California State Supreme Court in the case of Ashley Coffey vs. Shiomoto permits the use of circumstantial evidence to support the finding of DUI when the DMV is ruling on a license suspension.

The case involved Ashley Jourdan Coffey’s appeal of her loss of license after a DUI conviction. Police officers stopped her after observing her weaving in and out of traffic lanes around 1:30 a.m. in the morning of November 13, 2011. Coffey claimed that she had been in a bar celebrating her birthday—but not drinking. The officers who spoke with her observed several behaviors that suggested otherwise. Her breath smelled like alcohol, her eyes were red and watery and she failed several roadside sobriety tests.

Police gave Coffey a breathalyzer test about an hour after pulling her over. It measured .08—just at the legal limit. A test three minutes later showed a BAC of 0.09.

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