Archive for December, 2011

If you have been arrested for driving under the influence, you should contact an Orange County DUI or DWI attorney. During your initial interview with a DUI attorney, you will be asked several questions about your arrest and what happened leading up to it. Below are some questions you are likely to be asked, so it might help to have your answers to these questions ready before your interview.

During your arrest, was your car searched by the police, and if so, did they find anything?

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Under the U.S. Constitution and most state criminal procedure codes, criminal suspects retain specific rights with respect to police informants. Under the Fourth Amendment, probable cause or reasonable suspicion that a crime is being committed is always required before law enforcement is privileged to arrest a private citizen. Orange County DUI attorneys know that probable cause is formed a variety of ways—typically through police investigative tools and eyewitness accounts. Sometimes, police are able to apprehend a criminal based on a tip from a known or anonymous informant. The law imputes varying levels of probable cause and reliability with respect to informants, and police are not necessarily permitted to pursue a criminal based on an unreliable, anonymous, or an unknown informant.

Criminal procedure law is friendlier to law enforcement in situations where an informant is identified by name and has been relied upon successfully in the past. Conversely, courts have held that probable cause is not present in cases where police arrest a suspect based on an anonymous tip from an unknown, unreliable source. In these cases, police should have used the tip to investigate further and garner more evidence to form probable cause before arresting the suspect.

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There are many components to a DUI charge and arrest. Law enforcement officers observe the physical characteristics of any person under suspicion of driving under the influence. Observations are made during the initial traffic stop, the field sobriety test, and the subsequent arrest. If you are facing a recent DUI arrest, it is important to get representation from an Orange County DUI attorney who may find alternative explanations for the various observations recorded by the arresting officers.

It is common for Orange County DUI attorneys to uncover inconsistencies in the police officer’s report. In most situations, the arresting officer will fill out an Alcohol Influence Report that is intended to detail the officer’s perceptions of the DUI suspect. One common inconsistency involves a situation in which the blood alcohol content (BAC) of a suspect is particularly high in comparison with the observations made in the Alcohol Influence Report. This could suggest inaccuracies in the chemical analysis of the suspect’s blood alcohol concentration. An experienced Orange County DUI attorney will assuredly advocate his or her client with regard to these potential chemical incompatibilities.

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A Costa Mesa woman has been charged with driving under the influence and causing injury after she allegedly hit a pedestrian. The pedestrian, 17-year-old Newport Harbor High School student Crystal Morales, was crossing a crosswalk shortly after 2:45pm when she was struck. The high school student was taken to a local hospital where doctors induced a coma so that Morales could recover from internal bleeding, brain swelling, head trauma and other internal injuries.

The 38-year-old driver Marie Lippincott, a fellow classmate’s mother, was driving a Chevy Tahoe northbound on Irvine Ave. when the accident occurred. An officer arrested Lippincott and is currently being held at the Orange County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail. Records show that in 2005, Lippincott pleaded guilty to theft, burglary and obtaining prescription drugs by fraud.

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In an effort to enforce safe driving, several cities within Orange County will be conducing DUI sobriety roving patrols.  The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will be conducting these DUI roving patrols today, Friday December 2^nd, within the city limits of Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills and Laguna Woods. The roving patrols are funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to help reduce the amount of DUIs and DUI related collisions.

Unlike standard DUI sobriety checkpoints, roving DUI patrols are not stationary and therefore cannot be avoided by motorists.   These roving patrol officers look for motorists who exhibit obvious signs of intoxication such as swerving, bloodshot or watery eyes and even the scent of alcohol.

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