August 2009 Archives

Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys defend clients on a regular basis who are charged with a DUI based upon a failed breath test.  A breath test supposedly measures your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to see if you are over the legal limit for alcohol consumption; however, breath tests have been known to be faulty.

Many errors may be made in how a breath test is administered, how the machine is calibrated, and how the results are interpreted. In addition, each person's body and its functions are different and this may affect your breath test.

Breath test results can vary due to body weight, the amount of food you've eaten, how frequently you consume alcohol, your body temperature, medical issues and even such seemingly trivial things as braces.  With all of these factors playing a part, you would think that breath tests would not be administered in a sort of "one size fits all" fashion.  Unfortunately, you will simply have to breathe into a machine to get your results, which will determine whether or not you are charged with a DUI crime.

One high profile DUI arrest came recently with an athlete in the NFL.  Tennessee Titans wide receiver Chris Davis was charged with a DUI in Nashville after blowing a .11% in during his breath test.  Davis has been injured and was pulled over for speeding; he was administered the breath test after his eyes were watery and he smelled of alcohol.  He is not the first NFL player charged with a DUI this year; Donta Stallworth of the Cleveland Browns served 30 days in prison for a felony DUI that included a fatality.

If you or someone you love have been charged with a Los Angeles DUI due to a failed breath test, contact the Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin today at 877-781-1570.

DUI breath tests are highly controversial, although truly not controversial enough.  The science behind DUI breath tests is spotty at best, and Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys have battled for years to get them thrown out as evidence.  However, in legislation circles, politicians are motivated to allow law enforcement officials to continue using breath test analyzers.  Some state legislators are even giving the prosecution an edge in using breath test results to put people behind bars for years.

For example, in Virginia, the state assembly passed an emergency bill which dropped a provision that forced prosecutors to show that DUI breath test machines are accurate.  They also established a timetable for the accused to challenge any scientific evidence.  This came in response to a United States Supreme Court ruling in the case of Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts case, ruled that certificates of analysis, such as drug examinations or blood alcohol tests, are subject to cross-examination under the constitutional right to confront one's accuser. Simply submitting a piece of paper was not sufficient.  In response, DUI defense attorneys began demanding that lab analysts and technicians show up in person to defend the findings of breath tests.  When examiners or technicians could not show up to court, the judges would throw out the case.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that the states were putting too much burden on the defense, and were shifting some of the burden back to the prosecution.

A skilled Los Angeles DUI defense attorney will have a great deal of experience defending against a Los Angeles breath test.  All breath test technology is protected by courts and the companies who make the machines, so only a skilled, experienced Los Angeles DUI defense attorney will know exactly how to combat charges that are brought due to breath test results.

If you have been charged with a DUI based upon your DUI breath test results, contact the Los Angeles DUI defense attorney team at Kestenbuam, Eisner & Gorin today at 877-781-1570.

Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys represent all kinds of people facing DUI charges, including celebrities, politicians, athletes and more.  Over the last few months, here is a list of Los Angeles DUI cases involving well-known and high profile individuals:

• In Orange County, Councilman Andy Quach was driving under the influence and ran into an electric pole which knocked out power for more than 300 homes.
• In Miami, Cleveland Browns receiver Donte Stallworth was involved in a DUI accident where he struck and killed a person crossing the street.  Stallworth was sentenced to 30 days in prison and served 24 days.
• In June, the former lead singer of the band Warrant was found guilty of a Los Angeles DUI after he hit a parked car in Hollywood.
• Pro-wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was also arrested in Hollywood for a Los Angeles DUI.
• In July, the actor who played the black power ranger from the "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" was arrested for a DUI in Alabama.
• Former Clipper Zach Randolph was arrested for a Los Angeles DUI in April, but with the assistance of a Los Angeles DUI defense attorney, he was only charged with reckless driving in July.

If you have been charged with a Los Angeles DUI, you need a qualified, experienced Los Angeles DUI defense attorney working for you.  The penalties for a Los Angeles DUI include jail time, loss of license, serious fines, having an interlock device placed on your car, probation, community service and much more.

If you or someone you love is facing DUI charges in Los Angeles, contact the Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin.  Our skilled defense law firm has over fifty years of experience and can supply you with top notch legal services.  We understand the law, the courts and how best to defend your case.

One major challenge for any Los Angeles DUI defense attorney is defending someone with multiple DUI convictions.  If you have one or more DUI convictions leading up to a DUI trial, it could lead to increased jail time, increased fine, a longer period of losing your license and could make defending you quite difficult.

A skilled Los Angeles DUI defense attorney will have to craft a unique defense for you, one that focuses on the weakness of the prosecution's case and that calls into question the investigation tactics of the law enforcement officials involved.  Breath tests, blood tests, sobriety checkpoint status and more could all be used to defend someone with multiple DUI convictions.

One example of someone with multiple DUI convictions is the husband featured on "The Real Housewives of Orange County."  Matt Keough was spotted recently as his vehicle rolled through a stop sign.  Police were not able to pull him over however and had to follow him back to his home before they could investigate the situation.  It turns out, after his blood test that he was three times over the legal limit, which is .08%.  He was taken into custody before posting $10,000 bail.  Keough was sentenced to 180 days in an O.C. jail back in January 2008 for violating the probation of a 2005 DUI arrest.

If you have multiple DUI convictions, it can mean minimum prison time for any new convictions.  For example, for your second DUI conviction, your license can be suspended up to 2 years and you could spend a year in prison.  For your fourth DUI conviction, it could lead to up to five years of a suspended license and multiple years in prison.

If you are facing multiple DUI convictions, you need a qualified Los Angeles DUI defense attorney.  At Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin, our skilled team of defense lawyers can provide top notch legal representation.

One of the husbands featured on "The Real Housewives of Orange County" has faced DUI charges before, but his recent DUI charge is quite surprising.  Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys represent people on a daily basis who have multiple DUI convictions, and in Los Angeles that can bring serious penalties and fines.

Multiple DUI convictions in Los Angeles will lead to thousands of dollars in fines, loss of your driver's license, community service and much more.  In fact, there is actually a formula whereby each offense adds a great deal of jail time to your sentence; a second DUI conviction will lead to up to a year in prison and two years without a license and a fourth DUI conviction can lead ot three years of jail time and four years without a license.

In the case of Matt Keough, he was spotted rolling through a stop sign and didn't stop for the police until he got to his home.  At that point, police gave him a blood alcohol test that showed he was three times the legal limit.  Keough was sentenced to 180 days in an O.C. jail back in January 2008 for violating the probation of a 2005 DUI arrest.

Having a skilled, experienced Los Angeles DUI defense attorney representing you can make all the different if you are facing multiple DUI convictions.  A DUI attorney can protect your rights, make any necessary plea bargains and aggressively defend you in court.  Multiple DUI convictions could lead to years in prison, and if your DUI crimes are serious enough, you could face severe penalties.  Losing your license will affect your career, your ability to help your family and more.  Going to jail, even if for a month, can radically change your life forever.

If you are facing multiple DUI convictions, contact the Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin.  Our attorneys have over fifty years of experience and can offer you top notch legal defense.  Call us today at 877-781-1570.

Los Angeles DUI arrests happen in a variety of ways, in a variety of environments.  Some of them seem strange, some even comical, but Los Angeles DUI penalties are serious and require a skilled DUI defense attorney.  Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys understand the law, understand the courts and understand prosecution tactics.

Here are some example of Los Angeles DUI arrests and other DUI arrests:

• A man in Redding, CA was arrested for DUI after he hit a Cal-Trans stripe painting truck.  The truck was sitting on the side of the road.
• A Vermont man was arrested for DUI after driving his snowmobile while under the influence of alcohol.
• A Florida woman was arrested for DUI while driving with her four children in the car.  Her blood alcohol level was .113; .08 is the legal limit.
• In Australia, a man was arrested for driving a golf cart drunk.  He had a .14 blood alcohol level.
• In Wisconsin, a man was sent to prison for his 15th DUI, although only 9 official convictions.
• In July, former Three's Company actress Joyce DeWitt was arrested for a Los Angeles DUI.

Each of these seems like a unique DUI case, possibly even entertaining to read about, but each DUI conviction carries tremendous penalties.  For a felony Los Angeles DUI, you could be facing serious jail time and tremendous fines.  Even misdemeanors will bring severe penalties such as fines, loss of driving privileges, mandatory attendance at counseling and much more.

If you are arrested for a Los Angeles DUI, you need a qualified Los Angeles DUI defense attorney.  At Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin, our team defense attorneys can provide top notch legal services.  We aggressively defend our clients and assure them of the best results possible.

Los Angeles DUI checkpoints can be a tricky ordeal, and defending yourself in court against DUI charges requires the skill of an experienced Los Angeles DUI defense attorney.  Any Los Angeles DUI checkpoint has certain laws and rules that must be followed by police in order for any charges to hold up in court.  However, unless the defendant has a skilled, experienced Los Angeles DUI defense attorney, these mistakes will most likely go unchallenged. 

Recently, a DUI checkpoint in Orange County found four people being arrested and 19 others being cited for some type of DUI charge.  Of the almost 650 vehicles which passed through the DUI checkpoint, police stopped over 200 cars and screened 25 people for some sort of DUI infraction.  Also, this near-Los Angeles DUI checkpoint found one driver arrested for a marijuana-related crime.

There is a good chance that of the 23 arrests/citations that took place that night, in at least one of those instances the police did not follow proper procedure.  With a skilled Los Angeles DUI defense attorney, you could avoid jail time, fines, loss of license, driving classes, mandatory meetings, community service and the other penalties handed out by the courts.  Any Los Angeles DUI checkpoint is bound to have some mistake, and a good lawyer will be able to spot and exploit that mistake to his client's benefit.

Sobriety checkpoints, or DUI roadblocks, are set up in order to regulate the number of drunk drivers in California. The implementation of these checkpoints has been controversial due to their possible infringement upon fourth amendment rights as outlined in the U.S. Constitution.  However, in 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that sobriety checkpoints were constitutional when the intrusion on the individual's rights is rightly weighed with the effectiveness of the roadblock.

If you have been pulled over at a Los Angeles DUI checkpoint, contact the DUI defense attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin today.  We have the successful track record needed to get the best results.

A city councilman from the Los Angeles area is under investigation for a DUI after his involvement in an accident.  The Los Angeles DUI happened when Andy Ngoc Quach was driving after midnight when his car struck  an electric pole in Westminster.  The crash severed the pole to the rear of several homes, knocking out power for about 300 homes in the area. 

Accidents caused by DUI can lead to all sorts of legal problems, including jail time, fines, probation, limited driving privileges and more.  It could also lead to civil problems as people could sue over the damage done to their property.

If you have been arrested, or are being investigated for, a Los Angeles DUI charge, you need a skilled Los Angeles DUI defense attorney.  Los Angeles courts sometimes treat Los Angeles DUI charges like an assembly line, not even giving some defendants the opportunity to defend themselves.  To protect your rights and protect your future, hire a Los Angeles DUI defense attorney. 

A Los Angeles DUI defense attorney can protect you by analyzing all of the issues surrounding your arrest, including the procedure of the arresting officer, the sobriety test taken and other details.  Los Angeles DUI stops could be illegal, and Los Angeles DUI sobriety tests could be administered improperly.  Only a skilled, experienced Los Angeles DUI defense attorney will know how to properly examine a DUI case.

If you or a loved one has been charged with a DUI, contact the Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin.  We have over fifty years of experience with Los Angeles DUI laws, and can provide top notch legal services to anyone charged with DUI.  We specialize in developing a defense to DUI charges relying on the breathalyzer breath test or a blood test by utilizing the science behind blood-alcohol evidence.

As any Los Angeles DUI defense attorney will tell you, a felony DUI can have severe consequences.  Felony DUI cases ususally portray the defendent as a terrible person, and juries rarely have any sympathy for someone who caused injuries or death via an alleged drunk driving incident.

Toxicology reports from a deadly crash on New York's Taconic State Parkway are drawing outrage as they reveal that Diane Schuler, 36, had a blood alcohol level of .19% and traces of marijuana in her blood stream before causing a collision that left eight people, including Schuler herself, dead.  Officials also report finding a broken bottle of vodka in the backseat of her Ford minivan.  Results of the toxicology tests reveal that Schuler had six grams of alcohol in her stomach that had yet to be metabolized and that she may have smoked marijuana anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour prior to the crash.  Police records indicate that Schuler had called her brother from a rest stop saying she felt ill prior to the crash.  He advised her to wait for him to pick her and the children up, advice Schuler clearly did not heed.

Schuler was reportedly driving home from a weekend camping trip with her two year-old daughter, five year-old son and three young nieces in the car when she was seen driving the wrong way on the highway's northbound lanes before she slammed head-first into an SUV carrying three adult men, all of whom also died.  The lone survivors of the collision were Schuler's five year-old son and the occupants of a third vehicle involved in the crash, who all escaped with relatively minor injuries.  Several family members of the victims are now calling for a homicide investigation, claiming Schuler had alcohol and drug problems that her family knew about and that she may have been driving under the influence of alcohol when she left the campgrounds in Sullivan County, New York earlier that day.  Police are still investigating.

While driving under the influence is a serious criminal offence in and of itself, fatalities occurring as a result of DUI bring on a whole new level of serious consequence as they are charged as a felony DUI instead of a misdemeanor.  Many cases of DUI-related fatalities are tried as vehicular manslaughter, a felony criminal offense in Los Angeles, and can garner up to 10 years in a state prison upon conviction.  The average case of vehicular manslaughter related to driving under the influence of either drugs or alcohol in Los Angeles would be punished by as many as four years in state prison.  In cases of gross negligence or recklessness, such as in Schuler's case where the driver's blood alcohol content was well over the legal limit, as many as 10 years could be handed down as punishment.  With so much of your life and freedom on the line, you need an experienced criminal defense attorney by your side if you are facing a DUI-related criminal charge such as a felony DUI.  Call the attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin, LLP today to start preparing your defense.

When a Los Angeles DUI defense attorney defends a driving under the influence charged that stems from a DUI checkpoint, there are a number of things to review.  For example, from 6:00 pm until 1:15 am in Upland, there will be a DUI checkpoint.  The reason people know this in advance is that it was published in the Upland Daily Bulletin, the newspaper there.  It is law that any DUI checkpoint must be announced beforehand in local media in order to give drivers the option of avoiding the checkpoint.

Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys work very hard to defend anyone charged with a DUI offense, often examining every little area of the law to see if the police obeyed all the proper procedures.  If paperwork is filled out incorrectly, if procedure is followed incorrectly, if sobriety tests are administered improperly or if a defendant is not made aware of their Miranda rights, then a skilled Los Angeles DUI defense attorney can offer a proper defense.

If you are arrested for a DUI at a DUI checkpoint, you should immediately get the newspapers from your area and make sure your Los Angeles DUI defense attorney knows if any announcement was made.  With a skilled Los Angeles DUI defense attorney working for you, you can expect positive results.

Public defenders often cannot offer the type of knowledge, skill and attention that a Los Angeles DUI defense attorney can.  If you've been charged with a DUI, you should contact the Los Angeles DUI Defense Team at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin.  Their skilled Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys can provide top notch legal services for anyone arrested at a DUI checkpoint.  With decades of legal experience, including experience at Los Angeles District Attorneys' Offices, their knowledge and background is unmatched.  Contact them today at 877-781-1570.

Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys work hard to help their clients get the best results possible.  What's always difficult to manage however is how DUI penalties can change from year to year depending upon new legislation.  Sometimes, the DUI penalties in one state will influence the DUI penalties in another state, and although one might think politicians are exempt from "trends" the truth is they are sometimes very influenced by what other politicians are doing.

For example, many Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys have been keeping an eye on a DUI case in Pennsylvania.  A man, who was already convicted of three DUIs, hit traffic cones and flares which were set up as part of a DUI checkpoint, and then drove behind a nearby restaurant where he was approached by the police. 

In addition to the man's prior DUI convictions, he had drug paraphernalia in his car and failed a field sobriety test as well as having an active warrant out for his arrest.  The three DUI convictions, couple with a pending DUI charge could lead to serious prison time. 

Los Angeles DUI penalties depend in part on the type of violation, how many times the individual violated Los Angeles DUI law and how far over the legal limit the individual allegedly was.  If the person has multiple DUI convictions, it could lead to mandatory jail time under the DUI penalty chart.  Courts often have mandatory sentencing guidelines they must follow based upon the frequency and type of offense.  Usually this applies only to felonies, but in a case involving Los Angeles DUI law, multiple DUI convictions could lead to fines, prison time, license suspension, community service, probation and much more.

If you are facing serious DUI penalties in Los Angeles, you need a qualified Los Angeles DUI defense attorney who will represent you effectively and successfully.  Contact the Los Angeles DUI defense attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin, LLP today for your initial consultation at 877-781-1570.