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The fight for a new California congressional seat has already had at least one potential candidate using rivals’ DUI records to point to their unsuitability.

Last week, Sen. Juan Vargas Democrat-San Diego called for what he called “drunk-driving legislators” to vacate their seats on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. His calls were directed at former Sen. Denise Moreno Duchney, who is his rival for the 51st Congressional District, and had once been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. That particular arrest occurred eleven years ago in Sacramento, and received little to no attention. That doesn't seem to have prevented Sen. Vargas from digging it up to use as ammunition during election warfare. In 2000, Duchney pleaded down charges of driving under the influence to charges of reckless driving.

Sen. Vargas issued a press release in which he also pointed to the drunk driving arrest of former Senator Roy Ashburn. Ashford's DUI arrest occurred in 2010, and he had entered a no-contest plea. According to Sen. Vargas, the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board is a “wasteful board” full of “drunk driving legislators” who find themselves cushy government positions.

 As these two former lawmakers are finding, a DUI conviction can come back from the past to haunt you at extremely inappropriate times. While it's easy to see that these “drunk driving legislators” taunts are part of the hostility that can be expected in politics with a seat at stake, it is sobering for a San Diego DUI defense lawyer to confirm that a DUI arrest is always on a person’s record, and can interfere with your future prospects. Even if you are eligible to have the drunk driving arrest and conviction expunged from your record, it can take at least five years before you can do so.

A detective with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department faces charges of suspected drunk driving and hit-and-run in an accident that occurred last week in Palm Desert in Riverside County.

Sheriff’s deputies responding to the scene of the accident were informed by witnesses that a car being driven by a female motorist had crashed into several parked cars, and had then run over a pedestrian before leaving the scene. The incident occurred in an apartment parking lot. Witnesses were able to provide investigators with a description of the vehicle and a license plate number. Later that evening, a car was found crashed into a water fountain near a club. Police were able to match the license plate number. The police detective has been booked into jail on suspicion of hit-and-run driving while intoxicated.

Penalties for a DUI conviction in San Diego may depend on whether it was the person’s first, second or third conviction. A first conviction may lead to fines of up to $1,000, compulsory participation in a drug education program and up to six months in jail or a six-month license suspension. However, in the case of a second DUI conviction, the penalties become harsher, with a jail sentence of up to one year, heavier penalties, and a license suspension of up to two years. For a third DUI conviction, a driver may lose his license for three years.

Further, when a person in California is involved in an accident with another automobile, and leaves the scene of the accident without exchanging contact information with the other people involved in the accident, and without providing assistance to any injured victims, he or she may be charged with hit-and-run. In such cases, a person may need not just a San Diego DUI lawyer, but also a San Diego criminal defense attorney. Often, hit-and-run charges can be combined with DUI, and the consequences of a conviction may be very serious. In such cases, the person may also have additional charges filed if any injuries resulted from the hit and run accident.

A bill that would expand the kind of information that a parole board in California can consider before deciding to grant parole has been announced. Lawmakers announced their bill, the Parole Reform Act of 2011 in Sacramento last month. If the bill does become law, California criminal defense lawyers expect serious parole challenges for persons convicted of serious crimes.

Under the bill, a parole board would be allowed to consider not just an inmate’s behavior in prison, but also the type and severity of the offense, before making the decision to grant parole. Currently, under California law, a parole board can only consider an inmate’s behavior in prison while making paroling decisions. The new bill however, would not only expand those considerations to the person’s actual offense, but would also require the inmate to provide proof that he or she is eligible for parole. As things stand right now, the parole board is required to furnish proof that the person is ready for parole.

This bill would allow parole board members to discard all kinds of other evidence, including an inmate’s prison behavior, and make a decision based entirely on the type of offense. According to the lawmakers, these changes would help parole boards make more informed and accurate decisions while determining whether to parole a person.

The inspiration for the bill is the Jaycee Dugard case. The offender in that case, Philip Garrido, had been paroled in 1988, just a year before he kidnapped Jaycee, who was eleven years old at the time. Garrido had been convicted of rape and kidnapping in 1997. Nevada prison authorities have never been able to explain the grounds for his parole. Even though Garrido was paroled from a non-California prison, lawmakers say that this kind of situation could easily occur in California.

San Diego criminal defense lawyers now have a new standard to define the fine line between free speech and threats. The California Supreme Court has ruled that in order for a threat against a crime victim or witness to be illegal, the listener must believe that the threat was serious. The Supreme Court decision will now require a Riverside County judge to review the conviction of a man, who was sentenced to prison after he made a threat to kill another man.

Eddie Lowery and his wife had been accused of stealing $250,000 while they were cleaning his home. Lowery was acquitted of the charges, but his wife was convicted and sentenced to prison. Between 2007 and 2008, Lowery was recorded on tape, making several threats against the man who had filed charges against them. Those threats were made by Lowery while he was visiting his wife in prison. On these tapes, Lowery threatens, among other things, to blow the man's head off.

Lowery was charged with threatening a crime victim. He insisted that he had been angry at the time he made the statements, and had not intended to carry out his threat. However, he was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison.
 
The California Supreme Court has now held that a threat against a crime victim or witness can only be illegal if the listener concludes that the speaker is serious about the threat. The court has ruled that the threat is not covered by freedom of speech protections if the listener believes that the speaker was serious when he made the threat, and was not joking or talking in the heat of the moment.
Now, a Riverside County judge who sentenced Lowery to one year in jail will have to review his decision.

A California man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for offering a $3,000 bounty for his daughter's boyfriend.
 
Domingo José Oliviera put up “dead or alive” posters with his daughter’s boyfriend’s face on them, offering $3,000 for his head. According to prosecutors, Bolivia told a probation officer that he not made the posters, and that others had made them.
 
The boyfriend is African-American, and the father had earlier made his daughter sign a contract that she would not date a black man. His daughter testified in court that her father had made similar threats against other African-Americans she has dated.
 
The man's hostility also seems to have arisen from the fact that his daughter's boyfriend is included in a sex offender registry. That registration is linked to an incident in which he had sex with a woman he believed at the time was 18 years old.

Oliviera has been convicted of solicitation of murder and making criminal threats against his 20-year-old daughter's boyfriend. He has also been charged with hate crimes. According to his attorneys, he was only trying to protect his daughter.

Persons convicted of certain kinds of sex offenses in California may have a number of penalties applied to them, including a prison sentence and a requirement to be registered in a sex offender registry. This is one of the provisions of Megan's Law, and several states, including California, have their own versions of the law. In most cases, registration in the registry can be permanent, unless a person chooses to apply for a certificate of rehabilitation. With a San Diego criminal defense lawyer’s help, a person get his name eliminated from the registry, but the certificates are handed out only in rare circumstances.

San Diego criminal defense lawyers now have a new standard to define the fine line between free speech and criminal threats against witnesses and crime victims.  The California Supreme Court has ruled that in order for the law against threatening a crime victim or witness to be constitutionally enforceable, the listener must reasonably believe that the threat was serious.  The Supreme Court decision will now require a Riverside County judge to review the conviction of a man who was sentenced to prison after he made a threat to kill a crime victim.

Eddie Lowery and his wife had been accused of stealing $250,000 while they were cleaning a home.  Lowery was acquitted of the charges, but his wife was convicted and sentenced to prison.  Between 2007 and 2008, Lowery was recorded on tape making several threats against the man who had filed charges against them.  Those threats were made by Lowery while he was visiting his wife in prison.  In these tapes, Lowery threatens, among other things, to blow the man's head off.

Lowery was charged with threatening a crime victim.  He insisted that he had been angry at the time he made the statements, and had not intended to carry out his threat.  However, he was convicted of threatening a crime victim and sentenced to a year in prison. 

The California Supreme Court has now held that the law against threatening a crime victim or witness is constitutional only in those situations where a "reasonable listener" would understand the threat as "a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence, rather than an expression of jest or frustration."  In other words, a threat is not constitutionally protected free speech if the listener reasonably believes that the speaker was serious when he made the threat, rather than joking or talking in the heat of the moment. 

The court sent the case back to the Riverside County judge who sentenced Lowery to review the decision based upon this constitutional standard.

The provisions of Jessica's Law prohibit persons convicted of sex offenses from living near schools, parks and other places where children gather.  These provisions have meant a nightmare for one California inmate who is in a semi-paralyzed state, and has little hope of finding a facility willing to take him in.

Fifty-eight-year-old Edward Ortiz has been in this state for more than a year.  He's currently in a hospital in Marin County, and incapable of getting up.  It costs the state $800,000 every year to have 24-hour guards around Ortiz's bed. Those expenses could be avoided under a new process in which the patient would stay in his place, but the need for guards would be eliminated.

Under the new medical parole process, Ortiz and another inmate like him in the same hospital, who has also been deemed by prison medical officials to be permanently medically incapacitated, can remain where they are without guards around. 

However, the problem is that the hospital Ortiz is currently in is right next to a park - rendering the hospital banned accommodations for him under Jessica’s Law.  Under the provisions of Jessica's Law, a person convicted of a sex crime cannot live with 2,000 feet of place where children gather.  Medical parole hearings for both of these men have been put off indefinitely until prison officials can find a hospital that is not covered under Jessica's Law. 

Unfortunately, as San Diego criminal defense attorneys know, finding housing compliant with the provisions of Jessica's Law for persons with sex crime convictions is next to impossible.  California’s homeless population has swelled due to the high numbers of released parolees who have not been able to find housing. The law’s other victims are ill people like Ortiz, who can’t find a hospital willing to let them stay without guards.

Under California's current laws, people with a felony drug conviction to their credit are banned from receiving food stamps under the CalFresh program.  San Diego criminal defense lawyers have often found that these restrictions often push people back into a life of crime.  Fortunately, some lawmakers are trying to rectify the situation, especially since the state will soon see more people released from prison after the Supreme Court order.

The Supreme Court recently ordered California to reduce its present population by at least 30,000 inmates over the next two years.  That means, thousands of inmates who have been imprisoned for low-level offenses, will be released.  Unfortunately, many of these people will be released into a society where there are severe restrictions even on their eligibility for food stamps.  For many people who have been released from prison, food stamps can be the only source of purchasing food.  When they don't have access to food stamps, it simply narrows their options, and sends them back into a life of crime.

A new bill sponsored by Oakland Democratic State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson would change this state of affairs.  The bill A.B. 828 would lift the ban on food stamps for convicted drug felons.  According to Assemblyman Swanson, prisoners who are released from prison must endure hardship even to access food supplies.  It's hard for San Diego criminal defense attorneys to expect recidivism rates to decrease when we derail the process of integrating prisoners back into society. 

The drug felon ban on food stamps was enacted through the Welfare Reform Act which was signed by President Bill Clinton.  The bill was intended to nudge people from welfare to self-sufficiency, and also to reduce misuse of food stamps.  According to Assemblyman Swanson, the fear of misuse doesn’t exist anymore because of the use of Electronic Benefit Transfer cards in the CalFresh program.

 

There was an increase in the number of persons arrested for DUI in San Diego County this Memorial Day weekend over last year.  According to the California Highway Patrol, officers arrested 83 drivers for DUI this Memorial Day.  That was an increase of 76 over last year. 

The arrests occurred during the holiday weekend which began at 6 PM on Friday, and ended at midnight on Monday. Across California, there was an decrease in the number of DUI arrests this year.  Conversely, the DUI accident fatalities have actually spiked in 2011. 

Memorial Day kicks off the year's biggest DUI season.  With summer approaching, law-enforcement officers are ready to crack down on drunk driving.  That means more  drivers will be at risk of being arrested for DUI.  The incidence of drunk driving, especially DUI cases involving teenagers and young drivers, normally increase during summer.  If you're the parent of a teen driver, now might be the right time to set down some strict rules about not driving under the influence. 

A DUI arrest in California can have serious repercussions.  California law prohibits a person from driving under the influence of alcohol with a blood-alcohol content of .08% or more.  If you're pulled over while you are driving with this kind of blood-alcohol content, then you could be facing DUI charges.  A conviction could mean a suspension of your driving privileges, and even a prison term.  You could be fined and asked to perform community service.  A DUI conviction can also remain on your record.  This could interfere with your prospects for employment in the future.

If you have been charged with DUI in San Diego, contact a San Diego DUI defense lawyer immediately.

DNA tests have now confirmed a sexual encounter between former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a hotel maid in New York.  According to news reports, samples taken from Strauss-Kahn have matched material that was found on the hotel maid’s shirt.  Investigators are currently awaiting other tests on swabs, including those from the carpet of the room and other surfaces.

Both the prosecutors in this case as well as Strauss-Kahn’s criminal defense lawyers are likely to use the DNA evidence to further their own defenses.  San Diego criminal defense lawyers strongly suspect that Strauss-Kahn’s attorneys will use the consensual sex defense. 

The positive DNA match means that there won't be much point in lawyers denying that an encounter took place.  Now that there has been a match, his lawyers are likely to present that the alleged assault was, in fact, a consensual sex encounter.  In fact, his lawyers have already spoken about presenting evidence that shows that the encounter was not forced.

What San Diego sexual assault defense attorneys expect is this- with a positive DNA match in place, it will ultimately come down to the word of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has been charged with attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and other crimes, against that of the hotel maid.   The legal battle that can be expected now is likely be ugly.  Already, issues of gender and race - the maid is an African immigrant -  as well as the high-profile nature of the defendant have already turned this into more than a typical sexual assault case. 

The legal defense is likely to send investigators to the maid’s home country of Guinea in Africa to look for anything in her past like former criminal activity that can be used in his defense.  He is currently out on $1 million bail, and has been placed under strict restrictions.  He is required to wear an electronic ankle bracelet, and is under 24-hour security to prevent flight.