Various California governmental entities, including cities and counties, have begun to take a new approach to dealing with DUI cases. The suggestions in this regard have ranged from more intensive education, a longer installation period for Ignition Interlock Devices, etc.

Recently, a Santa Rosa DUI attorney has noted that there has been a movement by some of these entities to recover the costs associated with a DUI case. To see more information about a Santa Rosa DUI attorney, click here. There currently exists a California state law authorizing entities to recover up to $1,000 in costs in a DUI matter in which there was an accident. Cities and counties would now like to recover the costs in non-accident cases. Recently, in Berkeley, California, the City Council has taken a new look at what can be done to prevent DUI in their jurisdiction. Berkeley has a high concentration of students from UC Berkeley and although Berkeley’s DUI arrests are no higher than most other cities, as with many other issues, a broader approach is being analyzed.

One of the most significant issues is a request that the City look at the rules and regulations adopted in Oakley, California which requires individuals convicted of a DUI to pay the city for the costs associated with the arrest and processing including the investigation officers’ salary for the time spent on any particular DUI arrest. The concern in this regard is that studies have shown that lower socio-economic individuals are more likely to be arrested for DUI and that DUI suspects who hired private attorneys were much less likely to be convicted than those who either represented themselves or were represented by the understaffed Public Defender’s Office, thus, causing the penalties to disproportionately affect poor people of color.

Other options are being explored. One option which could be applied equally across the board of economic strata is a more intensive educational process focusing on prevention and analyzing the DUI issue as a social one and not strictly a criminal justice issue. For more information on California DUI matters, click here.

“Exigent circumstances” are basically defined as emergency conditions. In 1984, the United States Supreme Court defined “exigent circumstances” as circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry into some type of a dwelling was necessary to prevent physical harm to officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of a suspect or some other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement. United States v. McConney (1984). These exigent circumstances generally excuse the failure of police to announce themselves or to wait for an occupant to refuse entry or to open the door. When police have a reasonable fear that someone is in jeopardy or contraband might be destroyed, this usually will be considered by the court as a sufficient exigency to justify an unannounced entry. However, if the exigency is created by the government then it cannot be used as the basis for excusing compliance with the requirement of acquiring a search warrant. For additional information about California search and seizure issues click here.

In a recent Second Appellate District Court decision, People v. Torres (May, 2012) 205 Cal.App.4^th 989, the California Court of Appeal held that smelling marijuana burning next to a house and looking through a window and seeing a person inside smoking marijuana did not justify a warrantless entry because the crime observed was too minor to support a warrantless entry based on exigent circumstances. Nothing about this information indicated to police that anyone had more than an ounce of marijuana and therefore, in California, there was no evidence that any jailable offense was being committed.

Back in 1969, this same court held that smelling burning marijuana may justify exigent circumstances, but that decision was made at a time when the possession of any amount of marijuana was a jailable offense. Currently, in California, possession of 28.5 grams or less is not a jailable offense. Since absolutely no evidence indicated that the officers had reason to believe that there would be a destruction of evidence for a jailable offense, there were no exigent circumstances and therefore the police were not justified in entering the house and attempting to justify the entry on the existence of exigent circumstances.

For more information about drug cases in California, click here. To speak to a Eureka criminal defense attorney, click here.

In this case, the client purchased a kit from the internet that contained all the parts necessary to construct an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle. The police conducted a search and found the partially assembled rifle. The client was charged and convicted of attempted unlawful assault weapon possession.

On appeal to a higher Court, the client argued that the law, as it is presently constructed, is insufficient to support a conviction unless the rifle was fully assembled and capable of firing in a semi-automatic fashion. The Appellate Court rejected this argument and agreed with the lower Court’s decision holding that the intent of the law as currently constructed is to protect the “health, safety and security of citizens from the danger of assault weapons”. To rule otherwise would, in essence, characterize the law as authorizing the possession of an AK-47 kit. In short, although this position is criticized by a Sonoma County criminal defense attorney, you cannot own the weapon parts nor the assembled weapon.

For more information about California assault issues, click here.