Fresno Criminal Lawyer Blog

The Fresno Bee recently reported that four people were arrested and 22 vehicles impounded during a DUI checkpoint, which comes on the heels of the Fresno Criminal Lawyer Blog analyzing the relative uselessness of such a strategy.

Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently put out a study that shows drunk driving is down 30 percent since 2006.

DUI in Fresno and elsewhere may not be nearly as big a problem as authorities would have you believe. In fact, the numbers are shrinking. Still, Fresno DUI defense lawyers continue to get requests from people asking for help with their DUI case. Which means even though the number of drunk drivers are down, arrests remain steady.

The Bee reports that the weekend DUI checkpoint at Ventura Avenue near R Street resulted in four people being charged with suspicion of drunken driving. More than two dozen vehicles were impounded, although a law change going into effect Jan. 1 will give drivers more time to find a person to drive their vehicle home if they are charged with driving without a license. Currently, their vehicle can be towed within 15 minutes. The law change, the newspaper speculates, would give officers less time to stop cars at checkpoints because they have to deal with parked cars for longer periods of time.

On a national level, NPR reports that 112 million Americans drove drunk in 2010, but that's down significantly from 2006, when the number was closer to 161 million.

The CDC study shows that young men -- from 21 to 34 -- account for 32 percent of drunk-driving incidents, though they only make up 11 percent of the nation's population.

As The Car Connection reports, DUI-related fatalities are down to about 11,000 per year, which is far lower than the 25,000 reported in 1980, when there were far fewer vehicles and people on the road.

But they cite the CDC statistic that 81 percent of drunk-driving incidents in 2010 were committed by men. And of those incidents, 85 percent were a result of binge drinking, which is defined as having a large amount of drinks in a short period of time.

While no one would argue that drinking and driving is a good thing, it certainly may have been over-hyped by law enforcement and lobbying groups in recent years. Many people charged with DUI in Fresno and elsewhere throughout the nation either never planned to commit a crime or have had a few drinks but still have the capacity to drive home.

Something can be said for people who have one or two drinks and are intoxicated but not legally drunk versus a person who has three or four drinks, but doesn't have a loss of senses, but legally is drunk.

Every case must be defended, and in DUI cases, that means looking at the initial stop, whether the officer had probable cause, as well as the training to conduct field sobriety testing. Breath testing machines have also have a list of problems, as they have outputted incorrect results, leading to unlawful convictions.

Continue reading "Drunk Driving in Fresno, Nationwide Down, But Police Still on the Lookout" »

Many Fresno residents were left without power, police say, after a man allegedly stole copper wire from a public utility source in the southeast side of town, ABC News reports.

Copper wire theft in Fresno has become increasingly popular as the price of metals and other commodities have increased rapidly in recent years. Thieves are selling the wire and other materials at metal-collecting depots for big bucks.

Telephone companies, utility companies and other businesses that use copper wiring have been victimized by thieves trying to make money in a down economy. As such, many people have been charged with theft in Fresno as a result of the upswing in metal prices. Fresno criminal defense lawyers have defended many of these clients in recent years.

Due to overcrowding issues in California's prison system, many violent felony offenders are being shipped off to county jails rather than prisons, and non-violent offenders are being placed on probation rather than sent to jails.

The overcrowding situation gives defendants an advantage either in plea negotiations or sentencing during the penalty phase if they are convicted. Still, judges have the discretion to sentence certain defendants convicted of theft crimes to prison. So, it's not a given that a non-violent offender will not be sent to jail or prison altogether.

Regardless of the penalties, a theft conviction can haunt you forever. In many cases, it can stay on your criminal history record for life. That can make finding a job difficult. It can stop you from voting or enrolling in certain government programs. There are major downsides, so the charges must be fought.

In this case, as Fox News reports, a 28-year-old man was arrested after he was found carrying tin snips, a long tool used to remove copper wire from its casing and pliers.

He now faces charges of grand theft and possession of burglary tools. ABC News reports that the wire theft left many residents without power. The man allegedly targeted street lights and houses, which have led to about an additional $600,000 in cost to the public utilities department to repair the damage.

Unlike individual thefts or those involving a single-family house, copper theft typically is committed on telephone polls or wires, utility boxes and plants that use the durable wiring. Many thieves have been electrocuted or killed when attempting to take this wiring because it is used often to deliver currents throughout the city.

At some of the depots that collect such material, workers rarely ask questions, so they are an ideal spot to sell the material. But those places are sometimes scoped out by police officers who attempt to solve a group of crimes without much evidence.

In these criminal cases, police officers must have solid proof before attempting to arrest a person or accuse them of being involved in many cases. Like other types of theft cases, police have many cases on file that are open and if they catch one person, they usually try to pin several crimes on them so they can mark their cases closed.

An experienced Fresno criminal defense lawyer will see through those tricks and challenge the evidence every step of the way. Theft charges can put a person in jail or prison for years, so they should be attacked aggressively.

Continue reading "Authorities Arrest Alleged Copper Wire Thief in Fresno" »

A recent case out of Iowa highlights why challenging breath testing as well as a well-timed motion to suppress in a Fresno DUI case can be highly beneficial to a defendant.

In State v. Walker, a man was arrested for DUI and requested to speak with his lawyer. But the police violated his rights by video-recording the conversation with his attorney, ruling out evidence they collected to use against him.

As any good Fresno DUI defense lawyer will tell you, a meeting between an attorney and client must be completely private. Important issues are discussed, strategies may be developed and the defendant's words should not be made public. It is a private conversation.

Even in jail settings, there must be rooms without microphones so that private meetings can take place without fear someone is listening. In Walker's case, that didn't happen.

According to court documents, the man was arrested and charged with "operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated," which is the name of the charge used in Iowa instead of "drunken driving." He asked to speak with his lawyer.

But the area they set up was in a booth that required the two to speak by intercom, and they were separated by a glass partition. The whole time the two were being monitored by a police video camera. It's highly likely that their conversation was subjected to the recording, making it a public conversation.

After conferring with his lawyer, the man agreed to take a breath test, which measured his blood-alcohol level at more than double the legal limit. But the man moved to have the test results suppressed, alleging the police violated his rights under an Iowa code that guarantees that he can meet with his attorney "alone and in private."

The judge agreed and granted the motion, tossing out the results of the breath test. But a court of appeals reversed the decision. When appealed to the state Supreme Court, justices reversed the appellate court's decision and again tossed out the breath test evidence.

While this may be a rare situation, defendants' rights are often violated during police investigations. While they may not happen in this type of similar situation, there are a variety of ways that a person can have his or her rights violated by police:

• By telling police they want to speak with a lawyer and having officers press them into confessing
• When officers search a person's house or person without justification
• During DUI investigations when an officer might pull over a vehicle without probable cause

But the remedy is often that evidence collected by officers who aren't doing their jobs correctly isn't allowed at trial. When law enforcement officers go against the rules and procedures and try to collect material to be used against a defendant, they get punished by watching that work go out the door.

And the defendant watches the potentially damaging evidence be held out of trial because they suffered by having their rights stripped away. An experienced Fresno criminal defense lawyer will be able to spot when rights have been violated and when motions need to be filed in order to keep out evidence that was wrongly obtained.

Continue reading "State v. Walker Shows Why Breath Testing, Rights Violations Must Be Examined in Fresno DUIs" »

ABC 30 is reporting that a man who is suspected of burglarizing a southeast Fresno cell phone store recently was caught after he fell through the ceiling and ran off. Workers called police after they noticed the man's leg dangling through the ceiling.

It's quite a challenge for a Fresno criminal defense attorney to defend a client who gets caught red-handed in a crime. But, as is the case here, police are attempting to pin several burglaries on this one suspect. Sometimes, that doesn't work out so well for them.

Burglary in Fresno can sometimes be difficult for police and prosecutors to prove. Just because law enforcement officers discover many unsolved cases that happen to be of similar style to each other doesn't necessarily mean one person committed all the crimes.

Yet, when police -- especially in California, where there are thousands of unsolved theft crimes, including vehicle thefts -- find one suspect they believe is 100 percent guilty, they sometimes try to stack charges against the person so they can consider his or her other unsolved cases closed.

It's a travesty that, for purposes of statistical analysis and grant money, police would consider cases closed even with minimal proof that a person committed them. In a burglary case, the facts are almost always similar -- someone uses burglary tools to pry open a window or door and break into a house or place of business in a certain neighborhood.

That could be quite a stretch thinking that only one person could be committing every burglary or other crime. Yet, many people accused of theft-related crimes, such as burglary, robbery or grand theft in California, are saddled with a bevy of charges when law enforcement officers may only have proof they have committed one.

This may be the case in the recent Fresno burglary arrest. Police say janitors found the dangling legs of a 35-year-old man in the roof of the ceiling of a cell phone store one recent Monday night. The janitors then saw him fall through the ceiling.

As one of the janitors called police, the man took off. Police say they caught him nearby a short time later.

Without citing any additional evidence, the news blurb says that police have arrested a suspect "in a string of burglaries in Southeast Fresno." The article goes on to say that the man has a recent conviction, which shows no proof of the current charge.

It's a typical strategy by prosecutors to charge a defendant with as many counts as they may possibly be able to prove -- even if the "proof" is borderline evidence at best -- in order to force a defendant into taking a plea agreement. This way, the state is all but guaranteed to secure prison or jail time for a defendant. They know there's a good chance the defendant will see the many charges facing them and take the first offer that's made.

But that's not always the best strategy. Along with coming up with a strong defense strategy, an experienced Fresno criminal defense attorney can present facts that could prove to be invaluable during any plea negotiations that the defendant may face.

Continue reading "Fresno Man Arrested for Burglary After Falling Through Store Ceiling" »