Orange County Criminal Lawyer Blog

Many people do not realize that DUI cases resulting from law enforcement contact at a DUI checkpoint are some of the most beatable. The reason for this is that there are very strict rules about how a DUI checkpoint must be conducted. These rules are rooted in the U.S. Constitution and our fundamental rights (yes, we still have those) as a free society. Thankfully, some of those fundamental rights mean that the government does not have the right to set up roadblocks to contact citizens, unless they follow these very strict guidelines. Inevitably, in a DUI checkpoint case, many of these guidelines are ignored or downplayed, leaving gaps in the prosecution's case that a trained and dedicated DUI lawyer can take advantage of.

One of these strict guidelines is the requirement that the location of the checkpoint be disclosed and published in the media. For those of you planning to exercise your right to socialize responsibly on New Year's Eve, but still need to drive, here is the latest list of Orange County DUI checkpoint locations for New Year's Eve. Note that the less descriptive the disclosed location is, the MORE DEFENSIBLE cases are arising from that checkpoint.

Westminster 8pm to 3am UNDISCLOSED location

Laguna Beach: "saturation patrol" disclosed at "ROVING."

La Habra: "saturation patrol"

Placentia: "saturation patrol"

The actual press release from the OC Sheriff's Office can be found here:

http://www.ocgov.com/vgnfiles/ocgov/Sheriff-Coroner/Content/Press%20Releases/2011/2011-12-27_Avoid_DUI_Campaign_Update.pdf

The "Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving" campaign by the Ad Council has been around for a while now. I watched another attorney do a DUI trial in approximately 2006, and after the jury convicted her client, one of the jurors cited that ad campaign as one of the reasons they convicted. "It doesn't matter that there was reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant's blood alcohol level was at or above .08," this juror said, "buzzed driving is drunk driving and the defendant admitted to having three drinks so he must have been buzzed."

This is what we are up against as defense attorneys, but that is why it is important to identify and remove jurors who harbor these beliefs before the trial even starts. The ability of a juror who is hell-bent on convicting to rationalize by any means necessary notwithstanding, catch phrases like "buzzed driving is drunk driving" are some of the jury poisons that a good defense attorney must take pains to neutralize before beginning any DUI trial.

The reason it is such a poisonous ad campaign is because it is a blatant misstatement of the law.

The law in California allows people to drink and drive. Allowing this is a public policy choice inherent in making it legal to drive with a blood alcohol level of .079. Had the State wanted to make all drinking and driving illegal, it certainly could have done so, by lowering the legal limit to .01. As it stands, though, it is perfectly legal to drink and drive as long as your blood alcohol does not exceed .08 while you are doing so. The legislature chose to balance their public safety concerns with the concerns of the restaurant and bar industry, along with alcoholic beverage manufacturers and retailers, all of whom would be seriously hobbled by a law that made it illegal to drink and drive. The United States government made the same balancing calculation and adopted the same standard, .08, when it made federal highway monies contingent upon states all lowering their legal blood alcohol levels to .08. There should be no doubt that it is legal to enjoy alcoholic beverages and then drive in California or anywhere in the United States.

It is ironic, then, when that same United States government, working through the Ad Council (the campaign is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation) insists that "buzzed driving is drunk driving." "Buzzed" is a subjective term, but it is commonly used to mean that someone feels the effects of the alcohol they have consumed. This, of course, can happen at very low -- and very legal -- blood alcohol levels. In fact, by the common meaning of the term, nearly all drinking and driving could be termed "buzzed" driving, which the government has explicitly made LEGAL.

The real problem is that there are two ways to be guilty of a DUI in California: 1. The commonly-known .08 standard; and 2. Even if there is reasonable about as to whether the driver's blood alcohol level was at or above .08, if the driver was impaired by alcohol to the point that he/she was "no longer able to drive a vehicle with the caution of a sober person, using ordinary care." With media-invented memes like "buzzed driving is drink driving" bouncing around in their heads, it is all too easy for many jurors to find people guilty of DUIs when they are, in actuality, not guilty and simply trying to drink and drive responsibly, which is their right under the law.

This is why winning a DUI case is so difficult for most attorneys. There are many moving parts and many pitfalls to making sure a jury understands not only the law and the science, but the public policy surrounding the California DUI laws. Thus, if you are being accused of a DUI in California, you need an experienced DUI attorney who can not only guide you through the system, but can also guide a jury.

Many are familiar with the quotation "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." Those words were written by English jurist William Blackstone in the late 18th century and are inarguably a founding principle of the American system of justice. However, as with all principles, there are always situations in which they are tested, and if it is a true principle, it is upheld and endures. Perhaps most indicative of the importance of a principle is whether it is fundamental enough to survive even the most extreme cases when it feels difficult, even abhorrent, to apply.

Thus, cases involving children as victims, the most sympathetic victims possible, are a true test of this principle. One such case was the Casey Anthony trial in Florida. The prosecution had a theory that Casey was the murderer, maybe even a theory that was more-likely-than-not to have occurred, yet everyone who was watching closely knew that if we started from the presumption of innocence, and we reviewed every piece of evidence assuming that Casey was not guilty, then there was no way for the prosecution to eliminate all reasonable doubt of Casey's guilt. No matter how much her attitude and behavior made us wish they could.

Another genre of cases that test our system's Blackstonian principle at its extremes are those involving the post-partum psychosis defense. It is likely that this defense will be used in an upcoming case in Orange County, the one involving the Sonia Hermosillo, who is alleged to have intentionally dropped her seven-month-old son off the 4th floor of a hospital parking garage.

Part of the reason why cases such as this are a test to our system and its foundation upon the presumption of innocence is because of the inflammatory nature of the details of the allegations. Everyone who hears the allegations naturally feels anger toward a mother who is even capable of doing this to her child. And it is hard to conceive of more ammunition for the prosecution in a trial situation, as they can talk about the innocence of the child, who probably asked the question, "why is mommy letting me fall?" right before his death. Or turn to the blow-by-blow actions of the defendant, as she unbuckles the baby from the car seat, holds him by his arms, and walks briskly to the far wall of the parking garage, hoists his 20 lb body on top of the concrete, then, feeling the anger well up inside her, violently pushes her son over the side.

When a prosecutor can be cinematic about the depravity of the defendant's crimes, it sears an image into the minds of the jurors, who listen to the rest of the trial, but not without that image in their heads. Then they retire to impartially deliberate, but not without that image in their heads. Are they able to overcome that image, and reach the truth of what happened by weighing the evidence impartially?

If they are not, then our system has failed. Because no matter how depraved the actions of a defendant might seem, a larger truth may always be at play. For example, with mental health defenses such as the postpartum psychosis defense, the truth is that mental health problems are real, scientifically provable, and actually alter the reality of those suffering from them to the point they might unknowingly commit horrible acts.

When facing a mental health defense, prosecutors inevitably list all the tasks surrounding the incident that the defendant performed correctly as evidence that they "knew what they were doing." This case is no exception, as in a statement to the press, the Deputy District Attorney handling the case pointed out that Hermosillo validated her parking ticket before leaving the parking garage that day as evidence that "she did know what she was doing."

But whether a defendant was capable of performing the surrounding tasks is not the issue in such cases. What matters legally is whether she knew right from wrong at the time, which has nothing to do with whether she could think rationally about such minutiae like parking tickets. Clinical Psychiatrist Rita Suri was quoted in a recent L.A. Times article explaining that while 80% of new mothers experience postpartum depression in some form, 1 in 1,000 will experience it in a severe form, wherein they lose touch with reality and can have psychotic hallucinations, often religious ones. It is therefore very possible that a mother suffering from such severe psychosis could believe she is doing the "right" thing in killing her child, and simultaneously remain able to take care of her parking fees afterwards.

Whether a mother who actually suffered from such psychosis is then convicted in court of murdering her child is a daunting test for whether our justice system will actually allow an innocent person to go free despite the most inflammatory of circumstances.

Sometimes the only clear perspective is one from afar. British newspaper Guardian UK covered Georgia's killing of Troy Davis extensively in the weeks leading up to the execution date. Among the many articles run by the Guardian, one describing the excruciating four hours the execution event took, combined with the fact that the murder victim's family sat in the front row, staring intently as Mr. Davis died, as "the U.S. justice system at its most grotesque."

In fact, the Guardian reported, as the chemicals seeped into Davis's veins to paralyze his muscles so he would stay quiet and expressionless while he suffocated, some members of the victim's family smiled.

The family smiled at the death of a person who, with the benefit of time and the weaknesses of the evidence against him now clear, was almost surely innocent. They smiled at the death of a defendant who had been convicted on eyewitness identification and ballistics evidence, but seven of the nine eyewitnesses later recanted, one had stated on the evening of the shooting that he wouldn't be able to identify the shooter if he saw him again, and the other was himself another suspect in the shooting. The science behind the ballistics was also later discredited. And, inexplicably, Georgia state officials denied Davis the opportunity to take a polygraph examination to help bring the truth to light. But the execution served its purpose, and the feeling of revenge was enjoyed by all who, with the ignorant obstinacy of a Holocaust denier, still firmly believed Davis was guilty.

According to the Guardian, the rest of the world is sickened by our justice system. Not only for allowing what one of Davis's lawyers described as a government-sanctioned lynching of a black man for killing a white police officer in 1989, but because it is clear from the reexamination of other cases that the U.S. justice system is neither sophisticated nor functional enough to produce reliable results. This has been irrefutably proven by hundreds of cases in which prisoners have been freed after DNA evidence has been retested with modern technology not available at the time of their trials. This fact indicates that there are likely thousands more innocently imprisoned individuals in the U.S. who can never be freed because their case did not involve retestable DNA evidence (Troy Davis was one of these unlucky people). That a system with such glaring flaws is cited as justification for the government execution of citizens is shocking and appalling to the civilized world.

In fact, the Danish corporation Lundbeck, the manufacturer of one of the three lethal injection drugs used in the U.S., has implemented a new policy to take special precautions to keep its products out of the hands of U.S. jails. The company is now controlling the sale of its drugs by making its distributors promise that they will not sell to any U.S. state government entity related to the jail and prison system.

The approach they are taking - that their consciences demand they take - is to treat the administrators of our justice system like children who aren't responsible enough to handle scissors for fear they might hurt someone. This is the civilized world's view of our justice system. Or, more specifically, their view of our stubborn insistence on equating revenge with justice.

This week, former New York television meteorologist Heidi Jones plead guilty to falsely reporting rape charges, after admitting that she falsely reported to police that she had been raped.

While we applaud prosecutors for bringing these charges, this story brings to light a too-frequent reality: that charges -- especially sex/rape charges, but charges in general - are often fabricated. And, worse, such charges often make it all the way to jury trials, with little certainty about their veracity.

Clients are often shocked when they are charged with a sex-related offense based only on the word of the accuser. "It's her word against mine, how can they charge me with a crime just based on that?" is a question we as defense attorneys are often asked in this situation. The answer, however, is that prosecutors can and will charge a case just based on the word of the accuser.

Accusers have many reasons for going to the police with allegations about unlawful sex. Perhaps it is a grudge against the accused, or anger over being "used," or feelings of guilt about the sex that happened with coupled with an overwhelming need to make what happened "nonconsensual," or, like in Ms. Jones's case, simply the need for attention (and the layers of psychological complexity that lie beneath).

Whatever their reason, when an accuser goes to police with such accusations, the police will begin an investigation. That investigation inevitably involves first preserving any physical evidence, which, in the case of an accusation based on what was actually consensual sex, will exist in some form. Regardless of whether there is physical evidence, however, the police will then set their sights on the accused, and seeing whether they can get them to make an "admission." This almost always involves having the accuser make a call from the police station to the accused, which is recorded by the police.

For someone not expecting a call like this, even an innocent person can make statements that sound incriminating. For example, when the accuser asks on the recorded call "so you had sex with me when I was passed out drunk?" the accused may respond with "uh, well, you seemed like you were awake." Then when she keeps pressing, he may get annoyed with her and start giving sarcastic answers such as, "I don't know what you're talking about. Fine, if it makes you feel better, then fine, yes, you didn't know what you were doing."

Months later, that statement will still reverberate when a prosecutor argues, "ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what more do you need than the words of the defendant himself: "you didn't know what you were doing." He admits that she didn't know. He admits to taking advantage of her in that state where she didn't know. Based on his admissions, which you and I and the judge and the defendant himself heard on that tape, the tape we all heard loud and clear in this courtroom, you MUST find this man guilty of rape."

And with that, another innocent person is convicted and shipped off to prison.

Ms. Jones's accusation of rape were, thankfully, not directed at any specific person. Instead, she gave a general description of the person she said attacked her, and then police spent many hours attempting to track down the individual she described. However, it must be asked, what if she had named a specific person? Would that person have been arrested? Would charges have been brought? In our modern justice system and the climate that it operates in, i.e., where sex charges are a political and social "hot button" issue, the answer is almost certainly "yes." Then, would a jury have seen through it? Would they have seen the doubt in the case rather then focusing on what prosecutors were saying was evidence of the crime?

L.A. Times Orange County recently reported that a taxicab passenger was arrested on suspicion of malicious mischief after punching and breaking the window of the cab when the driver refused to turn around at a red light, according to police. Police say that the driver flagged down an officer after the incident at 2:03 a.m. last Thursday, at which point police arrested the passenger.

One thing that is always troublesome about crime reports in the press is that the point of view of the accused is never taken into account. The press never goes to the defendant for comment, and even if they did it would not be a good idea for him to make a statement anyway, as anything he said would be used against him in court. The end result, however, is a snippet in the newspaper and on the internet, searchable by the defendant's name, that only includes the point of view of the police and the "victim." Which is to say, in a case such as this, the point of view of the "victim" only, as police were not witnesses to the crime, they simply took the statement of the cab driver, believed him, and then arrested the person who had been riding in the back of the cab.

The problem with this practice, of course, is that it is far too easy for people reading the paper/internet to read the snippet, and conclude that the person in the back of the cab is guilty because police arrested him.

Which may not seem like a problem, unless you are the person who was riding in the back of the cab. Now, your name is on the internet, and this one-sided (in the literal sense, calling the snippet "one-sided" is not a criticism, it is, objectively, one-sided as the paper did not report on the other side of the story), account of what happened in the cab that night now pops up whenever anyone, e.g., future potential employers, future love interests, future clients, and, most insidiously, future jurors, google the name "Ryan Eric Nelson." (Try it, with the quotes around his name, at the time of this blog entry there were 4 results in the top ten discussing the cab incident and how Mr. Nelson had been arrested for it).

In reality, no one should believe Mr. Nelson is guilty of what the cab driver accused him of doing. We are talking about a cab driver. There are cab drivers out there who are good people, I have even met a few, but there are plenty of bad people - some might argue the majority - who are cab drivers. Or let's not go so far as to say "bad people," but liars. Cheaters. People who are willing to lie to the police, or to judges, or on the stand, under oath, at trial. People who are willing to say that "the person in the back punched out a window and all because I refused to make an illegal U-turn at a red light," when, in actuality, what happened was that the cab driver refused to drive him where he wanted to go. Refused to get off his cell phone while he was driving in the wrong direction. For five minutes. And the passenger got concerned. Said something about it. Was ignored. Ten minutes, and the passenger was scared. Tried to get the driver's attention. Talked loudly, interrupting the driver's cell phone conversation, to which the driver reacted, with hostile annoyance, by pointing to his phone insinuating the passenger was being rude. Then the passenger said "let me out," tried to open the door, but the driver had engaged the child safety locks, a "trick of the trade" he had learned to make sure that no passenger could ever leave without paying.

It was this passenger, in this situation, who, now desperate and starting to harbor an increasingly more reasonable feeling that he was being kidnapped, buttressed ultimately by the non-functional door latch and a driver who refused to drive in the right direction, out of this desperation punched the window in the hopes of reaching and releasing the door latch from the other side. It was this passenger who is being written up in the paper as being charged with malicious mischief for all to see for years to come. This passenger who is now in need of a good defense attorney to make sure an otherwise tainted-by-the-media jury pool sees things as they actually happened.

At least, for all the L.A. Times or OC Register know, that's what happened.

Saied Malanar was arrested over the weekend after a 17 year-old intern who worked at his store told police that she was shown pornographic images by Malanar on his office computer.

Mr. Malanar will be arraigned tomorrow in Orange County Superior Court. He is in custody at this moment on $1 million bail. While Mr. Malanar agonizes in an Orange County jail about what lies ahead for his future, his family, his freedom, and every other aspect of his life, it bears exploring what issues will become crucial to him in the coming months as he makes his way through the criminal justice system.

First, as always, these are only accusations, and must remain so unless and until a jury enters the room after hearing all the evidence and utters the word "guilty." There is a chance, based on what has been reported, that he did exactly as the accuser alleges. There is also the equal chance that he did nothing that she alleges. The fact that he has been arrested means nothing more than the accuser went to police and made a statement. Unfortunately, that is truly all that is needed in our justice system for the legality of an arrest to be upheld. Yet to be explored are all of the circumstances surrounding these accusations, such as the mental health of the accuser, the accuser's motives for making such a statement, along with every other piece of evidence that tends to exonerate Malanar, which, of course, was not considered by the police/prosecution, who see it as their job to act on the facts that show he is guilty, and -- no doubt with "utmost faith" in the system to bring out the truth -- let the rest "come out in the wash" later.

All of this is what Mr. Malanar is quickly realizing right now: that the police didn't consider his side of things before arresting him; that they did not consider the impact of the arrest on his business, his life, his family; that, in the justice system, there are hundreds of police, judges, court personnel, jail personnel, and support staff, all of whom are employed to make sure he is arrested and held, and brought to court on time, and prosecuted effectively; that against these hundreds of people, there is only one person who will fight for him: his defense attorney.

What will be interesting is what law Mr. Malanar will be charged with violating. It may surprise some that there is no law in California that specifically bans showing porn to a person under 18. There are, however, more general laws designed to protect minors from people who would "contribute to their delinquency" or otherwise "endanger" them. There are also laws to protect people under 18 from individuals who, for that individual's own sexual arousal, talk or act sexually around them. Is showing porn to this 17 year-old any of those? Not necessarily, and therein potentially lies part of his defense.

As soon as Mr. Malanar retains an attorney to fight his case, that person must passionately and voraciously immerse themselves in the law and facts surrounding these accusations to have any chance in the system, especially Orange County's. For his sake, let's hope he hires an attorney willing an able to do that for him.

Recently, an Anchorage, Alaska jury convicted a woman of child abuse after viewing a videotape that the defendant herself had made. In the video, a five-year-old boy, one of the twins she and her husband adopted from Russia three years ago, is being force-fed hot sauce and then crying loudly in a cold shower.

"Child abuse" cases often raise questions about what actions of a parent should be allowed by law and what shouldn't. Some people find it surprising that there are no exact standards in the law and that what gets prosecuted/convicted depends on the composition of the jury pool from community to community. For example, some cultures permit or even encourage disciplining a child with corporal punishment, while others view nearly any form of corporal punishment as wrong.

The law in California actually allows this variance between cultural standards to exist, by being ambiguous itself. When a jury is seated in a criminal child abuse case, they are instructed by the court that to find the defendant guilty of child abuse, the People must prove that:
1. The defendant willfully inflicted unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering on a child; and that
2. The defendant did not act while reasonably disciplining a child.

If a jury finds both #1 and #2 to be true, they are instructed that they must find the defendant guilty of child abuse.

Obviously, the answers to these questions vary across cultures, communities, and age demographics. There are certain extreme acts that everyone can agree would constitute crimes, e.g., if the child ends up with a broken bone or permanent scarring, nearly everyone would agree that this should not be regarded as "reasonable discipline," and should be considered child abuse under the law.

But what about, for example, belting a child in a manner that leaves welts that are visible for a few days? There are some communities in which a group of sickened, offended jurors would hand down a swift conviction on those facts, but others in which the jury would quickly acquit or even praise the parent/defendant for doing what it takes to discipline their child. It seems unfair or unjust to say something that is a crime in Newport Beach would not be a crime in Westminster, but as any honest Judge, prosecutor or defense attorney will tell you, this particular law can and does result in a disparity of interpretations by jurors, resulting in vastly different verdicts from one community to another or, in the case of Orange County, one courthouse to another.

So did the Alaskan "Hot Sauce Mom" commit a crime under California law? The answer is a clear "it depends." The better question is, would she have been convicted in Orange County? And the answer to that question is also a resounding "it depends." On what? Things like the culture and composition of the jury, if any permanent physical harm to the child was caused by the parent, what the child did to deserve being disciplined so harshly (i.e. whether the parent acted reasonably), and whether the hot sauce was just "hot" like Tabasco, "painful" like Sriracha, or "cruel and unusual punishment," like Ghost Pepper Sauce.

And, of course, a jury will always be less likely to convict in the presence of a good defense attorney, sensitive to the community, the tendencies of individual jurors, and possessing more than a working knowledge of the hot sauce carousel at Joe's Crab Shack.

An excerpt from a recent article in the Orange County Register reads as follows:

The acting Fullerton police chief has ordered an internal-affairs investigation into the October arrest of a man who was later acquitted of attacking a police officer and resisting arrest, a police sergeant said.

(Hamilton) became very concerned because upon initial investigation, it appears we may have arrested the wrong guy that night," Goodrich said. "During our examination of the video, it appears that Mam was not the person who assaulted the first officer earlier in the video, but that's what the investigation is going to look into.

First, it must be noted that this kind of investigation and admission of wrongdoing would not be happening were it not for the brutal beating death of Kelly Thomas. Secondly, it should be lost on no one that this "investigation" is taking place AFTER a trial has already occurred.

Another excerpt from this revealing gem of a quote by Sgt. Goodrich:

Goodrich said investigators will examine court transcripts and talk to the parties involved to determine what happened and why.

This is akin to the CalTrans saying, "in light of the fact that the bridge collapsed, we have decided to inspect the structure of that bridge." That is, "talking to parties to determine what happened and why" is what the police are SUPPOSED to be doing in the first place, BEFORE an arrest is made and BEFORE a case goes to trial. Of course, Fullerton PD, like most other police departments, have perverted this solemn duty to both free the innocent and arrest the guilty into "arrest the guy with the bad attitude because you're drunk with power."

Later in the article, Sgt. Goodrich asks rhetorically:

Did the officers lie? Did they make a mistake? Did they have other information that wasn't captured in the video?

Did the officers lie? Yes. Yes they did. They were there that night. They arrested Mam. They testified at trial about the reasons for the arrest. If they did not lie, there would not have been a case to prosecute.

Thankfully, in the rarest of outcomes, despite the officers' testimony, Mam was acquitted July 7 of misdemeanor charges of battery on a peace officer, assault on a peace officer and resisting arrest. Thankfully there was a jury willing to do the right thing and a defense attorney committed to justice willing to explain it to that jury. The vast majority of the time, the testimony of the officers is enough to get a jury to convict and innocent people go to prison.

Incidents such as this, in which the police admit wrongdoing, are incredibly rare, but revealing of what goes on all the time in our justice system. It is becoming obvious that the problems with police officers are far too endemic to be solved with "additional police training," as has been proposed by many who are not grasping the scope of the problem. What must be done instead is to overhaul the hiring standards for police officers, and to "take out the trash" from the current staff. Only individuals of the highest moral character are truly qualified to perform the duties of a police officer. Lie detectors, psychological examinations, and other such objective testing must be used in that process, and not by the police department itself, but by a neutral organization charged with the duty of weeding out the thuggery and garbage rampant in the ranks of our police departments.

You may have heard of the latest National anti-DUI ad campaign, called "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over." In conjunction with that highly-funded and highly-visible national ad blitz, Orange County Sheriff announced it would be stepping up its own patrols and arrests. In fact, they are taking "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" one step further, as they will be setting up roadblocks to stop drivers regardless of whether they're driving sober or not. You might call it the Orange County "Drive Sober, Get Pulled Over Anyway" campaign.

In America, land of liberty, the government is not allowed to suddenly decide to set up roadblocks and force you to prove your innocence to them. That would be a violation of Constitutional rights. In fact, these Constitutional Rights apply even in Orange County and, though begrudgingly, Orange County law enforcement tries to work within that constitutional framework, at least when it comes to DUI checkpoints.

Among many other technical regulations that law enforcement must abide by in conducting a DUI checkpoint, one of them is publicly announcing where the checkpoints are going to be conducted. Here is what they announced in a recent press release:

Fri. Aug 19, DUI/DL CHECKPOINT 1800-0100 hrs, City of Cypress

Fri. Aug 19, DUI TASK FORCE OPERATIONS 2000-0400 Cities of San Clemente, Dana Point & San Juan Capistrano

Sat. Aug 20, DUI/DL CHECKPOINT 1900-0300 hrs, City of Tustin

Fri. Aug 26, DUI/DL CHECKPOINT, 2000-0300 hrs, City of Anaheim

Fri. Aug 26, DUI TASK FORCE OPERATIONS, 2000-0300 hrs, Cities of Irvine and Newport Beach

Sat. Aug 27, DUI TASK FORCE OPERATIONS, 2000-0300 hrs, Cities of Garden Grove, Anaheim, Placentia and Buena Park

Thurs. Sep 1, DUI CHECKPOINT, 2100-0300 hrs, City of Cypress Fri. Sep 2, DUI CHECKPOINT 1900 - 0300 hrs, City of Mission Viejo

Of course, they have provided only bare-bones information about their checkpoints, which may not be enough to meet the constitutional requirements. Meaning if you are arrested at one of these checkpoints, FIGHT THE CASE with a good lawyer, and you may be surprised at the results.

Drive carefully, don't answer police questions, don't take field sobriety tests, and don't take any chemical tests before you are arrested (AFTER you're arrested you must take a blood or breath test or else you lose your license for a year, but if you follow the above advice, it greatly decreases the chances that you'll be arrested) . . . and avoid those checkpoint areas listed above. If you need us, we're here to help, call (949) 873-2724 to speak to an experienced DUI lawyer.

The death of Kelly Thomas after being taken into custody by six police officers at a public transit station last month in Fullerton is the object of federal and local investigations, sparking weekly protests outside the police station.

"Dad, Dad," were among Thomas' final words, captured on video by a cellphone as police subdued the 37-year-old just after darkness fell at the city's central bus and train depot July 5.

The video has been viewed more than 695,000 times on You Tube. A hospital-bed photograph Ron Thomas took as his son lay in a coma shows a face grotesquely swollen and bloody, eyes blackened.

There is one difference between this incident and countless others in the past where the unchallenged conclusion was commonly "he attacked and threatened the life of a police officer," or "he tried to grab my weapon," or "he refused to submit and kept trying to injure the heroic officers attempting to subdue him."

That difference is the cellphone video camera.

This incident is neither isolated nor a trend in a coarser, more violent modern society. This is the unshrouding, via mobile phone cam, of a disturbing problem that has Always existed. Capital "A" Always because violence under color of authority can be traced from ancient Rome, to Nazi Germany to late 20th Century Los Angeles.

Without technology, of course, incidents such as these have been easily concealed in America, where concealing them was imperative to preserving the public's naïve reverence of political leaders and the agents selected to carry out their policies. Any good criminal defense attorney can recite from memory the boilerplate language of every police account of such an incident:

Suspect #1, who [appeared to be under the influence of drugs/matched the description of a wanted suspect/was jaywalking] refused to comply with our commands, and then [reached into his pocket for what I suspected may be a weapon/took an aggressive step in our direction/stared at me in a way that, based on my training and experience, clearly indicated violent intent]. We therefore administered a "compliance strike" using our department-issued batons to suspect #1's leg area, at which time suspect #1 [yelled statements endangering our safety/flinched threateningly/attempted to run away from us and toward a car, which I suspected, based on my training and experience, may contain a stash of weapons]. We then chased suspect and forced him to the ground using department-approved techniques. At that point suspect became highly uncooperative, forcing us to administer additional compliance strikes to his head area and upper torso."

Such reports are routinely filed by police officers in cases where a suspect is severely injured by a police beating. Filed, by the way, in support of criminal charges against that "suspect" for resisting arrest and battery on a police officer. And then, without any video evidence to the contrary, often echoed by prosecutors at trial as follows: "ladies and gentleman of the jury, you have before you the testimony of these fine officers, versus the self-serving words of this Defendant, who is a lawbreaker found carrying marijuana, who violently attacked the officers, and who inexplicably refused to cooperate in putting his hands behind his back even after officers had him pinned to the ground."

Which would then have likely been followed by a swift conviction, doubling as permission to officers to use force in whatever way they see fit.

In the age of ubiquitous surveillance cameras and free mobile video technology from AT&T when you sign a two-year service contract, these incidents will seem to increase in prominence. But, as with past advancements like the microscope, we are now simply seeing what was always there.