first dui in california 9 questions
This video explains what happens after you're arrested for a DUI in Orange County. It covers each step, starting from the field sobriety test, breath test, and blood test, to the entire court process. You’ll learn what to expect at the arraignment, during the pretrial process, and, if necessary, at a jury trial. The video also highlights potential defenses that may be used in your case.
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00:00You just got arrested for DUI. You have a ton of questions.
00:04You're not sure which ones is the most important.
00:08We're going to go over the nine frequently asked questions
00:13that you want to know the answer to on your DUI. Stay tuned.
00:21My name's Hiroo. I'm an attorney here in Southern California.
00:25I've handled thousands of cases with DUIs.
00:28I've talked with thousands of people.
00:30Of all these consultations and throughout my experience,
00:34there's always the same questions that pop up over and over again.
00:38If you're watching this video,
00:40chances are you have these questions lingering around as well.
00:45Stay tuned.
00:46We're going to go over your top nine questions of what happens when you get
00:49arrested for DUI.
00:58Be sure you stick around to the end of the video to get my DMV checklist that
01:02guides you through and advises you. Scratch that.
01:06Be sure you stick around to the end of the video to get my expungement
01:09checklist. The expungement checklist helps clean your criminal records.
01:12So that way when you apply for jobs,
01:14you can say that you have not been convicted.
01:23If you have a question as you're going through everything,
01:27you're more than welcome to ask it below. If it's good, scratch that.
01:32If you have a question, feel free to ask it below. On the other hand,
01:36if you're too shy,
01:38you're more than welcome to reach out with us to make a scratch that.
01:42If you have a question, feel free to leave a comment below.
01:46If you're too shy to put your question out there for the world to see,
01:50you're more than welcome to reach out to us.
01:57Okay.
02:02Okay. So for the first one,
02:05can you drive after being arrested on a DUI?
02:09The answer is yes, you can drive. There are exceptions.
02:14The exception is if you wait after the 30 days,
02:19then your license would be suspended.
02:21So you have to be careful that once you get arrested,
02:26you'll have your pink temporary license.
02:29They'll take your real license away and give you the pink one.
02:32This pink one lets you drive for 30 days. Afterwards,
02:36it'll be suspended.
02:38You'll want to request the DMV hearing to continue driving.
02:42Depending on the jurisdiction,
02:44some counties will give you 60 additional days.
02:47Others will give you 90 days. It's very County specific.
02:56Okay.
03:05The second one is will your license get suspended after a DUI conviction?
03:11Yes. And this is even if you have served your DMV conviction.
03:16For example,
03:17if you've been convicted and then after you've served your four
03:21month of suspension, you still have to do additional suspension.
03:26That means that the court and the DMV are separate.
03:30So that is something you have to look out for.
03:33And you want to run your court suspension and your DMV suspension as
03:38close together as possible to avoid any kind of duplicate suspensions.
03:44But the short answer is yes,
03:46a court conviction will trigger a suspension.
03:56Okay.
04:00Restrict the license.
04:02Can you get a restricted license on a first DUI in California? The answer is yes,
04:07you can get one. There are two types of restricted license.
04:11The first one is with IID. And the second one is without IID.
04:16Either one will let you drive.
04:20The only difference is the scope of it on a non
04:25IID license.
04:26You have to wait out 30 days before you can apply for the license.
04:31On the IID one, you can get it immediately.
04:34Both of them have the same components. You have to have an SR 22.
04:38You have to be enrolled in at least a AB 541 or three month alcohol
04:43course.
04:44The tricky thing is you may not know what kind of alcohol course you need,
04:48but you need to enroll in alcohol course first voluntarily.
04:53And then later if the court says six or nine months, you can switch it over.
04:58So the short answer is yes, you can get a restricted license.
05:03This is premise on a first DUI.
05:06And it's not a suspension involving a refusal.
05:11And also that you are over 21.
05:22Okay.
05:34Suspend. The next question is what types of,
05:38scratch that.
05:40The next one is what types of penalties am I looking at for a conviction on a
05:45DUI in California? Typically in Orange County,
05:49in LA County, you're looking at three years of probation.
05:53And depending on whether or not there was an accident or not,
05:56you may be looking at jail time. Most likely not,
06:00at least in California. Scratch that.
06:05If there was no accident, you're not looking at any type of jail time.
06:10If there was an accident, there may be jail time. If there was injuries. However,
06:15at least in Orange County and LA,
06:17you are not looking at any kind of significant jail time.
06:20If there was no injuries,
06:24if there was property damage only you're at
06:29exposure for jail time. But for what the case is worth,
06:34it's going to end up as some kind of Caltrans with jail time hung over your
06:38head. These are things to think about.
06:41These are the penalties or what you call exposures.
06:46Scratch that. Scratch that part about exposure.
06:50Okay.
06:54Particularly in Orange County,
06:56you are looking at giving up your DNA.
07:00The prosecutors will want to put your DNA into the database.
07:04So that way they can mine it for information to see whether or not you have done
07:09any crimes in the past, or maybe some of your relatives have committed crimes.
07:21Okay.
07:22The next question is how long does a DUI stay on my record for?
07:27A DUI stays in your record for indefinitely. This can mean 10, 15,
07:3220 years. However, you can expunge it.
07:37The next question you should ask is how long after conviction can I expunge my
07:42DUI? The most
07:45lawyerly answer I can give you is right after probation.
07:48Probation is three years. Given that you do not mess up probation,
07:53after three years, you can come back, reopen the case and dismiss it.
07:58By expunging it,
07:59it gives you the advantage of having to not answer for it on job applications.
08:13The next question I get asked all the time is what happens on my first court
08:17date? Now in Orange County, your first,
08:21scratch that. Now in Orange County,
08:23your first court date is called an arraignment.
08:25An arraignment in Orange County is a chance for you to admit or deny the
08:30charges. When you go over to Westminster court, Fulton court, or whatever,
08:35you wait in line, you go into the courtroom, you'll most likely watch a video.
08:40The judge will let you know what your rights are and they'll give you a,
08:45a, how would I say this?
08:46Disclosure that they are also a victim in a case.
08:51And on top of that,
08:52they'll let you know your rights and then they'll let you know how the process
08:56works. Basically though,
08:59it's a chance to look at the judge and say not guilty or
09:04guilty. And then after that,
09:07the next court dates are going to be pretrials or other chances to set motions on
09:12your case. Pre-trials are fancy ways to say
09:17negotiations.
09:19Typically pretrials will be about 30 to 40 days out.
09:24If you find yourself at an arraignment and you need
09:29more time to consider whether or not you want a lawyer or not,
09:33it's okay to ask the judge if you can have 30 days
09:38to go out there and find a lawyer and come on back.
09:42Okay.
09:51The next question I get asked all the time is how much time do I have to
09:56do for my DUI classes?
09:58Because the truth is there are 12 hour classes.
10:02There are three hour classes. Scratch that because the truth is,
10:07scratch that because the truth is there are 12 hour classes,
10:12three month classes, six month, nine months,
10:17and 18 month class. However,
10:20for getting a restricted license on a first DUI, you need a three month class.
10:25Now, if you are getting a restricted license on a second DUI,
10:29you're looking at 18 month class. So in a nutshell,
10:33if you've had a DUI before within 10 years,
10:38you're looking at enrolling in a 18 month class. However,
10:42if you are looking at enrolling in classes for a restricted license
10:47and your court case has not resolved yet,
10:50you want to get a three month alcohol course. Then after that,
10:54you can switch it over to the six or nine months if needed.
11:01However, to put things into perspective,
11:05if you are over 0.20, you're looking at a nine month class.
11:10For blood level between 0.15 and 0.19,
11:14you're looking at a six month class and between 0.08 and 0.15,
11:20you're looking at a three month class.
11:22For dispositions of cases where DUI gets turned into a reckless,
11:27you're looking at a 12 hour class.
11:40Hey, thank you so much.
11:46The next question I get is, do you go to jail for a first time DUI?
11:52And this is the part that bothers me about my practice. A lot of times,
11:56you're not going to go to jail on your first time DUI,
11:59at least not in orange County and LA County.
12:02And this bothers me because a lot of my colleagues will come out there and say,
12:07well, you know what? You can go to jail for six months.
12:10Technically it's true.
12:13However,
12:14it's not something that you push on people because it just doesn't happen.
12:19For example, you go to the dentist's office,
12:22you sign a waiver because you're going to get a, um, filling the,
12:27you know, the filling can have adverse effects on like, you know,
12:32if you had some kind of reaction, you can die. So you have to sign that waiver.
12:36Theoretically. Yes. However,
12:38it's not like you're going to go into office and say, Hey, you're going to die.
12:42You have to take action.
12:43So I think that part of my profession is fairly sleazy. However,
12:48given that you don't go to jail for your first time DUI,
12:53unless you have a speeding enhancement,
12:56you have a refusal
12:59or you did hit and run with property damage or
13:04just a collision. Those things expose you to jail.
13:08And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to jail.
13:11It means that there's work to be done. And it's often more often than not,
13:16with the right representation and the right bobbing weaving,
13:20those things can be dismissed.
13:22Okay.
13:32Finally, the last one, how can I fight against a DUI in California?
13:38There are so many ways to go about this. Um, every case is fact specific.
13:43You look at the stops, you look at the breath machine, you look at the blood,
13:49you look at the audio and video and other times you may just lag out the case.
13:55Officers are not always great as well. They get in trouble.
14:00Things happen.
14:01Every case needs to be looked at on top of that blood
14:06ferments. I'm scratching that on top of that blood goes bad.
14:11Machines aren't perfect. In addition,
14:16alcohol moves through a person's body.
14:18What you are at the time of testing does not mean you were that at the time of
14:22driving. For example,
14:25you can be 0.12 at the time of testing,
14:27but the state has to prove that you are 0.08 or more at the time of driving.
14:34Alcohol doesn't just sit in your system at a 0.12.
14:39When you drink alcohol,
14:40you may be lower and then the alcohol moves through your body and gets
14:45distributed out and go higher at the time of testing.
14:48That's what they call a rising blood alcohol defense. On the other hand,
14:54if you have alcohol inside your stomach and it hasn't been digested yet and you
14:58use a breath machine,
15:00the alcohol does have the potential to magnify the breath test three or four
15:06times, especially if you just recently drank alcohol.
15:10This is what they call an absorption defense. On top of that,
15:16breath machines are also not perfect.
15:19Hollister says that breath machines are inherently broken and if you blow hard
15:25enough, it gives variable results.
15:28There's new lines of defenses coming out against breath machines.
15:33It's a matter of time until they eventually take the mainstream.
15:38If you keep fighting, scratch that, quit fighting.
15:43Finally, everybody's body is different.
15:47There's breath partition ratios,
15:49which means that the lining in our lungs that connects the air with our blood is
15:552100 to one. That's not the case with everybody.
15:59And in addition, when alcohol machines pick up the breath,
16:04they're assuming that your partition ratio is going to be 2100 to one.
16:10That's not the case with everyone. There is no average person.
16:14An average person in this world is a Chinese woman,
16:1920 something year old Chinese woman. That's not everybody.
16:24When you calculate in partition ratios for blood alcohol,
16:29the blood alcohol machines will read differently.
16:32The blood alcohol levels that are used by the breath machines are calculated to
16:372100 and one.
16:44These are a few of the ways that you can fight a DUI case and these are the top
16:49nine questions that I get in my practice.
16:56Don't forget to stick around to the end of the video.
16:58I'll give you a link to my free expungement ebook.
17:01The ebook will help you clear your criminal records.
17:05That way when you apply for a job, you can say that you've never been convicted.
17:13In short, a DUI,
17:16at least the first one in California is not going to be the end of the world.
17:20It's important that you don't freak out. You take things a step at a time.
17:24Understand that it's not an open and shut case.
17:27There are several ways to look at this.
17:29The worst thing you can do is go to court all freaked out.
17:33You take things a step at a time. If you're watching this video right now,
17:37you're doing the right things. You're doing your homework. Keep at it.
17:42If you have doubts or let's say for instance, you have anxiety,
17:45it's never a bad thing to go out and reach out for counsel or advice.
17:50Call an attorney for consultation.
17:52Ask him about the local courthouse and what goes on.
17:56These are all good questions to ask.
18:03As promised, check out my link below. I'll leave the link down there for you.
18:08You can go there, download your free expungement ebook. On top of that,
18:12I'll also leave a link for my DMV request
18:18page that the same one that we use for our office and also subpoena.
18:21So that way you can get audio video on your case.
18:26Okay.
18:30If you'd like this video, hit me, scratch that. If you like this video,
18:34hit the thumbs up button for me.
18:36It pushes my video up on the Google rankings. On top of that,
18:39hit the subscribe button and then also any feedback,
18:44leave it down below. If you have questions, leave it down there as well.
18:48If you do my scratch that I'll do everything I can to answer your questions.
18:54Thank you so much for watching.
18:56I'll see you in the next video.