DUI DMV Hearings In California
After many California DUI arrests involving alcohol, the officer gives you a pink Order of Suspension and Temporary Driver License. Most people put it in a drawer and focus on the court date. That paper usually permits 30 days of driving from the arrest, if you…
What To Do If You Are Arrested In California
The minutes and hours after an arrest are often when people do the most damage to their own cases, and they do it while trying to help themselves. They explain, they correct the record, they tell the officer what “really happened”. They consent to a search to look…
Serious And Violent Crimes In California
Some cases are about a fine, a license, or a difficult year. Others are about whether a person spends the rest of their life in prison. The most serious criminal charges – homicide, attempted murder, gang crimes, sex offenses, three-strikes cases, armed robbery,…
How Criminal Cases Are Won At Trial In California
When a criminal case cannot be resolved another way, it is decided in a courtroom, in front of a jury, and everything the defense did or failed to do in the months before arrives there with it. This article is about how criminal cases are actually won at trial. It…
How To Clean Your Criminal Record In California
A criminal record in California does not usually fade with time. An arrest from twenty years ago often sits in the same databases as an arrest from last week, and it surfaces at the worst moments: a job application, a professional license, an immigration…
Hit & Run In California
. Most people think of a hit and run as a crime about a car accident. It is not, exactly. It is a crime about what you do after the accident. You can be completely free of fault for the collision itself, the other driver ran the light, the pedestrian stepped out,…
Diversion In California: Judicial, Mental Health, Military & Informal
Diversion is often one of the best outcomes in criminal law. It means no conviction, no probation, and eventually the case is dismissed. However, what many people refer to as “diversion” is not one thing. It is a family of very different programs, with one…
Workplace Violence Restraining Orders In California (CCP § 527.8)
Violence, a threat of violence, or serious harassment can quickly become a workplace safety problem. It may involve a customer who fixates on an employee, a former employee making threats, a coworker, or someone whose conduct follows an employee to the jobsite. If…
What Is a Civil Harassment Restraining Order in California?
Someone in your life is harassing you and will not stop. Maybe it is the neighbor whose hostility has crossed from unpleasant into frightening. Maybe it is a coworker, acquaintance, former friend, or stranger from one bad encounter who now will not leave you…
What Counts As “Harassment” For A California Civil Harassment Restraining Order: The Statute, The Elements, And The Case Law
Someone’s conduct has crossed a line, or someone claims yours has, and a civil harassment restraining order (CHRO) has been filed. Now everything turns on a single legal question: does it count as “harassment”? The word gets used loosely in daily life for…