Felony DUI charges can leave you without a license, in significant debt, and with considerably fewer rights than you deserve. You have every right to challenge felony DUI accusations brought against you – and you should if you want to protect your future. You can collaborate with Anaheim felony DUI lawyers to challenge the prosecution immediately after your arrest.
Los Angeles DUI Lawyer can connect you with Anaheim DUI lawyers who will prioritize your right to comprehensive and individualized legal advice based on your specific circumstances.
We’ve matched clients like you with our professional network for over 19 years. You can count on our team to find an attorney who will defend your best interests.
When Can You Face Felony DUI Charges in Anaheim?
The state of California has the right to level felony charges against someone who:
- Allegedly got behind the wheel of a moving car with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of over 0.08%, and
- Caused a serious accident resulting in severe injuries or the death of another person, or
- Faced arrest with an existing criminal record showing three or more prior DUI convictions within the past 10 years, or
- Faced arrest with a prior felony DUI conviction on their criminal record
That said, California police officers cannot pull people over on the side of the road on a whim. Officers must have cause to believe that you’re driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol to level accusations of misconduct against you.
An Anaheim Felony DUI Lawyer Can Challenge the Prosecution’s Attempts to Charge You
If officers want to hold you legally accountable for a recent accident, or if they want to charge you after pulling you over on the road, they need to prove that you were under the influence of a controlled substance. They can use field sobriety tests, blood alcohol tests, and breathalyzer tests to make their cases.
California’s implied consent law states that California drivers have prematurely agreed to participate in these tests if asked to conduct them. However, you may refuse both a breathalyzer and blood test, albeit with consequences. Refusing these tests can see your license automatically suspended and you arrested without further questions.
As such, it’s in your best interest to cooperate with the police officers who respond to your accident. An experienced Anaheim felony DUI attorney can challenge the result of both blood and breathalyzer tests. Our network’s attorneys can also:
- Challenge the causal link between your supposed intoxication and any accident you were allegedly involved in
- Question any biases that may have driven officers to needlessly accuse you of driving under the influence
- Question whether or not officers read you your Miranda rights or otherwise respected the rights afforded to you by the Constitution at the time of your arrest
You have the right to secure legal counsel immediately after your arrest. While you could work with a public defender, the attorneys in our professional network can provide you with individualized representation designed to poke holes in the prosecution’s case against you.
What Consequences Can You Face if You Don’t Challenge Felony DUI Charges?
Should you bother challenging a felony DUI charge, especially if you’re facing your first? Yes. The consequences that come with a felony DUI conviction are severe and can have a permanent impact on your quality of life, employability, personal relationships, and financial stability.
The state of California reserves the right to sentence someone convicted of a felony DUI to between 16 months and four years in state prison.
Defendants can see their sentences lengthened if they’re convicted of compounded crimes, including vehicular manslaughter. The number of victims involved in the accident can also compound a defendant’s prison time.
You may also face:
- Fines of $5,000 or more
- Mandatory participation in California’s DUI programs, with participation requirements of up to 30 months
- Drivers’ license suspensions and revocations
- Mandatory ignition interlock device installation
The cost of all of these mandatory services, including the efforts you need to go to restore your license, can rapidly add up, leaving you in debt that may take years to pay off.
Will a Felony DUI Conviction Label You a Felon?
Yes – if you’re convicted of a felony DUI, future employers and anyone else looking into your criminal history will be able to read about your conviction. While you can have felony convictions expunged, the process takes time. You will not be able to do so immediately. Instead, your “felon” label will make it hard to hold certain jobs, work in certain industries, and even travel.
If, prior to your conviction, you practiced law or worked in healthcare, real estate, or education, you may see your license to seek employment in these fields revoked. If you’re of immigrant status, a felony DUI conviction may see you forced to undergo deportation proceedings.
Convicted felons also lose the right to possess firearms and serve on a jury. You will not have the right to vote while you’re incarcerated. If you’re struggling to discuss custody with a previous spouse or related party, California’s civil courts may level your conviction against you as a reason to deny you the right to see your children on a regular basis.
Felony DUI Convictions Impact Commercial Drivers
Felony DUI convictions can make it incredibly difficult for anyone operating on a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to maintain their job. What’s more, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration makes it harder for commercial drivers to avoid DUI convictions, as CDL drivers may not have a BAC above 0.04% if they want to operate a vehicle on the road legally.
A commercial driver convicted of a felony DUI will permanently lose their CDL and not be able to return to the commercial driving field. This is the case even if the accident that led to their conviction takes place off hours.
Unfortunately, this means a conviction can permanently impact your income, making it even harder to stay on top of the expenses that come with your recovery.
How to Build a Defense Against Accusations of a Felony DUI
You have the right to work with an experienced attorney to cultivate a defense against accusations of a felony DUI. The Anaheim felony DUI lawyers in our network begin building clients’ defenses by first assessing the circumstances that led to their arrest. They can break down:
- What motivation drove police officers to pull you over or test your BAC
- What testing procedures officers used at the scene
- How those test results were handled, and by whom
An attorney can also break down whether or not police officers upheld your rights at the scene of an accident. If an officer violated your civil rights, any evidence they found of your alleged intoxication may be inadmissible in court, making it easier for a judge to throw out the case brought against you.
You can also count on an attorney to inspect any videos, photos, physical debris, and witness statements submitted with commentary about your circumstances.
All of this evidence helps create the narrative behind your accident – a narrative that can poke holes in the prosecution’s attempt to name you guilty of manslaughter, second-degree murder, and other crimes.
Invoking Inappropriate Blood Alcohol Level Testing
When cultivating a defense against accusations of driving under the influence, it’s in your best interest to target the tests used to assess your BAC level. The testing equipment used to conduct breathalyzer tests isn’t always accurate, nor is the equipment used for blood testing.
What’s more, the results of these tests rarely take a person’s other health conditions into account. If you want to challenge a BAC test’s credibility, you can work with medical professionals and forensic toxicologists to account for any other factors that may have made your BAC appear higher than it was.
You can also work with an attorney to challenge the nature of the field sobriety tests police officers used to test your balance, attention, and clarity of speech.
If you believe that officers misrepresented the nature of these tests, modified their results, or arrested you despite their findings, you can ask an attorney to elaborate on their possible motivations for doing so.
Invoking Bias and Civil Rights Violations
Officers can make mistakes while conducting the tests needed to determine whether or not your BAC violated state limits. They can also act out of bias or violate the law when fighting to prove that you were intoxicated at the time of an accident.
No one has the right to conduct an illegal search of your car while you’re on the road. Similarly, no one can pull you over and accuse you of misconduct due to your skin color, gender presentation, or stated beliefs.
What’s more, California police officers have a legal obligation to read you your Miranda rights and provide you with access to an attorney upon your arrest.
If officers use wrongful motivations to accuse you of a felony DUI, or if they violate your rights upon your arrest, you can challenge any of the evidence they try to use in the state’s case against you.
How to Argue for Alternative Sentencing
You can trust an Anaheim, CA, felony DUI attorney to take your concerns about a possible conviction seriously. The attorneys in our network are not afraid to litigate and will advocate for your right to fair treatment in and out of court. However, those efforts may include time spent exploring your right to a plea deal or alternative sentencing.
Plea agreements can see you plead guilty to a conviction in exchange for a reduced sentence. If you can provide the prosecution with the information they need for another case, the charges brought against you may not have as sweeping an impact on your financial stability or time spent away from your family.
Sometimes, these arrangements can even see your felony DUI charge reduced to a misdemeanor, which may preserve some of the rights you might otherwise have lost. You may also have the right to request house arrest instead of imprisonment or, alternatively:
- Work furlough programs
- Residential treatment programs
- Pre-trial diversion programs, if you haven’t faced a DUI conviction before
- Alcohol education classes
- Mandatory counseling
- Community service
- Regular drug and alcohol testing
You can discuss which of these programs you might be interested in participating in as the need arises.
Felony DUI Charges Can See You Face Multiple Legal Proceedings
Should the state of California accuse you of a felony DUI, you have to undergo a DMV administrative hearing in addition to your criminal case. If you want to prevent the DMV from automatically suspending your license after your arrest, you need to schedule a hearing with DMV representatives within ten days of your arrest.
A DMV hearing will not have any impact on your criminal case but instead specifically addresses the question of whether or not you have the right to retain your driving privileges. DMV hearing officers will break down the circumstances that led to your accident and determine the following:
- Whether or not your arrest was lawful
- Whether or not your BAC exceeded legal limits
- Whether or not officers had reasonable cause to pull you over or accuse you of intoxication
The burden of proof that a DMV hearing officer has to meet is considerably lower than the one that the prosecution has to meet in your criminal case.
In other words, it’s easier for the DMV to deny you your driving rights than it is for the state of California to convict you of a felony DUI. With that in mind, we recommend bringing a felony DUI lawyer in Anaheim onto your case.
You Deserve Support from an Experienced Anaheim Felony DUI Lawyer
DUI felony charges put your future at considerable risk. If you don’t challenge accusations of felony misconduct, you may lose your license, face significant fines, and spend years in prison. Fortunately, there are felony DUI attorneys in Anaheim, CA, who can help you challenge the accusations brought against you.
You can count on Los Angeles DUI Lawyer to connect you with attorneys who can craft a legal defense on your behalf after a serious accident. The attorneys in our network don’t let felony DUI charges go unanswered – so let’s work together to connect you with a representative who can protect your future.
You can contact Los Angeles DUI Lawyer today to start networking with the lawyers who will have your back.
