What Are Your Legal Defenses for a DUI Charge Involving an Accident in Los Angeles?

Have You Been Charged With DUI After an Accident?

In California, if you’re involved in a traffic accident and you are accused of DUI (driving under the influence), you could face a felony charge. If this happens, you must be represented by a Los Angeles DUI attorney, and you must contact that attorney as quickly as possible.

Let’s say you have a casual drink or two with friends, but you don’t feel intoxicated. You get behind the wheel feeling sober, but then an accident happens, and someone is injured. You’re charged with a serious misdemeanor or a felony, and you may face the possibility of prison.

DUI law is a highly technical field requiring specialized legal and scientific knowledge. When the charge is driving under the influence with injury, you must be defended by a Los Angeles DUI lawyer who has that specialized knowledge and who knows how to use it on your behalf.

What Should You Know About DUI, Accidents, and Injuries in California?

Almost a third of the accidents that involve fatalities in California are linked to driving under the influence. DUI accidents cause more than one thousand fatalities a year in this state, and thousands more are injured each year by drivers who are under the influence.

What Will Happen After an Accident?

When the police reach the scene of an accident, they interview everyone who was involved. If the police believe that you were driving under the influence, you may be asked to take a field sobriety test and/or a breathalyzer examination.

If the breathalyzer measures your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level at 0.08 percent or above, you may be charged with DUI. Even if your BAC level is below 0.08 percent, if the police believe you’re impaired by drugs or alcohol, you can be arrested and charged with DUI.

Before an arrest, you may refuse to take a field sobriety or breathalyzer test (unless you are on probation or under 21 years of age). However, if you refuse to test after you’ve been arrested, you may face an additional charge – refusal to test – on top of any other charges you’ll be facing.

What Penalties May Be Imposed if You’re Convicted of DUI With Injuries?

If someone is killed or injured because you were impaired while driving, you’ll probably be charged with one of these offenses:

1. DUI-causing-injury: If DUI-causing-injury is charged as a misdemeanor, a conviction could entail up to a year in jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000. If the charge is a felony, you could be incarcerated for up to four years and fined up to $10,000.
2. Vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated: If you’re convicted of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, you’ll face penalties similar to the penalties for a DUI-causing-injury conviction.
3. Gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated: If you’re convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, you could be sent to prison for up to ten years and ordered to pay a fine of up to $10,000.
4. “Watson” murder (DUI second-degree murder): If you are convicted of committing second-degree murder while you were driving under the influence, you may serve fifteen years to life in a California state prison and pay a fine of up to $10,000.

After a conviction on any of these charges, your driver’s license will be suspended, and you may be ordered to install an ignition interlock device in your personal vehicle. After a felony DUI conviction, you lose the right to own firearms, and you’re not allowed to vote while you’re in jail, prison, or on probation.

When is a DUI Accident Classified as Second-Degree Murder?

After a fatal DUI accident, the state may bring a DUI second-degree murder charge if a prosecutor believes that you acted with “malice aforethought,” that is, with a conscious disregard for human life.

However, the courts in California have also determined that you can have “implied malice” simply by having a previous DUI conviction – even if your behavior leading up to a fatal accident was merely negligent.

As California’s most serious DUI crime, the penalty for a DUI second-degree murder conviction is fifteen years to life in prison. This crime is sometimes called a “Watson murder,” based on the case People v. Watson (California Supreme Court, 1983).

What Defenses Can Be Offered in DUI With Injury Cases?

Depending on the specific charge filed against you, your Los Angeles DUI attorney may present one of these legal defenses on your behalf:

1. Lack of probable cause: The police had no probable cause to arrest or charge you.
2. Poorly conducted field sobriety tests: Field sobriety tests are notoriously unreliable, and they’re invalid if the police failed to instruct you properly about taking such a test. If your test results are invalid, the DUI charge may be dropped or the case may be dismissed.
3. Legal BAC level: If your blood alcohol concentration level was under 0.08 percent, the state may have difficulty proving that you were impaired or that you caused the accident because you were impaired.
4. The breathalyzer result was inaccurate: Particular medical conditions – gastroesophageal reflux disease (or GERD), for example – cause breathalyzers to return false readings. Your medical records can show whether you have one of these medical conditions.
5. You were not driving a vehicle: When the police come to the scene after the accident has happened, they probably did not see you driving, and the state may not be able to prove that you were the person behind the wheel when the accident took place.

Additionally, if you are charged with DUI causing injury or death, your Los Angeles DUI lawyer may argue that your actions were not, in fact, the proximate cause of the victim’s injuries, and that the victim himself/herself should be assigned liability for the accident and injuries.

Charged With Felony DUI? Contact the DUI Defense Group At Once

If you are charged with injuring or killing someone because you were driving under the influence, you cannot put your fate in the hands of an inexperienced or untested defense lawyer. Instead, you must be represented by attorney Rob Samudrala of the DUI Defense Group.

Since 2008, attorney Rob Samudrala has prevailed on behalf of hundreds of people in Southern California who’ve been charged with DUI. He knows how to handle the most serious and complicated DUI charges, and he has a record of success to prove it.

If you’re charged with DUI, currently or in the future, the DUI Defense Group will provide you with an in-depth case evaluation with no cost or obligation. In the Los Angeles area, contact the DUI Defense Group and schedule your first case evaluation by calling 866-927-3295.