You've been involved in a motor vehicle collision, are suspected of having been DUI at the time of the accident, were arrested but then "released" by law enforcement at the hospital and were not taken to jail. No court date has been set. You must be in the clear, right? Unfortunately not. In this video, San Diego criminal defense lawyer David P. Shapiro outlines what should be done in these situations.
Office Address:
Law Office of David P. Shapiro
3500 5th Avenue
Suite 304
San Diego, CA 92103
619-295-3555
www.davidpshap...
I want to talk to you about a common misconception when you're charged with or when you're arrested for a DUI where there's an accident. A lot of times, what we'll see is when people are arrested for a DUI, you're involved in a collision, you're hurt, maybe there's another car, hopefully not, hopefully, there are no passengers that are injured, but situations where you're believed to be under the influence, there's an accident, you're transported to a hospital. Technically, you're under arrest when you're being taken to that hospital.
And then law enforcement has a difficult decision, do they want to release you from custody, meaning, you're no longer under arrest, or did they want to basically put someone at your bedside until you can be arraigned by a judge and have that court proceeding, whether in a courtroom or whether where we come to you in a hospital room, and do the arraignment, the first court appearance, there? And there's this belief out there that, "Well, I got arrested for a DUI. I went to a hospital. I was there, the cops were there, California Highway Patrol was there with me for a little bit, and then he just gave me this certificate of release that says that I was detained only and it says this thing about 849 (b)(4) of the Penal Code that says it's just a detention so I wasn't really arrested. So I think I'm good."
And what we see people do, which is wrong, and is not by any stretch of the imagination the right way to handle cases like this, is they think they're out in the clear. And they get released from the hospital, hopefully, they're okay or they may have to continue with their medical treatment, and they want to subconsciously or intentionally put that in the past, the accident, the collision, the arguably drinking and driving, whatever's alleged to have happened. And what happens is, that it doesn't mean that's the end of the case. All that means is, basically, the cops didn't want to stay by your bedside for more than a couple of hours. They're still going to prosecute the case. They're still going to investigate the case. They're still going to refer it to the District Attorney's office for prosecution.
And in all likelihood, what's going to happen is if you're not being attentive and on top of it with a quality locally experienced criminal defense firm representing you, reaching out to the prosecutor, reaching out possibly to a CHP investigating officer to find out the status of the investigation, reaching out to a District Attorney's office trying to present any evidence, whether mitigation, evidence, or otherwise to try and prevent charges from being filed. And if charges are going to be filed, to at least have an idea and at least try and avoid a situation that we see far too often where clients come in, "I was involved in an accident in December. May, I'm coming out of a house going to work and I get arrested on this warrant that I knew nothing about." Well, our first question is always, "Okay, well, what was going on from December today? Did you set up your DMV hearing? Did you hire another law firm that was reaching out to the District Attorney, reaching out to law enforcement?"
"Well, no, I didn't do anything." "Well, why not?" "Well, I got this certificate of release thing that says I was no longer arrested so I thought it was good." Big mistake. The best way to handle those types of situations, particularly in situations where other parties may be injured, is once you get out of the hospital, reach out to a quality locally experienced criminal defense law firm, explain the situation, and they should be able to advise you of your options moving forward.
One of those options is to bring on a firm that will be able to do some investigation, will be able to gather some background information, will be able to advise you on what you should be doing from the time you get out of the hospital, what you could do to help your case from a mitigation perspective, what you could do to help your case from an evidence perspective. Because it is the worst feeling, and we see it far too often when clients reach out to us and we ask them, "Well, what's been going on the last couple of months?" and they say, "I didn't think anything was going to happen," because these are valuable times where you can do a lot of good things.
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