2nd DUI and Electronic Monitoring

What is it?

Another common tactic used in Orange County 2nd DUI Defense is House Arrest or Home confinement. Often this comes as a best case scenario if the blood alcohol content is high and there is no dispute as to the reason for the pullover and your attorney is able to pull off some kind of plea bargain with the court and the district attorney. This is a program is worked with Orange County Probation. Probation must approve this program. Probation will screen an individual to see if he qualifies for the program. In addition to this, the judge must be on board with the program as well. There are also other requirements such as having a home phone line. This is a viable option  available  to people who did not have a recent DUI. Chances of this program are slim if a person is still on DUI probation. Other options must be considered.

House arrest is also known as home confinement or electronic monitoring. This is an alternative to jail on a lot of 2nd DUI. Most people would agree it is a much more comfortable than jail because you are able to stay home and continue with your job. Not everyone can go to jail. Jail would get in the way of school and work. Going to jail would cause most people to lose their job or drop out of school. It is best to seek the assistance of Lawyer if your jail time is the result of multiple DUI’s. Sometimes it is run by probation and other times it is run by a private company. It is sometimes run by a private company because a person does not qualify for it via probation.

Electronic Monitoring is when a person is allowed to do their jail sentence in lieu of jail. This is common in Southern California especially with the jail overcrowding situation. Jails are getting overcrowded and the jails are more open to letting people do their jail time with electronic monitoring. However, it is not for everyone because of its restrictions and the fact that you will have to do the whole time. Whether it is for you will depend on the county you live in, how much you are willing to put up with and whether you are willing to pay for it.

This can be done with a private company such as scram. The scram device will also work as an alcohol monitoring device. Alcohol monitoring means a person cannot drink alcohol while they are on the program. If you a person who drinks alcohol while they are on the program then t would be considered a violation.

What are the Limits?

The first and most important step is for your crime to fall into one of the class of crimes which do no disqualify you. That means you cannot have any crime involving violence or drugs. There are exceptions to these rules but they do not come easy. The reason for this is they do not want you committing crimes at home. For example, a person convicted for domestic violence will commit it again at home in the program.

The timing must be perfect and the person’s background must also qualify him or her for house arrest. This must be arranged after conviction and the timing must be done 5-6 weeks after the conviction date. This is worked thru probation. Probation will check the person’s background. The background check is extensive. Probation will look at what happened in a case even if there was no conviction and they will scrutinize a police report.

There are several limitations to Electronic Monitoring. One of the biggest limitations is that you must not have had any violent crimes in the past. This is regardless if you were only arrested or convicted. At least in Orange County, you do not have to be convicted of a crime to have it used against you for the purpose of house arrest. A conviction is the equivalent to being found guilty of a crime or pleading out to a case. I have seen many cases where people have been denied house arrest because of a domestic violence they had 20 years ago which they forgot.

The second step is to work out a deal with the prosecuting agency which will allow qualify you for Electronic Monitoring in Orange County. Some district attorneys will deny it and oppose it as a matter of principle. Others may defer to the court. It’s important that the prosecuting agency does not oppose your application to Electronic Monitoring in Orange County.

Third, you have to get the judge on board to allow you to apply for Electronic Monitoring in Orange County. If the judge denies your Electronic Monitoring in Orange County in advance then you will not get in and it will be a waste of time to applying. Whether it will be denied will depend on a series of facts. Some factors are whether you are still on probation, whether there are priors and etc. Afterwards, you have to resolve your case and ask for a surrender date at the jail further out in the future.  The reason for further out is that you will need time to work things out with probation for Electronic Monitoring in Orange County.

Whether or not Orange County will continue offering Electronic Monitoring will be interesting. Orange County has just terminated the GPS firm which handles their Electronic Monitoring contracts. It is interesting because the jails are overcrowding and there is a need for it. If you live in Los Angeles County then you may want to choose the jail time instead as the jails are overcrowded and you would do substantially less time.

Once that is done a person’s counsel must navigate the case to the right courtroom and the right judge. This is critical as getting an offer from the wrong judge will make your case sticky and cause problems for your DUI in Orange County. For example if a person ask the wrong judge and gets an offer he doesn’t like then it makes things difficult for the next judge to undercut that first judge. It is important to know when to resolve a 2nd DUI in Orange County.

Classes/Proactive steps in rehabilitation in a 2nd DUI

The third way to stay out of jail on a 2nd DUI is to the self-help meetings to impress on the judge are taking care of your problems. This will not work all the time. A person and his attorney will have to come up with a custom plan to show the court in order for this to work. This step involves going to AA classes and maybe even a custom alcohol bracelet to monitor alcohol consumption. You can contact me if you want to know more about this option.

Private Jail

One common Orange County DUI Defense tactic to keep my clients out of jail is private jail. This is exactly what it sounds like. A person will go to jail that is private. They will stay there until  their commitment is over. They will be able to go to work while they are there. However, they must return back to the cell once they are done with work. In addition to this there is also a fee for this which is usually $105-125 dollars a day. These jails are nicer than your county jail.

Beating the Case in Your 2nd DUI

As stated above, your exposure in for a 2nd DUI in Orange County can be anywhere from 30 days to 90 days if you are not on probation. There are also other ways to avoid jail. One of these ways is the beat the case and take the not guilty plea. You need to look at your case and look at the strengths and weaknesses of the state’s case. There are various defenses. One of the common ones is the rising defense and the no driving defense. This defense needs to be set up by establishing that you just recently stopped drinking. This defense says the alcohol has not yet affected your body and the no driving defense is a classic. In order to set this up you need to not be caught driving. There are several ways to beat your case and even if you lose your case there are still ways for an expungement which will help with you getting a job and cleaning up your criminal record.

Consider Alternative Sentencing for Your 2nd DUI

The least risky method is going for some kind of alternative sentencing. There is also known as an option of electronic home confinement. This involves

wearing a bracelet which keeps you at home and you must obey the curfew as well. Finally, there is an option of DUI court.This is the most difficult way to stay out because of the commitments. However, it is also premised on the the program not being impacted. There are a number of factors that come into effect when considering your 2nd DUI in Orange County and whether you will stay out of jail with some kind of electronic monitoring. Some of these factors include the 1) court, 2) the judge sitting inside that court room, and 3) probation.

Q: What are Factors that affect my 2nd DUI Alternative Sentencing?

A: The Judge

A (continued): One the most important factors that affects your 2nd DUI Alternative Sentencing is the judge. As of writing this article (6/20/2015) the Santa Ana and Newport Courthouse are the most difficult for a person to deal with if they are caught for a 2nd DUI in Orange County. This is mainly because of the judges. that is not to say that Westminster and Fullerton are a walk in a part by any means a person would be in for a fight to stay out of jail. For example, one particular judge will like their people who have repeat DUI’s to stay on a private electronic monitoring while others do not believe in private electronic monitoring and will not give credit for it.

Probation can stop a person from getting Home Confinement for their 2nd DUI in Orange County

Orange County Probation can cause problem for a person when they want to stay out of jail by denying home confinement. When this happens it is because a person has some kind of criminal background in their past. These criminal backgrounds include that of domestic violence and dealing drugs from home. There are a number of other crimes where a person will be denied home confinement.

The Recency of your Previous DUI

When was the last time you got your DUI? A Judge is more inclined to not oppose home confinement on your case if your previous DUI was very recent. The reason here is because no judge wants to be known as the judge who let out a drunk driver and that drunk driver hit and killed someone. You have a much better chance at staying out of jail if your DUI was more than 6-7 years ago. However, you will have to work to do if your last DUI was just recently. If your last DUI was anywhere from a few months to less than 3 years ago then it will be an uphill battle or getting home confinement and other avenues such as DUI Court or Residential rehab will have to be used to keep you out of jail. You will be treated differently on your case if you have a DUI after 5 years or after 10 years. One other thing to look out for is

Do They Know Its Your  Orange County California 2nd DUI?

It is important to know your options. Sometimes the district attorney will miss out on the previous DUI and file the case as a first DUI. This must be capitalized on. This issue can be spotted by taking a walk over to the clerk court and asking them to take a look at the complaint. The complaint will show allegations if they did not miss it and filed it as a second.

Other Factors that may either mitigate or aggravate your case

There may be proof issues with your case which will affect your California DUI Penalty. When these are here you can use it to reduce your punishment in your case. One of my favorite is the no drive defense. This is when you argue that you were not driving. You can use this to get yourself a better sentence assuming that you have the right facts at your disposal. However,  there are other times when the facts are not good and you are offered a chance to resolve a case favorably at arraignment for less time. For example, if your DUI had a hit and run then it is less likely you will have a no jail time resolution for your case. But an interesting thing to keep inmind is that some DUIs are out of state. When a DUI is out of state, it causes an interesting issue because it may not necessarily be a prior. Many states have statuts  that define their DUI  different from California. If this happens then the DUI will not count as a prior for punishment on a 2nd DUI.

Collateral Consequences of your DUI

Other consequences of your second DUI in orange County includes probation. You’re looking at five years of probation, you’re looking at $390 fines, which comes out to $2,500 in addition to that, you’re looking at two year license suspension. There are ways around this and you can get your license back right away if you take the proper steps with the IID device.

There are other things to worry about with a 2nd DUI. One of the main ones is the increased license suspension. This can affect you greatly as in the time you have to go to work. There are different kinds of suspension periods. Driving is a privilege. Your DMV Privilege from the DMV can be suspended for different amounts of times depending on whether you are on probation or not. If you are on probation and you pick up your 2nd DUI then you will be suspended for a year. On the other hand, if you are not on probation then there are other ways to get you back on the road; however the rules for this are different then a first DUI. There will be no restricted license in this case and instead of waiting for 1 month to get a restricted you must wait at last 90 days until you can get back your revoked license.

In addition, there will be increased classes as well. A first DUI will get a person classes ranging anywhere from 3 months to 9 months. However, a 2nd DUI in Orange County will result in DUI classes that can go as high as 18 months. It’s important to keep these in considerations when considerting the outcome of your DUI punishment.

A 2nd DUI in Orange County will also result in increased fines for your case. The fines for a first time DUI in California is about $2,000. However, the fines for a 2nd is substantially more.

Final Advice

My best advice for anyone facing a Second DUI in Orange County is to contact a professional. The biggest thing that you need to worry about is staying out of jail in a second DUI, the potential jail time could be anywhere from 60 to 120 days in jail. This is on a second DUI and it can go even higher if you’re on probation, you need to qualify and jump through hurdles to get into electronic home monitoring. If you qualify for electronic monitoring, the judge will let you apply. However you have a second hurdle with probation, you have to qualify through them as well.

There are many professionals out there including myself.  The most important thing you need to do is make sure you hire someone who is local and knows the courthouse for your case.  For example, if your case is in Ventura then you do not want to hire an Orange County DUI Attorney for your case because you want someone who is regularly in that courthouse.