California DUI Law and Defenses: Survival Guide to Getting a DUI

A DUI conviction can CHANGE YOUR LIFE and lead to jail, license suspension, constrictive probation terms, fines and fees, legal costs, heightened insurance rates, and disruption to your professional and personal world. But even these threats often do not suffice to motivate people to defend vigorously against DUI charges. Many people just want to act as quickly as possible to "get the DUI out of the way," so that they won't have to worry about it anymore. In other words, some folks approach DUI charges like they approach traffic tickets. They think they can just "pay the fine," metaphorically speaking, and move on. This is a big, tragic mistake. A DUI is not like a traffic ticket. It's a serious offense. If you plead guilty to a misdemeanor DUI charge, for instance, that means you have a criminal record. So don't plead guilty during your arraignment for DUI. You might have legal defenses that you don't even know exist. Attorney Martens has personally seen people with a 0.05% blood alcohol concentration plead guilty to DUI because they didn't have an attorney. For reference, the legal limit here in California is 0.08% BAC. In other words, he's seen people who were barely more than half way to 0.08% accept a misdemeanor on their records for no good reason.