blairphoto_02CONTRA COSTA COUNTY DUIs ARE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER COUNTIES

Contra Costa County has many wonderful cities: Orinda, Pittsburg, Danville, Martinez, Concord, Walnut Creek, Lafayette and Antioch are just some of them.

Contra Costa County clearly is different from other counties in the way it handles DUI cases.  California has 58 different counties.  Each county has its own way of implementing DUI laws and each judge has his/her unique way of interpreting them.   Over time, patterns emerge as to how a particular county and its judges handle DUI cases.   Some counties are more punishment oriented.  Others are more treatment focused. Others are simply mavericks, destined to be unrepentantly different.  Contra Costa County is very decentralized in its workings for DUI cases.  Three courthouses handle criminal cases including DUIs: Martinez, Richmond and Pittsburg.

Contra Costa courts are usually extremely slow in filing DUI cases.  The tortoise-like speed in which they take in filing a DUI case is so slow that approximately 50% of the DUI cases will not be ready for their court date. The district attorney has up to one year on misdemeanor DUIs to file charges.  “Filing charges” means that a document, the ‘complaint’, must be prepared and contain the various charges that a prosecutor believes occurred as a criminal offense.  Often, Contra Costa County DUI cases are not filed for up to ten months after the DUI arrest.  This delay in filing DUI charges can be harmful to the strategy that seasoned DUI lawyers pursue which is to take care of the court case first before doing the DMV hearing.  However, it is very difficult to do the DMV after the court case is resolved if the court case does not begin for eight to ten months following the DUI arrest.  The DMV hearing officers will not typically allow their license hearings to be continued more than three times, which makes it difficult to do the DMV hearing after a court case if the court case does not begin for eight to ten months.

All three courthouses have heavy caseloads that are only made worse by a systemic delay in filing criminal charges.  Given the volume of cases in each courthouse, an attorney familiar with the Contra Costa County courts can exploit this situation to your advantage. Because of its heavy caseloads, judges and prosecutors can be much more generous in their offers to resolve a DUI case than in other counties.  However, Contra Costa County judges and prosecutors are not “pushovers”.  You need to have the correct approach to the judge and prosecutor to get the best results.

Attorney Mark Blair has regularly practiced in Contra Costa County for many years and has successfully handled many hundreds of DUI cases in Contra Costa County.  Mark knows how to work the Contra Costa County system to your advantage.  To get the best result for your Contra Costa County DUI case, please contact Attorney Mark Blair for a free, confidential and informative consultation at (925) 935-4343.

DISCLAIMER: The results of any person’s DUI case described on this web site and/or in the Bay Area DUI Law newsletter depend on factual and legal circumstances that are unique to a specific person. Information provided by this web site and/or the Bay Area DUI Law newsletter does NOT constitute a guarantee, warranty or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter. Any reference to laws, procedures, punishment or license consequences at court or the DMV in this web site and/or Bay Area DUI Law newsletter is NOT intended to be complete description of what can and will happen in any or every DUI case but instead is a simplified summary to facilitate the reader’s understanding of general issues involving DUI law. The law is in constant change; penalties and consequences change; as such, the reader should not and cannot rely upon anything mentioned in this web site and/or Bay Area DUI Law newsletter. The reader is strongly advised to seek competent legal counsel to ascertain the law, penalties and consequences that apply to his/her unique circumstances.