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The Impact Of Aggravated DUI Charges On Professional Licenses


Multiple DUIs can be a crushing blow to a medical license or any other types of licenses that are provided by the state such as just a liquor license. If you are picking up multiple DUIs, ABC can get involved and they can go after you there. I have seen people with real estate licenses who get multiple DUIs and have trouble getting renewed or if they lose their license, getting their professional license back. A felony DUI in California is either where there is an injury which is serious enough to be a felony injury and unfortunately, in California, it does not take much to make it a felony and it does not have to be a broken bone because that needs surgery.

I have seen felonies charged which are very minor injuries and should have been misdemeanors at most, but it is up to the DA’s office how they want to charge you. And the other way that it can be a felony is if you have four DUIs within ten years and that is something that believe it or not, can happen and I have seen it happen to people within a matter of months or years. It is just people have ways of picking up DUIs quickly, especially when they are having trouble stopping the drinking. It is an even bigger red flag when you have a more serious case. If you have a fourth DUI, I am not sure how you have retained your medical or nursing license at this point.

That is probably gone well before that, but a felony DUI and a first DUI is something that is extremely severe and your license is jeopardy, probably more so than if it was a misdemeanor DUI and even more important although any DUI you should get an administrative attorney that can help you with the review boards. You just need to take it extremely seriously. The other types of aggravating circumstances that would again be a red flag or larger flags would be the high blood alcohol levels. I have a client who has 0.10 or 0.11.

It is something that either we do not win at trial or cannot get dismissed or reduced to something low enough to take it off the radar and not make it as big of a signal for the review boards. That is much different than someone who is at 0.18 or over 0.20 or over 0.30. I mean I have had clients who have nursing or medical licenses who have blood alcohol levels all over the chart and the higher it is and other things. There can be other allegations like bad driving, obviously if there are injuries, accidents, drugs involved like you mentioned, kids in the car, the way I like to put it is this, is something that we really do not want to put in front of a jury, one of those cases which are typically the accident injury cases, the kids in the car or the real high speed with the reckless driving like going over ninety to hundred miles an hour.

Those are things that not just the jury would have trouble with but a medical review board or any other type of board would look at, because they look at the situation, they get the police report. They might even get video of your interactions with the police of the driving, the field sobriety tests, or the blood draws. I had a case years ago where I had a client who had a professional license and was trying to get another one and that was put in jeopardy and was difficult to get because of comments that they made to an officer. Certain types of comments did not seem like something that would come out of the client’s mouth but according to the officer, that is what they said and that is something that the review board had problems with.

Anyway, there are a lot of aggravating circumstances that can make it a more severe situation for someone with a professional license when they are charged with the DUI or get convicted of a DUI.

The Importance Of Hiring An Experienced DUI Attorney That Handles Professional License Hearings

In a drunk driving case or a DUI case, you need to find the best DUI lawyer and make sure that they understand enough about the administrative hearings where they can give you some advice early on and also most importantly, direct you to a good administrative attorneys who can help try and save or protect your license within an administrative review board. That is someone who has done hearings, a lot of these hearings are in Sacramento. The attorney does not have to be in Sacramento, attorneys travel all the time, especially an attorney who has a background in DUI law and understands it as well.

A lot of the administrative attorneys who do these cases have not done much criminal defense work. So finding someone who is a good combination, who has background in criminal defense and mainly DUI law and then has since moved their practice towards more administrative or almost solely administrative hearings with the review boards, which is an ideal attorney. They really understand what is going on and can really work well with your DUI lawyer and they are going to be on top of things if it is a good one. But yes, you do need to go all out to try and protect your license.

For more information on Impact Of Aggravated DUI Charges, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (415) 523-7878 today.

Aaron Bortel

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