Not a Good Adventure for Bonaventura: Constable Charged With DUI… Implications for Your Los Angeles DUI Defense?

As someone who was recently arrested and charged with driving under the influence in Los Angeles, you’re feeling pretty sheepish and scared and regretful. John-Bonaventura-dui-los-angeles.jpg

You wish you had use more common sense — handed the keys to a friend or associate or just cabbed it home. As much as you want to take responsibility for events — and speak with an experienced Los Angeles DUI attorney, ASAP — appreciate that you’re not the first person who’s ever been in this compromised position.

Plenty of other, normally law abiding folks get into DUI trouble in Los Angeles all the time. In fact, if you’ve been following our blog for any length of time, you’ve read endless accounts of celebrities, sport stars, politicians, and even legislators who’ve been busted for DUI.

Even police officers get in trouble for the crime!

Case in point. Consider the sad story of 50-year old John M. Bonaventura, the head of the Constable’s Office for Las Vegas Township. A Nevada highway trooper pulled over Bonaventura on US 95 near Boulder Highway, after he saw the “official constable vehicle” driving pell-mell all over the freeway.

Bonaventura’s speeding and DUI charges are actually just the tip of the iceberg.

Commissioners for Clark County (the home of Las Vegas — a.k.a. the “City of Sin”) are about ready to abolish the entire Constable’s office, which employs over 20 deputies. These officials perform work ranging from serving paperwork to evicting people. According to a local paper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, critics have hammered the Constable’s office for “creative accounting practices that circumvent county oversight, as well as for filming a profanity-laced pilot for a reality television show.” (quote from an AP article)

Perhaps the deputies were jealous of the modern day Keystone Cops on Reno 911. Maybe they didn’t realize that that show is actually a fictional comedy.

On a more serious note, as a Los Angeles DUI defendant, you may or may not have been negatively affected by police errors or bad police behavior. The vast majority of officers in Los Angeles County are hardworking and fair. Yet you should pull out all the stops during your Los Angeles DUI defense — investigate any angle that could lead to a reduction in your sentence or a dismissal of the charges.

Of course, this is no small task, even for experienced attorneys. Fortunately, you can turn to former city prosecutor Michael Kraut and his team at the Kraut Law Group in Los Angeles for adept, thorough, and insightful guidance on your case.

Mr. Kraut has a special vantage on L.A. DUI cases because he served for nearly a decade and a half as a prosecutor. He maintains good relationships with his old prosecutorial colleagues as well as with other key people in the system.

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Mastering Scientific Evidence DUI Seminar a Success

The National College for DUI Defense and the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association put on an annual seminar in New Orleans titled “Mastering Scientific Evidence.” Six attorneys from Colorado were in attendance, including three from Tiftickjian Law Firm. This seminar is widely known as the premier DWI/DUI scientific evidence seminar in the country.

Mastering Scientific Evidence is an intensive three day seminar dedicated to legal issues in forensic toxicology and other impaired driving scientific disciplines. In addition to the presentations, there is a mock trial with twelve jurors.

The topics at this year’s seminar ranged from toxicology, chromatography, breath testing, and phlebotomy. Some of the topics presented on were  the Reliability of Breath Testing in DUI Cases; Fundamentals of Gas Chromatography for Lawyers; Intoxication by Drug—Vastly Different Than Alcohol; Ethical Responsibilities in DUI Cases; and Medicine (DSM) vs. NHTSA in DUI Cases.

 

The post Mastering Scientific Evidence DUI Seminar a Success appeared first on My Denver DUI Lawyer.

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INLAND EMPIRE NEWS: Family Angered that Suspected Riverside DUI Driver Still Not Charged in 3 Deaths

COLTON, Calif. (KABC) — A grieving father is demanding answers after his daughter, her best friend and the woman driving the two girls were killed by a suspected drunken driver who has not been charged nearly two months after the crash.

Click HERE for link to story.

Kylan Allen, 12, and her best friend, 13-year-old Haven Penman, were being driven by Allen’s grandmother, L.E. Mason, to a church gathering on the evening of Jan. 18 when they were struck by another vehicle in Colton.

Penman and Mason died at the scene. Allen was critically injured and died a few days later.

“She was just an innocent lady trying to take her little girls to a church function,” said Allen’s father, Keith Allen.

The driver of the other vehicle, 29-year-old Michael Hughes, was arrested by Colton police for driving under the influence, but no charges have been filed.

Allen says there are questions about whether or not his mother-in-law failed to yield before the crash, but he wants to know why a suspected drunken driver is free.

“He hasn’t been prosecuted for anything yet, no charges have been brought up,” the father said. “I can’t understand this and I just want some justice for my daughter Kylan, and Haven.”

The district attorney’s office tells Eyewitness News the case is still under investigation.

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