Full San Diego DUI Lawyer information provided by San Diego County DUI Law Center's Drunk Driving Attorney for those accused of a San Diego California DUI.


San Diego DUI Attorney Rick Mueller is a Top-Rated San Diego Drunk Driving Lawyer, San Diego DUI & DMV Defense Attorney with over 26 years of experience. San Diego DUI Lawyer Rick Mueller dedicates 100% of his San Diego DUI law practice to aggressively defending those accused of San Diego Driving Under the Influence.

He lectured at the

Annual DUI Seminar

in connection with the American Bar Association at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. San Diego California Criminal Defense Attorney Rick Mueller also spoke at the prestigious California Attorneys For Criminal Justice

A Day in the Desert with the DUI Experts - Annual DUI seminar

.

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San Diego DUI Attorney Rick Mueller just wrote "Alcohol level .07% or less yet still arrested for DUI / Drunk Driving / DWI? How in California?"
Posted on 4/26/10, 8 minutes ago.

Rick is a Lawyer specializing in drunk driving defense and is licensed in California.

San Dieog DUI Criminal Defense Lawyers face California state toxicologists routinely testify folks can be impaired at .05% BAC or more (rather than the legal limit of .08% or more BAC). What? Read here.

Driving under the influence of drugs

If you take prescription or non-prescription over-the-counter drugs or alcohol while driving, you can be in trouble. According to the law, anyone under the effect of drugs found driving or being in charge of a vehicle may have to go to court. Whether you have been advised these drugs by your doctor or health consultant, driving under their influence means you are breaking the law.

Traffic authorities are given the power to check any one for a random drug test, especially those who are found to be suspicious. This can include the way a person is driving the car and physical signs and performance of the driver. Normally, the police carry out a random drug test by taking a sample of the drivers saliva and checking it for levels of cannabis, MDMA or ecstasy and methylamphetamine or ICE. Any non-zero levels of these three drugs mean the driver is breaking the law. Currently, the saliva test can only detect levels of these three drugs, and the police can take a blood test or urine sample at any point if they feel that the driver is under influence of some other drug such as alcohol. A breathalyser can also be carried out to find if the driver has any alcohol in his system. However, for alcohol, the threshold level for drug in the blood is safe anywhere between zero and 0.05, and blood alcohol levels or BAC higher than this can cause trouble for the driver. This threshold limit can be changed by the law anytime, as deemed appropriate. A prosecution drug recognition expert can also be used as a testimony against the driver.

When a person is under the influence of drugs, whether it is alcohol, an addictive drug, prescription drug or over-the-counter drug, his or her mental or physical capacity of being able to work properly and comprehend things can become impaired. Driving under the influence of drugs, also known as DUI, or driving while impaired or intoxicated or DWI can become a problem not only for the driver, but for other passengers riding in the vehicle and also for the passerbyes. A drug can be categorized as just anything which affects a person’s mental or physical capability, whether it is a cold medicine, pills of coffee or caffeine etc. According to the definition used in California, “A drug is anything capable of affecting the nervous system, brain or muscles of an individual as to impair, to an appreciable degree, his or her ability to drive a vehicle in the manner that any ordinarily prudent and cautious person, in full possession of his faculties, using reasonable care, would drive a similar vehicle under like conditions.” If you or someone you know has been charged for DUI, you will need to consult a specialized DUI lawyer or a DUI attorney, who has qualified DUI Laws. A lawyer not specialized in this field may not be able to defend you as it takes real know-how to handle cases accused with DUI.
According to definition, DUI includes driving under the influence of alcohol, including driving while intoxicated, drunk driving, operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs, where as a vehicle can include anything from bicycle, boat, airplane, to wheelchair, tractor or horse. In most counties and states of America, DUI and DWI are considered a criminal offense and are dealt with severe charges. It is a serious health hazard and causes 39% of vehicle related deaths each year. Most courts will disqualify the accused of holding or obtaining a driver’s license for a specific period of time, whereas in serious cases, the charges can be severe. These charges can include a fine, appointment of a community service or even prison. The court also takes away the right of eligibility to apply for a work licence and if the driver is convicted with a serious offence of driving or being in charge of a vehicle while under the influence of a drug.

Some states may have the same punishment for DUI drug cases and DUI alcohol cases. However, in states where the punishments are different, it is important to hire a DUI Laws lawyer who can relieve some of the harsher punishments imposed by law. Whether you have been accused of drunk driving DUI, DWI or driving while impaired or intoxicated, DUII or driving under the influence of intoxicants, OUI or operating under the influence of drugs, OUIL or operating under the influence of liquor, MVI or operating a motor vehicle while impaired or simply accused of reckless driving while drunk, a knowledgeable and skilled defence DUI lawyer should be consulted. Do not waste time with inexperienced lawyers, as your driver’s license can be cancelled. Consulting a skilled criminal defense lawyer who concentrated on DUI and DWI defense should be your first choice to save yourself from a lot of trouble.

San Diego DUI criminal defense lawyers often encounter folks who are arrested after having smoked medical marijuana. It's perfectly legally for cardholders to smoke any day as long as you are not impaired or under the influence while you drive. Today is Weed day.

Legend has it that Warren Haynes, the Allman Brothers Band guitarist, routinely plays with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, now touring as The Dead. He's just finished a Dead show in Washington, D.C. and gets a pop quiz from the Huffington Post.

Where does 420 come from?

He pauses and thinks, hands on his side. "I don't know the real origin. I know myths and rumors," he says. "I'm really confused about the first time I heard it. It was like a police code for smoking in progress or something. What's the real story?"

Depending on who you ask, or their state of inebriation, there are as many varieties of answers as strains of medical bud in California. It's the number of active chemicals in marijuana. It's teatime in Holland. It has something to do with Hitler's birthday. It's those numbers in that Bob Dylan song multiplied.

The origin of the term 420, celebrated around the world by pot smokers every April 20th, has long been obscured by the clouded memories of the folks who made it a phenomenon.

The Huffington Post chased the term back to its roots and was able to find it in a lost patch of cannabis in a Point Reyes, California forest. Just as interesting as its origin, it turns out, is how it spread.
Story continues below

It starts with the Dead.

It was Christmas week in Oakland, 1990. Steven Bloom was wandering through The Lot - that timeless gathering of hippies that springs up in the parking lot before every Grateful Dead concert - when a Deadhead handed him a yellow flyer.

"We are going to meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing in Marin County at the Bolinas Ridge sunset spot on Mt. Tamalpais," reads the message, which Bloom dug up and forwarded to the Huffington Post. Bloom, then a reporter for High Times magazine and now the publisher of CelebStoner.com and co-author of Pot Culture, had never heard of "420-ing" before.

The flyer came complete with a 420 back story: "420 started somewhere in San Rafael, California in the late '70s. It started as the police code for Marijuana Smoking in Progress. After local heads heard of the police call, they started using the expression 420 when referring to herb - Let's Go 420, dude!"

Bloom reported his find in the May 1991 issue of High Times, which the magazine found in its archives and provided to the Huffington Post. The story, though, was only partially right.

It had nothing to do with a police code -- though the San Rafael part was dead on. Indeed, a group of five San Rafael High School friends known as the Waldos - by virtue of their chosen hang-out spot, a wall outside the school - coined the term in 1971. The Huffington Post spoke with Waldo Steve, Waldo Dave and Dave's older brother, Patrick, and confirmed their full names and identities, which they asked to keep secret for professional reasons. (Pot is still, after all, illegal.)

The Waldos never envisioned that pot smokers the world over would celebrate each April 20th as a result of their foray into the Point Reyes forest. The day has managed to become something of a national holiday in the face of official condemnation. This year's celebration will be no different. Officials at the University of Colorado at Boulder and University of California, Santa Cruz, which boast two of the biggest smoke outs, are pushing back. "As another April 20 approaches, we are faced with concerns from students, parents, alumni, Regents, and community members about a repeat of last year's 4/20 'event,'" wrote Boulder's chancellor in a letter to students. "On April 20, 2009, we hope that you will choose not to participate in unlawful activity that debases the reputation of your University and degree, and will encourage your fellow Buffs to act with pride and remember who they really are."

But the Cheshire cat is out of the bag. Students and locals will show up at round four, light up at 4:20 and be gone shortly thereafter. No bands, no speakers, no chants. Just a bunch of people getting together and getting stoned.

The code often creeps into popular culture and mainstream settings. All of the clocks in Pulp Fiction, for instance, are set to 4:20. In 2003, when the California legislature codified the medical marijuana law voters had approved, the bill was named SB420.

"We think it was a staffer working for [lead Assembly sponsor Mark] Leno, but no one has ever fessed up," says Steph Sherer, head of Americans for Safe Access, which lobbied on behalf of the bill. California legislative staffers spoken to for this story say that the 420 designation remains a mystery, but that both Leno and the lead Senate sponsor, John Vasconcellos, are hip enough that they must have known what it meant. (If you were involved with SB420 and know the story, email me.)

The code pops up in Craig's List postings when fellow smokers search for "420 friendly" roommates. "It's just a vaguer way of saying it and it kind of makes it kind of cool," says Bloom. "Like, you know you're in the know, but that does show you how it's in the mainstream."

The Waldos do have proof, however, that they used the term in the early '70s in the form of an old 420 flag and numerous letters with 420 references and early '70s post marks. They also have a story.

It goes like this: One day in the Fall of 1971 - harvest time - the Waldos got word of a Coast Guard service member who could no longer tend his plot of marijuana plants near the Point Reyes Peninsula Coast Guard station. A treasure map in hand, the Waldos decided to pluck some of this free bud.

The Waldos were all athletes and agreed to meet at the statue of Loius Pasteur outside the school at 4:20, after practice, to begin the hunt.

"We would remind each other in the hallways we were supposed to meet up at 4:20. It originally started out 4:20-Louis and we eventually dropped the Louis," Waldo Steve tells the Huffington Post.

The first forays out were unsuccessful, but the group kept looking for the hidden crop. "We'd meet at 4:20 and get in my old '66 Chevy Impala and, of course, we'd smoke instantly and smoke all the way out to Pt. Reyes and smoke the entire time we were out there. We did it week after week," says Steve. "We never actually found the patch."

But they did find a useful codeword. "I could say to one of my friends, I'd go, 420, and it was telepathic. He would know if I was saying, 'Hey, do you wanna go smoke some?' Or, 'Do you have any?' Or, 'Are you stoned right now?' It was kind of telepathic just from the way you said it," Steve says. "Our teachers didn't know what we were talking about. Our parents didn't know what we were talking about."

It's one thing to identify the origin of the term. Indeed, Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary already include references to the Waldos. The bigger question: How did 420 spread from a circle of California stoners across the globe?

As fortune would have it, the collapse of San Francisco's hippie utopia in the late '60s set the stage. As speed freaks, thugs and con artists took over The Haight, the Grateful Dead picked up and moved to the Marin County hills - just blocks from San Rafael High School.

"Marin Country was kind of ground zero for the counter culture," says Steve.

The Waldos had more than just a geographic connection to the Dead. Mark Waldo's father took care of real estate for the Dead. And Waldo Dave's older brother, Patrick, managed a Dead sideband and was good friends with bassist Phil Lesh. Patrick tells the Huffington Post that he smoked with Lesh on numerous occasions. He couldn't recall if he used the term 420 around him, but guessed that he must have.

The Dead, recalls Waldo Steve, "had this rehearsal hall on Front Street, San Rafael, California, and they used to practice there. So we used to go hang out and listen to them play music and get high while they're practicing for gigs. But I think it's possible my brother Patrick might have spread it through Phil Lesh. And me, too, because I was hanging out with Lesh and his band when they were doing a summer tour my brother was managing."

The band that Patrick managed was called Too Loose To Truck and featured not only Lesh but rock legend David Crosby and acclaimed guitarist Terry Haggerty.

The Waldos also had open access to Dead parties and rehearsals. "We'd go with [Mark's] dad, who was a hip dad from the '60s," says Steve. "There was a place called Winterland and we'd always be backstage running around or onstage and, of course, we're using those phrases. When somebody passes a joint or something, 'Hey, 420.' So it started spreading through that community."

Lesh, walking off the stage after a recent Dead concert, confirmed that Patrick is a friend and said he "wouldn't be surprised" if the Waldos had coined 420. He wasn't sure, he said, when the first time he heard it was. "I do not remember. I'm very sorry. I wish I could help," he said.

Wavy-Gravy is a hippie icon with his own ice cream flavor and has been hanging out with the Dead for decades. HuffPost spotted him outside the concert. Asked about the origin of 420, he suggested it began "somewhere in the foggy mists of time. What time is it now? I say to you: eternity now."

As the Grateful Dead toured the globe through the '70s and '80s, playing hundreds of shows a year - the term spread though the Dead underground. Once High Times got hip to it, the magazine helped take it global.

"I started incorporating it into everything we were doing," High Times editor Steve Hager told the Huffington Post. "I started doing all these big events - the World Hemp Expo Extravaganza and the Cannabis Cup - and we built everything around 420. The publicity that High Times gave it is what made it an international thing. Until then, it was relatively confined to the Grateful Dead subculture. But we blew it out into an international phenomenon."

Sometime in the early '90s, High Times wisely purchased the web domain 420.com.

Bloom, the reporter who first stumbled on it, gives High Times less credit. "We posted that flyer and then we started to see little references to it. It wasn't really much of High Times doing," he says. "We weren't really pushing it that hard, just kind of referencing the phrase."

The Waldos say that within a few years the term had spread throughout San Rafael and was cropping up elsewhere in the state. By the early '90s, it had penetrated deep enough that Dave and Steve started hearing people use it in unexpected places - Ohio, Florida, Canada - and spotted it painted on signs and etched into park benches.

In 1997, the Waldos decided to set the record straight and got in touch with High Times.

"They said, 'The fact is, there is no 420 [police] code in California. You guys ever look it up?'" Blooms recalls. He had to admit that no, he had never looked it up. Hager flew out to San Rafael, met the Waldos, examined their evidence, spoke with others in town, and concluded they were telling the truth.

Hager still believes them. "No one's ever been able to come up with any use of 420 that predates the 1971 usage, which they had established. So unless somebody can come up with something that predates them, then I don't think anybody's going to get credit for it other than them," he says.

"We never made a dime on the thing," says Dave, half boasting, half lamenting.

He does take pride in his role, though. "I still have a lot of friends who tell their friends that they know one of the guys that started the 420 thing. So it's kind of like a cult celebrity thing. Two years ago I went to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. High Times magazine flew me out," says Dave.

Dave is now a credit analyst and works for Steve, who owns a specialty lending institution and lost money to the con artist Bernie Madoff. He spends more time today, he says, composing angry letters to the SEC than he does getting high.

The other three Waldos have also been successful, Steve says. One is head of marketing for a Napa Valley winery. Another is in printing and graphics. A third works for a roofing and gutter company. "He's like, head of their gutter division," says Steve, who keeps in close touch with them all.

"I've got to run a business. I've got to stay sharp," says Steve, explaining why he rarely smokes pot anymore. "Seems like everybody I know who smokes daily, or many times in a week, it seems like there's always something going wrong with their life, professionally, or in their relationships, or financially or something. It's a lot of fun, but it seems like if someone does it too much, there's some karmic cost to it."

"I never endorsed the use of marijuana. But hey, it worked for me," says Waldo Dave. "I'm sure on my headstone it'll say: 'One of the 420 guys.'"

San Diego criminal defense lawyers love it when clients tell that story.

If you have been arrested or cited for a DUI or drunk driving offense that occurred in the San Diego area, you need the best San Diego DUI attorney available to defend your San Diego drunk driving case.
If you need to save your driver's license or privileges, your attorney has only ten (10) calendar days to contact DMV!





All a DMV attorney has to do is knock out one (1) DMV issue to save your license & you avoid any reissue fee and/or Proof of Insurance SR-22 filing!




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Retaining top San Diego drunk driving legal representation will ensure any necessary bail posting as soon as possible to reduce initial San Diego jail time.



The best San Diego DUI defense attorney will investigate all San Diego drunk driving arrests to ensure that the client’s legal rights were preserved and the San Diego county police officer following proper San Diego procedure.



If your San Diego DUI criminal lawyer identifies an illegal action or misconduct by the San Diego police officer, it could be grounds for San Diego DUI case dismissal.



However, if all proper San Diego procedures were followed - an unlikely event - your San Diego DUI attorney will nonetheless defend your San Diego drunk driving case to the most professional extent.



A first San Diego DUI / drunk driving offense is the best opportunity for your San Diego DUI defense lawyer to vigorously defend and to request a reduced San Diego DUI sentencing.



A premier San Diego DUI attorney will be one with over 25 years of experience and expertise in San Diego California drunk driving cases. Excellent San Diego court outcomes and satisfied clients will also be illustrative of the talent of your San Diego DUI / drunk driving criminal attorney.



On August 1, 2009, Rick lectured at the

Annual DUI Seminar

in connection with the American Bar Association at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. San Diego California Criminal Defense Attorney Rick Mueller spoke at the prestigious California Attorneys For Criminal Justice

A Day in the Desert with the DUI Experts - Annual DUI seminar

. The California criminal defense lawyers who attended informed the President of the California DUI Lawyers Association that San Diego California DUI criminal defense attorney Rick Mueller was excellent.


San Diego DUI law firms provide free initial consultation to learn more about your case. To find the best San Diego DUI criminal defense lawyer, visit

the most informative DUI website

.


You can read more -Why use San Diego County's Specialist in DUI and DMV Law now

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Try a Free California DUI Evaluation

at this online DUI consultation site

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San Diego DUI criminal defense lawyers watch trends in the "drug of choice" among the partying youth of America. There's been a number of different drugs introduced into California which challenge the skills of criminal defense attorneys in San Diego.

Cocaine appears to be fashionable again not just in the United States but also among richer people in Australia and other countries, according to some San Diego DUI attorney blogs. This twit shows the major problem if you have too much blow on you.

Girlicious star Natalie Nicole Mejiahas pleaded not guilty in California to possession of cocaine with the intent to sell.

Glendale police say they arrested the 21-year-old Diamond Bar singer just over a month ago when more than 12 bags of cocaine in her Gucci purse by police during a stop.

The "drugs weren't hers, and she didn't know how it got in her purse." The beauty is free on $30,000 bail.

San Diego DUI criminal defense lawyers elaborate on DMV hearings. They're mini-DUI trials without a jury, challenging to the novice attorney because of odd San Diego DMV laws and San diego DMV procedures. The San Diego DUI / DMV hearing is presided over by a Driver Safety Officer (DMV hearing officer) rather than a real judge, an employee of the DMV not trained in law who acts as both prosecutor and judge. As unfair as it is, she or he can legally object to your evidence, rule on her or his own objection, dually engage your San Diego DUI / DMV lawyer, and admit or not admit either party's evidence.



The San Diego Driver Safety Officer offers evidence in the form of documents and/or witnesses. The Driver Safety Officer offers the San Diego drunk driving / DUI police report, DMV records, San Diego DUI alcohol reports and the important San Diego DUI officer's sworn statement entitled a "DS 367." With no Fifth Amendment right at the hearing, your San Diego DUI / DMV attorney usually will not want you to be present at the hearing since the Driver Safety Officer can call you as a witness and force you to testify against yourself if you ill-advisedly appear.



The San Diego DMV Driver Safety Officer's decision will usually be mailed a few days or even weeks after the hearing. A San Diego DMV / DMV suspension can be set aside or sustained. If the San Diego DMV suspension is sustained, the decision can be appealed to the DMV in Sacramento and/or to the San Diego Superior court by filing a San Diego DMV petition for writ of mandamus.




A San Diego DUI lawyer's defenses at an APS hearing are specialized and technical, more so than in criminal court. Frequent San Diego DUI / DMV proof problems - as well as legal, procedural and bureaucratic obstacles - are possible grounds for setting aside the suspension.




Because of the peculiar nature of San Diego DUI / DMV hearings and the absence of an independent San Diego DUI judge to offer some protection, you are strongly advised not to try to represent yourself. Because these are not San Diego DUI criminal proceedings, San Diego County public defenders are unavailable.




Your San Diego DUI / DMV attorney has just 10 CALENDAR DAYS after the DUI arrest to call the San Diego DMV Driver Safety Office to timely demand a hearing. You waive your right to a hearing after the 10 day deadline is up.



If your San Diego DUI / DMV attorney has not been retained within 10 days of the arrest, you should contact the local Driver's Safety Office yourself, request a 5 day extension so you can get a San Diego DUI / DMV Attorney Specialist.




Alternatively, if your request for an extension is denied by the San Diego DMV supervisor, request an In-person hearing, the Discovery (evidence), a Stay (stop) of the Suspension, and the Name of the Driver Safety Officer.




Please ask for the name of the person you speak with. Please do not discuss the reasons why you are contesting the suspension. The San Diego Driver Safety Office is located at 9174 Sky Park Avenue, Suite 200, San Diego (858/627-3901 or fax 858/627-3925).




The San Diego DMV may not be able to schedule a hearing before your 30-day temporary license expires. Your San Diego DUI / DMV lawyer will request a Notice of Stay of the 30-day temporary license until a San Diego DMV hearing is provided and a San Diego DMV decision is actually rendered.







Looking for a Lawyer? On August 1, 2009, Rick lectured at the

Annual DUI Seminar

in connection with the American Bar Association at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. San Diego California Criminal Defense Attorney Rick Mueller spoke at the prestigious California Attorneys For Criminal Justice

A Day in the Desert with the DUI Experts - Annual DUI seminar

. The California criminal defense lawyers who attended indicated to the President of the California DUI Lawyers Association that San Diego California DUI criminal defense lawyer Rick Mueller's presentation and materials were excellent.

Video of San Diego DUI / DMV Attorney