Felony DUI Charges

I spent most of last weekend dealing with the immediate rammifacations of a client being arrested for a felony DUI in Los Angeles following a serious traffic accident leading to injury to her passenger. My client was being held on $100,000 bail after she had crashed into a wall causing injury to her passenger. It turned out that the passenger had a perforated intestine requiring surgery and the removal of thirty inches of lower intestine.

For clients with no prior criminal history and otherwise leading a productive law abiding life, being in custody for a felony DUI in Los Angeles and facing the possibility of a State Prison sentence, will cause shock, disbelief and all sorts of other negative emotions. Parents and family members cannot believe it is happening, and emotions can range from denial to anger and the desire to attribute blame elsewhere. Eventually, it becomes a matter of accepting that the event has occured, realising that some life changes have to occur and then doing everything necessary to mitigate the damage and make things better.

Cost is always a factor as most good felony DUI lawyers will charge anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 for a serious felony DUI. The cost of bail is also something that needs to be addressed. Sometimes, tough decisions need to be made. Rather than posting bail immediately, it is often better to wait a couple of days for the defendant to be produced in custody as the judge can then vary the amount of the bail downwards. In the above case, bail was reduced by the judge from $100,000 to $40,000 thereby saving the client approximately $6,000 in bond fees.

Of course, the fees and costs will ultimately be forgotten, but the results of the case will not be. An arrest for a serious felony DUI is a potentially life changing event that demands only the best legal representation. Gold & Witham have many years of experience successfully representing clients charged with felony DUI in Orange County and Los Angeles Courts.