When Your Car, Truck or RV Gets Impounded in “Vehicle Jail”

For about 20 years, provisions in the California Vehicle Code require a vehicle to be impounded in “vehicle jail”as it were, for 30 days at the owner’s expense where a motorist is driving with a license suspended for unpaid moving violations, DUI, or a host of other reasons.

Note that this section of the Vehicle Code applies to the owner of the car. That means if let a friend drive your car, and your friend is stopped for driving on a suspended license, YOUR car can be towed and impounded for 30 days. In addition to the difficulty that this creates in transportation, it is also very EXPENSIVE, costing about $1000 to get your car "out of jail" after the 30 day period. Many vehicles have been left to the tow yards and have been auctioned because the owner can’t afford to get it back!

The California Attorney General recently issued an opinion that a local police department DOES have the right to bend that rule if it so chooses. In other words, the 30-day requirement to impound the car, truck or RV in “vehicle jail” where the motorist drove on a suspended license is not mandatory. An opinion issued by the California Attorney General is not subject to enforcement like a law or a court decision. But since, the Attorney General is responsible for law enforcement in the state, a published opinion is like a memo from the boss!

If you or someone you know have been accused of a crime, arrested, or contacted by police, contact San Jose criminal defense attorney Maureen Baldwin at (408) 279-4450 to learn your options today!

Be Careful What You View Online

According to the news headlines, it looks like it is now legal to view child porn in New York! But viewing and possessing child porn are two different things. Possession of child porn is still very much illegal in New York, California, and the rest of the country.

Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal in New York issued a decision in People v. Kent, holding that a defendant did not violate the law when images of child porn were found in his computer. As most people who use the internet are aware, a person can download an image, a song, a story, or you can simply look at it and move on.

In Kent, the court ruled that downloading child porn means you possess it, which violates the law. But if the images are merely on the computer memory cache, the user does not physically possess them or have "dominion and control" over them. Hence, it is legal.

Laws like California Penal Code section 311.11 also prohibit possession of child porn. However, unlike New York law, California law does not distinguish between images that are downloaded vs. images that are simply in the computer memory cache. Simply viewing the images while surfing online is considered illegal possession of child pornography. That means that under the California Penal Code, the same conduct that is now legal in New York will land the offender in jail and on Megan's Law in California!

If you or someone you know have been accused of a crime, arrested, or contacted by police, contact San Jose criminal defense attorney Maureen Baldwin at (408) 279-4450 to learn your options today!

When Officers Search Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant

Cell phones are appearing more and more often in court cases. Since almost everyone from great-grandma down to the kids have cell phones, this is not surprising. The current law in California is that a cell phone is to be treated like any other closed container in a search.

What does that mean? It's complicated.

Searches without a warrant most often happen at a time when someone is being detained or arrested. If an officer stops someone in his or her car for a possible DUI, for example, the vehicle is generally searched "incident to arrest". That means when you are arrested, the police can search the area immediately around you when they make the arrest. If you are driving that area is your vehicle.

Recent cases have treated cell phone searches the same as a search of a backpack or a glovebox in the car, or a purse. In fact, last year, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have required police to get a search warrant before going through a suspect’s cell phone at the time of arrest.

Officers go into the cell phone and often find a treasure trove of incriminating information in a person's texts. Texts that relate to drug sales, texts or photos with gang slogans, and texts telling your significant other that you are so angry that you will kill him/her are pretty obvious examples of items on cell phones that can get a DUI driver into a lot more trouble than the beers consumed at the bar.

Cell phones also appear often in domestic violence cases. An obvious example is texts or calls to a spouse's phone when that spouse has a restraining order against the arrestee. Often though, a cell phone can actually lead to a domestic dispute.

A boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife who suspects his or her partner is cheating may grab for the phone in an argument. The fight over trying to find out who the other person has been texting or friending can easily become physical where both are trying to grab or guard the phone. And when emotions are high, it’s more likely someone will call 911. Cell phones have landed LOTS of people in jail in the last 5 years!

If you or someone you know have been accused of a crime, arrested, or contacted by police, contact San Jose criminal defense attorney Maureen Baldwin at (408) 279-4450 to learn your options today!