When looking for a DUI Defense Attorney in Los Angeles County, you may hear statements like “I was a former prosecutor” or “I know how the District Attorney thinks because I was a DA.” What does that mean to you? Does it help you? Will you get a better defense from someone who has worked for the “other side”?
Just because someone worked in the DA’s office does not mean that they can do a good job representing you on your DUI case. If an attorney worked in the DA’s office, they were likely trained on many types of criminal matters. If they were trained on DUIs, it was likely a general overview and not a deep or substantial education. They mainly learn about legal charges, but not how to defend a case or the science behind a DUI.
Often, a DA’s experience with DUIs in minimal. When looking at the life cycle of a typical Los Angeles DA, they start doing a training class where they learn where to sit in the courtroom, how to fill out forms, and what to expect in their first jury trial. After training, they move into a “misdemeanor rotation”. They spend a few months in a courthouse, learning as they go, working on misdemeanor cases like suspended licenses, being drunk in public, DUIs, and domestic violence cases. Then, they switch to another misdemeanor courtroom and spend a few more months on misdemeanor cases, and then switch again in order to learn how different courts and courtrooms work.
In a typical DA’s life cycle, after they do a misdemeanor rotation for a year, they move to a “juvenile rotation” for a year. They spend a year working on Juvenile matters in the Juvenile courts, which are not like normal Superior Court cases. The Juvenile system has its own rules and regulations. They don’t handle many DUIs, and the ones that they do handle are not prosecuted or defended the way that they would be in Superior Court.
After a year in the Juvenile system, DA’s typically move on to felonies. Felonies are considered the most serious cases in the justice system. Felonies can be rape, robbery, homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, etc. However, most felonies are not DUIs. So, a Los Angeles DA could spend years putting people in jail and rarely see a DUI case.
This life cycle leaves our typical DA with little experience in DUI cases and no extensive formal training in that area.
Former DAs know how the DA’s office thinks. Yes, they think like prosecutors. They want to get convictions and punish people. You don’t need to work in the DA’s office to know what their goal is and how they are going to go about prosecuting cases. If you want to know how a DA prosecutes a DUI, you can do three simple things: first, get the DA’s handbook (which you can buy on-line); second, try cases to a jury verdict; and third, talk to the DAs.
If an attorney was a “Former DA” you should ask yourself the question, “Why?” Why are they “former” DAs? Did they wash out? Get over-looked for promotion? Or, are they just looking to make more money, and they think they can do it in private practice? If they are doing it for the money alone,they don’t care what the end result is; they just want to get paid.
Former DAs may brag about a success rate. What does this mean? When they were a DA, they got a lot of people to plead guilty? What is their success rate as a Defense Attorney? What types of cases are they winning?
One of the biggest concerns with a DUI case is the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the DMV. What is going to happen to a driver’s license and fighting to protect that right at the DMV is something with which the DA has no experience. The DMV case is not connected to the court case, and the DA does not get any special training on how to properly defend a DMV administrative hearing.
Having worked as a prosecutor in the past and now working as a defense attorney does not make someone a better DUI attorney.
You may hear an attorney say, “I worked at the DA’s office, and I am friends with all the DAs.” Is this going to be helpful to your case? The fact that an attorney worked side by side with someone and now they are fighting them does not mean that the client will get a good deal. Former DAs seldom ruffle feathers with their old friends. But sometimes defending a DUI case requires a defense attorney to wage war.
Is a former DA going to get “favors” from old buddies? Are DAs going to risk their jobs? If you want a good deal in a case, you need to be able to explain why and be ready to back it up. If a former DA has a long-term relationship with other DAs, who is their loyalty going to be with? Your attorney needs to be loyal to you, not old friends.
It is great to be a nice person and to have a good working relationship with the DA’s office, but that is not enough. Most of the time when an attorney comes out of the DA’s office, they have very little experience with DUIs. It takes years of hard work to fully understand all aspects of a DUI case.
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