In most Bay Area counties, if you or your lawyer show up to court for your first DUI court date (arraignment), there are a number of things that can happen.  Usually a not guilty plea is entered and the lawyer fights the case.  However, sometimes the District Attorney’s office has not filed the charges by your arraignment date and there will eventually be a new Court date.  That is what happens in most Bay Area Counties.  The District Attorney or the Court will send you a letter with a new court date, or the Court itself might assign you a new arraignment date.

However, this is not what happens in San Francisco.  Until recently, if your case was not ready to be filed at your arraignment date, you would not get a courtesy notice.  Instead, once the DA filed the complaint post arraignment date, typically a $10,000.00 DA arrest warrant would issue and you would need to surrender to a police station to get the warrant recalled and your case started.  Once surrendering, you would need to post bail (10% of the $10,000.00) through a bail bondsman, or wait in jail for potentially days until they brought you to court.

Why San Francisco did not send out courtesy notices with new court dates is unknown and outrageous.  Currently in some cases that they are filing after the arraignment date, a letter will be sent from the police requesting you to call and come in to sign a new promise to appear in court.  But for many older cases with DUI arrest warrants, the misdemeanor unit at the DA’s office and the San Francisco Superior Court Clerk’s office are telling you to surrender to the police and either post bail or wait in jail until they take you to court.

The good news is if you are reading this blog post, you now have another way to avoid jail and bail.  If you have an older DUI Arrest Warrant in San Francisco, you should be able to do the following for a quick walk through booking and avoid the agony of bail and jail pre arraignment:  Go to the 4th floor at 850 Bryant Street and head down the North Hall and through the glass doors.  To the right side of the hall you will find the Central Warrants Bureau.  Go to window #4, where you will find officer Jeff Dong.  He is usually there Monday through Friday from 8-5.  In most of these cases Officer Dong can do a walk through booking and you will be out of the building in no time.  He will usually let you pick whatever Court date works best for you.

SAN FRANCISCO DUI LAWYER

According to CHP, San Francisco Bay Area DUI Arrests over the Thanksgiving Holiday totalled 227 this year.  In 2010, the number of Drunk Driving Arrests in the Bay Area over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend was 249.

The total number of DUI arrests in the State of California decreased this year for the same Thanksgiving Holiday four day period.  While 1,419 were arrested for DUI in California in 2010, the number was 1,350 in 2011.

The number of traffic related deaths in California almost doubled this year over the four day weekend, from 12 in 2010 to 21 in 2011.  It was not reported if any of these deaths were DUI related.

BAY AREA DUI LAWYER

CHP DUI enforcement in Oakland and San Francisco has recently increased on the Bay Bridge.  The newly installed “S-Curve,” or as I heard a radio host this morning refer to it as “Mess-Curve,” has resulted in an increase of CHP enforcement.  The new section of the San Francisco to Oakland connection is scheduled to be in place for the next four years.

To slow cars down, CHP has lowered the speed limit and increased the number of officers patrolling this section of the Bay Bridge.  The result has been a huge increase in tickets for Vehicle Code violations, including DUI arrests.

According to a CHP officer I spoke with recently at a San Francisco DMV hearing last week, although they are not supposed to comment on DUI arrests, he indicated that the number of San Francisco and Oakland Drunk Driving Arrests has increased since the placement of the extra CHP patrol cars.

Oakland DUI Lawyer

The San Francisco Bay Area DUI law office of Aaron Bortel is NOW available to handle all DUI and DWI in San Mateo, Sonoma, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties.

If you’ve been arrested in any of these bay area counties, top lawyer help is available, with a free case evaluation.

3 Tips for people arrested for a DUI in the Bay Area.

1. Remain calm during the stop.
2. Keep hands on the steering wheel as the officer approaches your car.
3. If asked to perform any type of roadside sobriety tests, politely refuse, as it is within your rights to refuse.
4. Contact the DUI lawyers at the Bortel Law Office as soon as possible.

San Francisco DUI Lawyer