Do you feel like your legal problem requires a traffic lawyer? Many people feel that way when they start their internet search for the best attorney near them that they can find.

Be aware that what the legal profession may consider a traffic legal issue may not be what your case calls for. Semantics and what that area of study encompasses means that we all have different meanings for our words. The term traffic in our office means anything that has to do with a roadway OR a motor vehicle. If you are arrested for riding a horse on a public roadway while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, that is a traffic matter for our purposes. Let’s look at a few other examples that may not be as obvious as you think.

California Vehicle Code Section 22511.5 is the law concerning who may park a motor vehicle in a parking space designated for disabled persons or disabled veterans. This is a traffic matter to us because it involves the use of a motor vehicle. Whether you are actually operating the motor vehicle at the time you are cited or not is not the important part to the law. The relevant part of the law that you may have to be concerned about if you are misusing a handicap placard is California Vehicle Code 4461 which says in part, “(c) Except for the purpose of transporting a disabled person as specified in subdivision (b), a person shall not display a disabled person placard that was not issued to him or her or that has been canceled or revoked.” As you can see, just the displaying the placard is a problem if it is not being used for a purpose designated by the law.

We have seen many people recently attending the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals who thought they would be clever and grab themselves a convenient parking space by grabbing mom’s or grandpa’s handicap placard and using it at the musical festival special parking area for handicap attendees. This is a bad idea because DMV sets up special license plate readers at entrances to these parking lots that will scan the license plate of each entering vehicle to see if those four 20-something dudes in the jeep could be mom or grandpa. The cops know they aren’t them and they will be issued a traffic citation which is a potential misdemeanor in the court system. We are experienced and skilled at getting our clients out of these types of traffic problems so that they may avoid a misdemeanor conviction on their otherwise clean record and avoid probation and a possible jail sentence.

Another increasingly popular traffic law violation for cops in California is NOISE! California Vehicle Code Section 27150(a) states that “Every motor vehicle subject to registration shall at all times be equipped with an adequate muffler in constant operation and properly maintained to prevent any excessive or unusual noise, and no muffler or exhaust system shall be equipped with a cutout, bypass, or similar device.” The sections that follow 27150 tell you that you can’t modify your exhaust system to make it louder, how loud too loud is and how far a cop should be to tell you that you are too loud. We are seeing more of these noise enforcement efforts going into effect here in the Coachella Valley by the local police agencies, the sheriff’s department and by CHP. What we call a pretext traffic stop in the law is when the cops use one fairly simple stop of you and your vehicle on the road to actually intend on checking your sobriety (lack thereof) or to see what you may be transporting. The courts allow a cop to use one reason for a stop to justify their actual more devious purpose. So your simple traffic stop may become your serious legal problem if you are hiding some behavior or activity that you don’t want the cops to discover.

If any of these above traffic problems, or any others not specifically mentioned here, could be a concern for you and your activity on a roadway or in or on a vehicle of any type, give our office a call at 760-345-4777 or 760-898-0205 (text also) anytime, day or night, 7 days a week. We will handle your traffic case for you!

Call us now at 760-345-4777 or text us at 760-898-0205 for your FREE initial consultation.

Our expert Palm Desert Traffic attorney will personally assess the value and merits of your important case with you so that together, we can decide the best plan of action for you to receive the highest recovery possible for you in your case.

One may ask, “exactly what is elder abuse?”. and that would be a good question. It is such a wide encompassing concept that there are many different forms of it and many different consequences for those who may victimize elders in one way or another.

In Riverside County, the District Attorney’s office has a page on their website dedicated to their Elder Abuse Unit.

And fortunately for the people in the Coachella Valley, and Riverside County as a whole, who may be arrested and prosecuted for Elder Abuse, the District Attorney’s office does not seem to have a very good understanding of what the laws are that apply to someone who may commit a crime that is generally called Elder Abuse.

Specifically, the District Attorney’s office website defines elder abuse as

“the mistreatment of an elderly person by someone known to the senior”.

Nowhere in the California Penal Code or in the Welfare and Institutions Code where the majority of the laws are contained pertaining specifically to elder abuse does it say that someone who is “known” to the alleged victim is the only one who can abuse an elder. In fact, it is common for people who commit some financial scam against a senior citizen and who have never met that victim to be prosecuted for abusing an elder as well as a theft offense. Or, a total stranger may assault a an elder person and they would not only be arrested and prosecuted for the assault but also prosecuted for a crime against an elder person.

The laws pertaining to the abuse of an elder are the same in Coachella Valley as they are in the rest of the State of California. Both the Penal Code (section 368) and the Welfare and Institutions Code (section 15610.27) define an elder person as someone who is 65 years of age or older. These codes include financial abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect as possible types of abuse that are outlawed if committed against someone 65 years or older.

It should be noted that persons as well as business entities can be perpetrators of elder abuse. Many times nursing or care homes run by a corporation or other business entity can abuse an elder person by neglect or theft or physical abuse. This is especially true in the Coachella Valley where there are so many elderly people and so many nursing and care homes.

We as criminal defense attorneys representing people who have been accused of an elder abuse crime here in the Coachella Valley often encounter situations where our clients who are employed by a corporation as caregivers or healthcare workers are often caught in a trap where they have been ordered by their employers to commit acts for which the employers alone should be held responsible.

It is important for anyone accused of an elder abuse crime to consult with an experienced criminal defense attorney as soon as possible to explore whether they may or may not be subject to this type of offense.

The possible criminal penalties for the commission of an elder abuse crime can range from custody time in the county jail, a fine and probation for a misdemeanor offense to state prison with special penalty enhancements that could add several years on to a prison sentence if the victim was considered an elder. In fact, if a victim is 70 years or older for some offenses, the number of years given to serve in state prison is even greater than if the victim is under the age of 70 years, but still 65 years or older.

You can also be sued for money damages if you are found to have committed elder abuse in one form or another.

Lastly, it should be noted that most of the laws that are meant to protect victims of abuse who are elderly, also apply to “dependent adults”.

Persons who are no longer “minor children” (under the age of 18 years) under the law, and who may have a developmental disability and have mental and verbal limitations that can leave them vulnerable to abuse.

If you become someone accused of an elder abuse offense, you should call us at 760-345-4777 or text us (760-898-0207) for a free consultation to discuss what your legal rights are and possible defenses in your case.

Call us now at 760-345-4777 or text us at 760-898-0205 for your FREE initial consultation.

Our expert Palm Desert criminal defense attorney will personally assess the value and merits of your important case with you so that together, we can decide the best plan of action for you to receive the highest recovery possible for you in your case.