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Marijuana Charge Criminal Record Clearing Under Prop 64

The legalization of recreational marijuana in California through Proposition 64 is great news but has created some confusion. While possession of marijuana is legal in most circumstances not been made completely legal, the full schedule of punishments under California law has been shifted to make some actions legal or merely infractions while others remain misdemeanors or felonies.

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The legislation, which was approved by voters in November 2016, made California the fifth state to legalize recreational marijuana. One underreported aspect is that it works retroactively. If you have a marijuana conviction on your criminal record, Prop 64 may allow you to get your record cleared. Here’s what you should know about clearing a marijuana charge under Prop 64. [Read more…]

Sentence Reduction and Clearing Your Criminal Record under Prop 47

California voters passed Proposition 47 in November 2014, to allow those convicted of certain types of low-level felonies California Penal Code to petition their original trial court to have their felony convictions reduced to misdemeanors. Under the provisions of Proposition 47, unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary, the court must grant the reduction.

There is one fact that you must keep in mind if you are considering filing for a Proposition 47 reduction: your petition must be filed with your original trial court by November 4, 2017. After that date the courts are barred from accepting new Proposition 47 petitions, although petitions filed before that date will still be heard at the court’s discretion. [Read more…]

LA County Sheriff’s Dept Taking Roadside Photos to Avoid Wrongful Arrests

Through this month, officials with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department have reported 120 cases of wrongfully arrested and jailed people. This is only four fewer than last year, despite the problem being identified and well publicized since a December 2011 investigation by the LA Times. Now, officials are going old-school, handing deputies point-and-click digital cameras to hopefully prevent some of the wrongful arrests. [Read more…]

License Plate Scanning Technology Used in California

Another California police jurisdiction (this time in Palm Desert) is employing automatic license plate scanners to search for cars and drivers with legal issues, expired licenses, outstanding warrants, and more. In the case of the article cited, the scanners located a stolen vehicle, but this same system also flags drivers with criminal warrants, expired drivers licenses, and more.

How do the License Plate Scanners Work?

  1. Video cameras are mounted on police cars that could be either parked by the road, or driving down the highway.
  2. The cameras are connected to computers in the police vehicles that use optical scanning and character recognition software to translate every video image of a license plate into scanned data.
  3. Every license plate number scanned is instantly matched with an on-board database of flagged license plates, that is either updated in real time, or downloaded daily. The data comes from the DMV, or other law enforcement databases that is matched with known stolen vehicles. The data is also matched to the owner of the vehicle. If the owner of the vehicle is known to have a suspended driver’s license, outstanding criminal warrant, or other issue, the police officer in the vehicle is instantly alerted, and instructed to pull over that vehicle.

The technology can potentially scan thousands of cars her hour.

Isn’t that a little Big Brother-ish?

It is, yes, many people think so. But these scanning and surveillance abilities have survived court challenges so far, so they are likely hear to stay. All you can do is be aware that these systems exist, and are only going to become more commonplace as the technology gets cheaper.

The bottom line is that if you have any outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court, or are driving with a license that is under suspension, you need to understand the huge risks you are taking. If you are arrested, you will very likely go to jail.

And many of these problems can be avoided with an experienced criminal defense lawyer to tackle these problems, clear your name, and maintain your freedom. Please contact us right away to find out how we can help you out of any criminal issue in California.