Torrance & Metropolitan Courts, Expunge 2 Overlapping DUI’s
Our client had bad luck back in 2010. He was first arrested for DUI along the Harbor Freeway and faced a case in the Metropolitan Courthouse (1845 South Hill Street).
Two months later, he was driving in Torrance and got pulled over and arrested for DUI again.
In both cases, he used the services of a public defender and not Greg Hill & Associates.
He resolved the cases in the sequence in which the arrests took place. In other words, he resolved the Metro case first and the Torrance case second. He successfully completed probation in both cases, got hired by a book publisher and had a son. His life was moving forward, away from the two convictions. He felt optimistic about his future, although he struggled to financially support his son and his mother.
In a Nutshell: Client had two convictions for DUI from one year. It was important to expunge each for his employment potential because he worked in an industry, hardcover book publishing, that was being decimated by online book publishers such as Nook and Kindle. We expunged each conviction, the latter first and then the former.
In late 2013, online book publishing started to erode the market share of traditional softcover and hardcover books. The “Nook” e-book reader was marketed, as was the Kindle. Our client’s employer then was forced to downsize and with that, our client was forced to consider a change of employment.
He was a highly valued, skilled member of the company, but he could sense that things were not going to get better and most likely, would probably only worsen.
The client then called Greg Hill & Associates to see if he could have both convictions expunged to help his job search. He knew, furthermore that the fact that there were two separate cases and one could affect the other, although he really did not have a clear idea of how.
He thought he should talk to an attorney, so he spoke with Greg Hill. Greg listened to the client explain his underlying two cases, his need to look for a new job and the fact that he did not want the expungement of one case to be affected by another case.
Torrance CourthouseGreg explained how it was important to seek expungement of the Torrance case first so that when the Metropolitan Courthouse judge reviewed the client’s criminal history, he did not see any convictions suffered after the Metropolitan conviction was suffered, as this might show a violation of probation, even though the court did grant termination of probation in the Metropolitan case and did not find a probation violation.
Greg therefore filed the petition for dismissal in the Torrance court first and the judge in Torrance granted the petition. Therefore, under Penal Code § 1203.4, it was considered dismissed for all purposes. This meant that the Torrance conviction could not be considered a conviction for purposes of a probation violation in the Metro case.
Greg next filed the petition for dismissal in the Metropolitan courthouse. The court there set a hearing, which was usual for the Metro courthouse, but carried with it the possibility that the judge might consider the Torrance case.
At the hearing on the petition for dismissal in the Metro courthouse, the Los Angeles City Attorney did a background check of our client and discovered the Torrance conviction. He also saw that the conviction had been expunged.
He told Greg that he looked into this and discussed it with his supervisor. He was puzzled by this and did not know if he could object to expungement. His supervisor told him that Greg had navigated the potential problem properly to avoid the problem.
The judge at the Metropolitan Courthouse had no idea that there was any issue, although he looked at the client’s criminal history closely. He then signed the order of dismissal.
The client was happy he had chosen Greg Hill & Associates to make sure both convictions were properly handled.
For more information about expungement and modification of probation , please click on the following articles:
- Early Termination of Probation – What Does a Judge Consider?
- Is Expungement Worth It?
- Trial Court That Denied Expungement Because Petitioner Given a Five Year Joint Suspended Sentence Is Reversed on Appeal
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