Myles L. Berman Guest Appearance KLOS Heidi & Frank 5-21-2014

Transcript:
Host: Myles L. Berman, the Top Gun DUI defense attorney is going to be joining us in 30 seconds and taking your calls. What questions do you have? He has all the answers, he is Myles L. Berman, next for Heidi & Frank. (advertisement plays). Heidi & Frank show. We wish you all a safe Memorial Day weekend and some of those other big drinking holidays. People drinking out, lots of 500, drinking all these beers. So yeah be safe and I always tell you put our number in your phone so you can reach it with our initials at 8:00 and you wouldn’t have to dial all the numbers in your phone too. 1-888 4 TOP GUN. Alright, topgundui.com is the website, Myles L. Berman is the Top Gun DUI Defense attorney. There he is, hey Myles. This guy doesn’t age. We’ve known him what? 14 years; looks exactly the same. Good to see you man.

What I appreciate about Myles is he finally got on to Twitter. @myleslberman on Twitter and you post where the checkpoints are going to be. That’s like what? Thursday, Friday, Saturday news?

Myles Berman: Yeah. Friday in the afternoon sometime between 3:00 and 6:00. Only known checkpoints. I don’t post checkpoints where its citywide or area wide, just with specific addresses so people could be aware of where the checkpoints are and also I’m sure that businesses aren’t too thrilled that checkpoints are posted at a city or a location or a particular part of town. So I just choose to think it’s best to post it specifically.

Host: Do they set up checkpoints near bars or is it where you wouldn’t expect it? Where are the most checkpoints set up? I’ve only seen a few in my life.

Myles Berman: Did you ever drive through one?

Host: I never have, no I never have. I always do U-turns. I did a back turn once with a margarita hanging out the window

Myles: You know it’s funny you mentioned that because they are supposed to have an escape route but then they also target the escape routes because it’s very difficult to drive without violating some portion of the vehicle code. But, in answer to your question, Heidi and you look as fantastic as always

Host: Thank you.

Myles: Frank, you look okay too.

Host: I know. I’m not getting any better.

Myles: You got a real short haircut not too long ago, last time I was here on this show. It’s still short but it’s growing out.

Host: I’m certainly grown up and I’m distinguished and it’s like I’m getting Myles’ hair.

Myles: You always look distinguished Frank, even when you raise your arms and your tattoos are showing.

Host: There are holes in the armpits of your tee shirts. Are there holes in the armpits of my tee shirts?

Myles: So checkpoints that are being posted are often posted where there is a large amount of traffic. So we can talk about West Hollywood, for example, where sometimes they are posted right in front of my office. Now I don’t take that personally. I don’t know if that’s directed towards me or the message or anything but.

Host: He’s like. Alright, pull it, pull it.

Myles: I actually drove through it once after I was on air here and I’d forgotten that I’d even posted that there was a checkpoint outside my office

Host: Then you forgot that you’d took that shot of Jack Daniels. I’m kidding, I’m totally kidding.

Myles: I’m sorry, it wasn’t Jack Daniels.

Host: If they are where the most traffic is going to be, aren’t they making more traffic because they are slowing it down. I mean is it random like, say, the TSA where there is no profiling. Every 4^th car, every odd number of every blue vehicle, I mean do they have something to go by?

Myles: Yes, there is supposed to be some type of number. They are supposed to stop every fourth car or every fifth car. Sometimes a little bit later in the night when business would be more slow they might start stopping more than say every fourth car.

Host: let’s say that I have a glass of wine. A glass? That’s hilarious. Let’s say I did, in fact, I met a friend and went had a glass of wine and then I spend an hour with her and then I’ve got to drive home and I end up at a checkpoint, do I just admit that I had a glass of wine at dinner or do I just? I mean I don’t know what the right thing to do is if I go through the checkpoint. Ma’am have you had anything to drink tonight? I’m completely sober, let’s say because I had a glass of wine with dinner. Will I admit that?

Myles: Here is what I tell people because you have to know what your rights are. For example, when you are stopped, actually all you need to do is identify yourself. Give them your driver’s license, your vehicle registration and proof of insurance. Beyond that, you are really not obligated to tell the police officer where you are coming from, where you are going to, how much you’ve had to drink.

Host: So I can literally sit there and give them all the information and he is like, ma’am where are you headed to tonight? I can say I don’t have to tell you that.

Myles: You know, at the point they start asking you; everybody has been stopped for a speeding ticket or a moving violation and by the way, sometimes police officers do get close to the window. It’s not because they can’t hear you, it’s because they want to smell, whether or not they smell either alcohol or marijuana

Host: Yeah Frank.

Myles: Which brings me to another issue that you asked, if I remember or I want to, but we are seeing a huge spike in DUI marijuana cases and that’s in large part because of what’s going on California with

Host: is it based on smell alone? That they can smell marijuana coming out of your car so they assume you smoked it because what if I just went to get my prescription filled and I’ve got some real sticky in my prescription bottle and I just opened it up to get a sniff, whoa that’s really good stuff and I shut it up but my car smells like weed. Will they pull me out and give me a field sobriety test?

Myles: If you add the fact on it that you had a bag of Cheetos and you were eating it while driving and you say to the officer, would you like some? That may be another symptom of.

Host: Sitting at a stop sign for 20 minutes. Waiting for the stop sign to become green.

Myles: actually you bring up another point there. There may be other things that the officer observes in not smelling alcohol which may trigger his mind towards either marijuana or other types of drugs, prescription or otherwise.

Host: But there is no Breathalyzer for marijuana.

Myles: They are starting to come out with some degree of testing for marijuana. It’s in the infancy stage, so to speak but the thing of it is that because of what’s going on in California, a lot of people think that since they have a medical marijuana card, they are almost immune from arrest and that’s just not the case.

Host: But even if you have a medical marijuana card, you still can’t drive on that stuff. There are prescription drugs of many kinds that say don’t handle heavy machinery. That’s a car. If you are taking anti-depressants or painkillers or. I was thinking forklift. When they say heavy machinery, I thought what are the chances of my driving a forklift?

Myles: Which brings me to golfers who are driving in a golf cart on a golf course and they get arrested for DUI.

Host: Riding a horse?

Myles: that’s a little bit of a stretch, maybe in California. In some parts of Pennsylvania, it may be a problem

Host: there are going to be Amish people getting stoned.

Myles: I didn’t say that.

Host: No, I did and nobody cares what I say. We are going to take a quick break and come back. We are going to have more Myles L. Berman. We are taking your calls if you have any questions about DUI laws or if your boyfriend is in trouble the morning after drinking and they are looking for advice. So we’ll take those calls, all of your calls next with Myles L. Berman. We are Heidi & Frank. Well, if you want to take a little bit of hassle from your life, I’ll tell you how you can do that. Valvoline instant oil change. I love this place. They make it so easy. You drive up, you drive in and then you drive out with a complete oil change in about 20 minutes or less. It’s quick and convenient maintenance services for busy people like you. It’s a drive through oil change. You had to put your beer down. I’m just saying that because Myles is here.

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When you drink, drink responsibly, don’t drive but if something happens we have Top Gun DUI Defense attorney Myles L. Berman always on our side and your side as well. His number, if you need it, put it in your phone, 888-4 TOP GUN, topgundui.com. Myles is sitting here with us and he is ready to take your call. If you have any questions about what is going on with your DUI case or about DUI penalties, give us a call. 1-800-955-KLOS. Let’s go to Mindy on Line one. Hello Mindy.

Mindy: Hi. Good morning.

Host: Say Hello to Myles.

Mindy: Hi Myles. Good morning.

Myles: Good Morning Mindy. How are you?

Mindy: I am doing okay. How about yourself?

Myles: Fine, thank you.

Host: So what’s the deal that you are having to deal with right now?

Mindy: Oh wow. Well, I was having a little bit of a get together a few weeks ago at my house and we were all drinking, having a good time and nobody drove that night. Me and my boyfriend, we had a little bit too much and we fell asleep. He is a PhD student working on his degree in cognitive neuroscience. He woke up around 6:00 in the morning and headed over to the university. On his way to the university, he got into a pretty bad car accident and this car accident caused pretty bad injuries. He was laid up in a hospital ICU for about 2 weeks, the other guy, he had a broken jaw. Somebody had blown a red light and caused the accident. When they took him to the hospital, they took his blood and his blood still showed alcohol. So now he is being charged with a DUI with great bodily injury.

Host: That sounds like a pretty big deal Myles.

Myles: Yes, he is going to go to state prison and with a great bodily injury, it’s actually a strike.

Host: So the next day, he probably didn’t think he was drunk.

Myles: We don’t know what the alcohol level is but at the same time, I’ve seen them prosecute as low as a 0.03. The law is 0.08 and they go as low as 0.03 and if you think about what’s logical, they also prosecute people who refuse. They don’t even have an alcohol level so they go on symptoms but I think it’s very important that either you or he calls the office at 1-888-4 TOP GUN as soon as possible because there are a lot of things that need to be done and need to be done right away. But it is a serious case.

Host: So you said you can go to state prison because of bodily injury?

Myles: Correct

Host: Even if it wasn’t his fault. They say he didn’t blow the red light. The other guy did.

Myles: He is at risk right now, he is already being charged. So whether they convict, that’s a different story but the fact is I assume he is out on bail, a $100,000 bail?

Mindy: No. the curious thing and the most odd thing about it is they never even arrested him. When he was at the hospital, everything kind of went down where we were assuming that maybe you were a little bit hung over and there is still a little bit of alcohol in your system.

Myles: Did they take his license from him as well?

Mindy: Yes, they revoked the license but there has been no police activity, no police came to the hospital

Myles: Well, I’m not so sure about that. I’m sure the police were there and they brought their own vial to get a blood draw. He was arrested but just not taken into custody. So there is going to have to be bail set and it’s really important that you get a hold of us right away.

Host: Do that Mindy.

Mindy: Does it make a difference though that he wasn’t coming out of a bar and got into a car. I mean, he did the responsible thing initially by falling asleep and not getting in the car

Host: No. It sounds great because if somebody falls asleep in their car. This is the case where the guy goes out into the parking lot and knows that he has had too much to drink and tries to sleep it off in his driver’s seat and then a cop shows up and knocks on the window and says well you are in a position to drive. We don’t know if you have been sleeping here all night so we are going to give you a DUI anyway. He is like I was trying to do the responsible thing and it doesn’t matter.

Myles: Please. What are they… They are in a position where they see somebody who they feel may be a danger if the person drives. At the same time, the person is there and they feel that the person is impaired. In similar situations, with Mindy’s boyfriend, there was a serious injury, it sounds like and there was somebody drinking and somebody driving. So oftentimes even though you may not be guilty of felony DUI in the accident because somebody else caused the accident, it’s still the onus gets shifted to the person who has alcohol and so it has to be dealt with and it has to be dealt with immediately.

Host: Mindy, call Myles, call Myles at the office. Let’s see. Let’s go to, Amber on line 8 has a question about opting for a breath test or a Breathalyzer. Hello Amber!

Amber: Hello Heidi. Hi

Myles: Hello Amber.

Host: What’s your question? We’re good, we’re all good.

Amber: I called today because I am actually what they consider a blood nurse so I’m

Host: What’s a blood nurse because she just cut out? A Phlebotomist? Sorry Amber, your phone cut out at the very last minute. Damn it. Marty, if I know I didn’t do something wrong, best defense when pulled over. Whatever that means, Marty on Line 7, you know you did nothing wrong, best defense when you are pulled over.

Marty: Yes.

Myles: Hello Marty, how are you?

Marty: How are you doing Myles?

Myles: Fine. Thank you. I assume that when you say you did nothing wrong, we are talking alcohol and you had something to drink. Am I right?

Marty: I had nothing to drink. I was coming out of a club and I guess the cops were waiting right outside the club. They pulled me over and said I was swerving which I know I wasn’t and said how many drinks have you had and I kind of went A okay and he says 3 and I go no. Zero.

Myles: Talk about biased police officers.

Marty: Then he asked me if I’d done any drugs and I go no and his last comment was, learn how to drive a little better. I said I had been driving since I was 17 and I don’t have any tickets or accidents so I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. So the question is I did nothing wrong but he tried to make me feel like I was swerving and obviously he was pulling me over trying to find a reason but he had no reason. What happens on that?

Myles: You thank your lucky stars and you go on your way. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in but at the same time, the police they are there to try and to protect everybody and trying to get people who they think are dangerous off the road. So it’s a balancing act but at the same time, being arrested for a DUI or a DUI investigation or a police officer is looking for DUI is one thing but being convicted, that’s something else. There are all kinds of defenses to many DUI cases, blood, breath, refusal, even drug cases as well. So it’s important because the penalties are so severe even for a first time DUI

Host: There is a story in the news today about a 26 year old guy, Stephen Andrews. He was pulled over for a suspected drunk driving earlier this year and he realized that if he took a Breathalyzer test, he’d wind up with a DUI. So his plan to avoid the Breathalyzer was to beat himself up. He started to repeatedly punch himself in the face, he head butted doors, he ran head first into a wall and believe it or not, it worked. He messed himself up so much, the cops couldn’t give him a test so they didn’t have any hard evidence that he was driving drunk. He was in court this week and basically got the maximum sentence possible without that evidence and his license was suspended for 3 years but he doesn’t have a drunk driving conviction on his record now. Have you ever heard of something like that?

Myles: No. I wonder how the ref scored the fight.

Host: I don’t understand. I don’t understand.

Myles: you know what/ as you are telling me all of this, I don’t know why there wasn’t a blood draw in the case. They took the guy to the hospital.

Host: well maybe this happened in England where they don’t have a blood draw. I mean in England, the cops don’t even carry guns. Stop or I’ll, I don’t know. Stop again.

Myles: yeah, I wouldn’t advocate people start beating themselves up.

Host: I saw that, I knew I had to get a word from Myles on that. Myles L. Berman, he is the Top Gun DUI Defense attorney and put his number in your phone and hopefully, you’ll never have to call him but if you have to 888-4-TOP GUN. Topgundui.com and follow him @myleslberman because he always posts the checkpoints and stuff. If you have any questions, call his office and see if you need his services. Thank you Myles, it’s always a pleasure having you in.

Myles: always a pleasure being here and seeing both you Heidi & Frank. It’s wonderful and you guys are doing great and I listen to you all the time and your ratings are going up and I’m very happy to be a sponsor

Host: I from the beginning.

Myles: from the beginning. This sushi restaurant in the Valley.