The short answer is yes — adults over 21 who are not on DUI probation can refuse field sobriety tests at a California DUI stop without committing a crime and without triggering an automatic license suspension. The longer answer matters more, because California law treats three different categories of DUI testing under three different rule…
Being accused of embezzlement is its own kind of crisis, because it usually does not start with the police — it starts at work. An employer, a business partner, or a family member who trusted you with money confronts you, and what happens in the days after that confrontation, before anything is ever filed, often…
A theft charge in Southwest Riverside County can carry far more exposure than the underlying offense suggests. California law provides multiple categories of sentence enhancements — based on property value, weapons, injury, prior convictions, and the Three Strikes framework — that can transform a misdemeanor petty theft into felony exposure, and a felony grand theft…
Theft and burglary cases in Riverside County are won and lost on witness testimony. Most theft cases involve no physical evidence connecting the defendant to the offense beyond what a person — an alleged victim, an eyewitness, an investigating officer, or sometimes a co-defendant — says happened. Where the testimony is strong and the cross-examination…
In California, the line between petty theft and grand theft is not just a difference in degree — it is a difference in kind. Petty theft is a misdemeanor in most circumstances and carries up to six months in county jail. Grand theft is a wobbler that can be charged as a felony, with state…
Grand theft under California Penal Code § 487 is what California criminal law calls a “wobbler” — an offense that can be charged or sentenced as either a felony or a misdemeanor depending on the facts, the defendant’s record, and the prosecutor’s exercise of discretion. The wobbler status matters because the difference between a misdemeanor…
Burglary and robbery are frequently treated as interchangeable in everyday conversation, but California law treats them as categorically different offenses — with different elements, different penalty structures, and different sentencing consequences. The single most important difference is rarely discussed in published summaries: all robbery is a strike under California’s Three Strikes law, and first-degree burglary…
California Penal Code § 211 makes robbery one of the most serious felony charges in California law. Robbery is never a misdemeanor and never a wobbler. It is always filed as a felony, and it is always classified as both a serious felony under PC § 1192.7(c)(19) and a violent felony under PC § 667.5(c)(9)….
According to a recent article from Valley News, a man was arrested outside of a Lake Elsinore Lowe’s Home Improvement store after authorities say that he tried to cash a stolen check. The police were notified that the man had entered the store, attempted to cash the check, and then left the location, the article…
Recently, CBS News published an article on their website about a California man who had a $10,000 watch stolen from him. For a year afterwards, he regularly looked through eBay and other sites in the hopes of spotting it. On the day he found it, he notified police, who wound up making an arrest after…
An accusation of credit card fraud from inside your own family is one of the hardest situations to bring into a defense office — the stakes are criminal, but the person on the other side of the case is your mother, your spouse, or your brother. If a relative says you used their card, opened…
Under California law, burglary can encompass many different crimes. In order to be charged with burglary, law enforcement officials need to suspect that you went into a room or building (or broke into a locked car) with the intention of committing either theft or any felony. Law enforcement officials don’t even have to prove that…
If you or a loved one is facing criminal charges in Southwest Riverside County, time is critical. Contact the Law Office of Nic Cocis today for a free, no-obligation case evaluation.
