About Michael Kennedy

Michael J. Kennedy: Constitutional Defense Attorney, located in Indio and Yucca Valley, but “Have Constitution-Will Travel”: Homicides, Assaults, Property Crimes, DUI’s/DWI’s, Misdemeanors and Felonies, Trials, Appeals, Writs

Finding, and then working with, the appropriate lawyer can be a daunting task, because, as you have discovered, there is a glut of attorneys out there, and as a law-abiding citizen, you are new to this field. But here’s the good news: that task is now over. You have come to the right place.

I am a recognized expert in all areas of criminal law, from the lowest grade infraction and misdemeanor, to the most serious felony. My successes and reputation are second to none in the geographical regions in which I practice and lecture.

One area that has especially attracted my attention over the years is drunk driving defense, DUI, DWI, etc. Unlike most criminal law matters, DUIs are a political crime. They are pressed by government largely in service to the political agenda of neo-prohibitionist groups like “Mothers Against Drunk Drivers,” who are largely working from the “Women’s Christian Temperance Union” playbook that resulted in the passage of the 18th Amendment, which gave us Prohibition. If one were to seek out a TV program that most aptly reflects the tone and harsh realities of the modern drunk driving philosophy and practice of our government, it would not be C.S.I, but instead Salem: the same public hysteria pseudo-science that characterized the 1692 Salem Witch Trials are what drive drunk driving prosecutions.

Politics drive DUI cases, making them the most difficult of all cases to defend, a challenge to which I have risen with unsurpassed success. Indeed, that is partially why the California DUI Lawyers Association bestowed their coveted “Eddie,” the “Lifetime Achievement Award,” on me in 2011-2012.

One can be effective in other criminal law matters without being effective in DUI defense, but one who is effective in DUI defense is axiomatically effective in all other criminal law matters. I am unsurpassedly effective in all areas.

I heard one idiot describing an honored colleague of mine as being “only a DUI attorney.” “Only”? If you can effectively defend a DUI, you can defend any case; the opposite is not necessarily true, because the public hysteria, junk science, and politics which visit drunk driving cases make them uniquely arduous.

I am, of course, a DUI lawyer, but I am also so very much more. And I am disgusted at how routinely some lawyers who pretend to practice criminal law plead out their clients to drunk driving charges without any thought at all. Most crimes, including drunk driving, are very defensible, and those attorneys too ready with a guilty plea form should go into Wills and Trusts, because criminal law defense is clearly not their forte.

Sadly, I am seeing more and more attorneys pleading their clients out to things that are fightable, if the attorney has fight and scholarship in him. Don’t be too quick to accept a plea “bargain,” because too often it is a bargain only for the slothful attorney, calendar-pressing judge, or overworked prosecutor who wants to clear out his/her files. Most cases are fightable, because merit infrequently visits the filing decision in DA’s offices. This is a war, so you can hire Chamberlain or Churchill, but your decision will affect you for the rest of your life.

If you have assaultive crime issues, homicide issues, drug offense issues, alcohol offense issues, child endangerment issues, property crime issues, sexual assault issues, or if you have the peculiar types of issues arising from the Festivals [Coachella Fest, Stagecoach, White Party, etc.], I should be your only choice for assistance. I do not put pressure on my clients to dispose of cases to make government happy; I put pressure on overweening government to back down from its oppression to make my clients safe..

I have over 40 years of legal practice, virtually all of which is in criminal and constitutional law.

As a former [retired] long-time deputy public defender, I have far more experience and scholarship than is necessary to obtain the misunderstood advertising gimmick of “criminal law specialist” that is too often bandied about, and I have handled every sort of criminal law matter, both in the trial courts and in the appeals courts. Indeed, the highest form of praise for an attorney, the thing that shows his true worth and credentials and merit, is if he is invited by his peers and professional training organizations to teach his fellow professionals. I have been invited by professional organizations and lawyer groups to teach their lawyer members at various continuing legal education venues throughout the country and the State of California for well-over two decades, far more than any other attorney in the Inland Empire, and my scholarly legal materials are effectively used by lawyers far and wide. There is no greater credit to a lawyer than that, and you can find no greater, nor more effective, counselor or defender for whatever criminal law matter might be besetting you or your loved ones than Michael J. Kennedy.