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Public Urination, Hermosa Beach, Bench Warrant, Diversion
Our client had enjoyed an evening with friends in the Hermosa Beach Pier Plaza area. He had never been to Hermosa Beach and found it was like a dream come true.
This dream, however, happily it seemed to start, would end up being a nightmare, as he picked up not just one criminal case, but two.
Our client, age 24, and his friends went to Baja Sharkeez first and enjoyed a few beers there before heading over to Tower 12 to continue drinking. At some point towards the end of the evening, our client became separated from his friends and became concerned they had left the bar without him.
He consequently went out of the bar to look for his friends, as he knew they would be hailing an Uber to get home. He went to the area where Uber drivers typically picked up passengers near the Pier Plaza and did not see his friends. At about the same time, which was 1:45 a.m., he realized that he needed to urinate.
Our client then wandered southbound on Hermosa Avenue about two blocks the corner of Tenth Street and Hermosa Avenue, away from the Pier Plaza. Our client thought he was far enough away from the crowds around the bars and urinated near the doorway of a business on the corner.
A uniformed Hermosa Beach police officer observed our client and wrote him a ticket for violation of Penal Code § 372, “public nuisance,” and had our client sign a promise to appear in the Torrance Superior Court about three months later.
The officer then handed our client the ticket and walked away. Our client folded up the ticket in his pants pocket and continued looking for his friends.
His search led him onto the Strand and oddly, about 30 minutes after receiving his ticket for public urination, he decided to climb on top of a trash can to use it as a platform to step over a gate into an interior courtyard of one of the private homes on the Strand. A surveillance camera recorded our client walking around the interior of the well-lighted courtyard, where our client urinated once again. Somehow, he dropped his wallet out of his pocket while in the courtyard and before exiting over the same gate.
The client then called Uber and was driven home.
The next morning, he looked at his rumpled ticket and realized he could not read the date of the court appearance in the Torrance Court.
The client then called Greg Hill & Associates and told him he had been ticketed for public urination in Hermosa Beach, but remembered nothing of the incident, as he was blacked out due to excessive alcohol consumption.
He asked our office to find out when his court appearance was and retained our office, presumably for representing him on just a public urination ticket.
Our office called the Hermosa Beach Police Department to try to find out the date of the arraignment and no one there was able to assist us.
However, at or about the same time, our client received a letter from the Torrance Superior Court advising him that he had an arraignment date on a specific date. Our client had no idea that this letter concerned a vandalism case for damaging the gate of the private home and not his public urination case. The client then advised Greg Hill of the arraignment date and Greg Hill appeared in the Torrance Superior Court for the client on the specified date.
Greg was surprised to see that the case against our client was not for public urination at all, but for vandalism. However, since the client told Greg that he had no idea what really happened since he was blacked out from alcohol, Greg believed the vandalism case was the explanation for what happened.
However, the vandalism case was for a second crime our client committed, entirely separate and about a half hour after he had been cited for public urination.
When our office appeared for the restitution hearing on the vandalism case, the court clerk advised Greg that our client had a bench warrant for failing to appear at the arraignment for a public urination case, also out of Hermosa Beach. The bench warrant was for $30,000.
Greg then appeared on the public urination ticket in one courtroom in the Torrance Courthouse, getting the bench warrant recalled and the matter resolved for informal diversion. Greg also appeared in another courtroom in the Torrance Courthouse on the client’s vandalism case a few minutes later.
The public urination case was resolved on extremely gentle terms: 90 days of informal diversion and an obligation only that our client make a $350 “donation” to the Hermosa Beach Nuisance Abatement fund.
This dream, however, happily it seemed to start, would end up being a nightmare, as he picked up not just one criminal case, but two.
Our client, age 24, and his friends went to Baja Sharkeez first and enjoyed a few beers there before heading over to Tower 12 to continue drinking. At some point towards the end of the evening, our client became separated from his friends and became concerned they had left the bar without him.
He consequently went out of the bar to look for his friends, as he knew they would be hailing an Uber to get home. He went to the area where Uber drivers typically picked up passengers near the Pier Plaza and did not see his friends. At about the same time, which was 1:45 a.m., he realized that he needed to urinate.
Our client then wandered southbound on Hermosa Avenue about two blocks the corner of Tenth Street and Hermosa Avenue, away from the Pier Plaza. Our client thought he was far enough away from the crowds around the bars and urinated near the doorway of a business on the corner.
A uniformed Hermosa Beach police officer observed our client and wrote him a ticket for violation of Penal Code § 372, “public nuisance,” and had our client sign a promise to appear in the Torrance Superior Court about three months later.
The officer then handed our client the ticket and walked away. Our client folded up the ticket in his pants pocket and continued looking for his friends.
His search led him onto the Strand and oddly, about 30 minutes after receiving his ticket for public urination, he decided to climb on top of a trash can to use it as a platform to step over a gate into an interior courtyard of one of the private homes on the Strand. A surveillance camera recorded our client walking around the interior of the well-lighted courtyard, where our client urinated once again. Somehow, he dropped his wallet out of his pocket while in the courtyard and before exiting over the same gate.
The client then called Uber and was driven home.
The next morning, he looked at his rumpled ticket and realized he could not read the date of the court appearance in the Torrance Court.
The client then called Greg Hill & Associates and told him he had been ticketed for public urination in Hermosa Beach, but remembered nothing of the incident, as he was blacked out due to excessive alcohol consumption.
He asked our office to find out when his court appearance was and retained our office, presumably for representing him on just a public urination ticket.
Our office called the Hermosa Beach Police Department to try to find out the date of the arraignment and no one there was able to assist us.
However, at or about the same time, our client received a letter from the Torrance Superior Court advising him that he had an arraignment date on a specific date. Our client had no idea that this letter concerned a vandalism case for damaging the gate of the private home and not his public urination case. The client then advised Greg Hill of the arraignment date and Greg Hill appeared in the Torrance Superior Court for the client on the specified date.
Greg was surprised to see that the case against our client was not for public urination at all, but for vandalism. However, since the client told Greg that he had no idea what really happened since he was blacked out from alcohol, Greg believed the vandalism case was the explanation for what happened.
However, the vandalism case was for a second crime our client committed, entirely separate and about a half hour after he had been cited for public urination.
When our office appeared for the restitution hearing on the vandalism case, the court clerk advised Greg that our client had a bench warrant for failing to appear at the arraignment for a public urination case, also out of Hermosa Beach. The bench warrant was for $30,000.
Greg then appeared on the public urination ticket in one courtroom in the Torrance Courthouse, getting the bench warrant recalled and the matter resolved for informal diversion. Greg also appeared in another courtroom in the Torrance Courthouse on the client’s vandalism case a few minutes later.
The public urination case was resolved on extremely gentle terms: 90 days of informal diversion and an obligation only that our client make a $350 “donation” to the Hermosa Beach Nuisance Abatement fund.
Our client impression of the Pier Plaza area as a dream come true was sadly not true for him.
