DUI Attorney in Lawndale

Reviewed by Ron Chini, Esq. · CA State Bar No. 263308 · DUI defense attorney in Irvine, CA since 2009.
About the author →

How DUIs are policed in Lawndale

Lawndale does not have its own police department. It is one of the Los Angeles County cities that contracts with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for police services. Patrol is handled by the Sheriff's South Los Angeles Station at 1310 W. Imperial Hwy., Los Angeles, CA 90044 (323-820-6700), which also runs a Lawndale sub-office at 15331 Prairie Avenue inside the city.

The 405 Freeway runs along Lawndale's western edge, and traffic stops on the freeway itself are typically handled by the California Highway Patrol's West Los Angeles Area office (6300 Bristol Pkwy, Culver City), which covers I-405, I-10, and I-105 through this part of the South Bay. A DUI stop on a Lawndale surface street and a DUI stop on the adjoining freeway on-ramp can involve two different agencies, but both types of cases are filed in the same place — the Torrance Courthouse.

• LA County Sheriff's Department, South Los Angeles Station — contract patrol for Lawndale's city streets (no separate Lawndale PD)
• California Highway Patrol, West Los Angeles Area office — primary jurisdiction over I-405 where it borders Lawndale
• Both agencies' Lawndale DUI arrests are filed and prosecuted at the Torrance Courthouse

Where a Lawndale DUI case is heard

Los Angeles County Superior Court assigns Lawndale to the Torrance Courthouse, along with Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Lomita, Manhattan Beach, and the Palos Verdes cities. Your arraignment, pretrial hearings, and (if it goes that far) trial will all take place there, and the case will be prosecuted by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Torrance branch office.

Booking and getting a car back after a Lawndale arrest

After a DUI arrest in Lawndale, you're typically processed at the Sheriff's South Los Angeles Station first. From there, Los Angeles County's standard countywide booking pattern applies: men are generally booked in at the Inmate Reception Center (IRC), 450 Bauchet St, Los Angeles, CA 90012, and women at the Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF), 11705 S. Alameda St, Lynwood, CA 90262. Where you or a family member actually ends up can shift depending on the night's custody count, so the fastest way to confirm it is the LASD inmate locator at (213) 473-6100. A vehicle impounded in Lawndale is normally released from the tow yard the arresting agency used — ask the South Los Angeles Station or the tow company named on your arrest paperwork.

Lawndale: a small, inland South Bay city — not a beach town

Lawndale is easy to lump in with its South Bay neighbors, but it isn't a coastal city. At just 1.97 square miles and about 31,807 residents (2020 Census, down slightly from 32,769 in 2010), it sits inland — bordered by Redondo Beach to the west and southwest, Hawthorne to the north, and Torrance to the southeast, with the unincorporated El Camino Village just east of it. It was incorporated on December 28, 1959, specifically so it wouldn't be annexed piece by piece into the larger cities around it.

Lawndale sits inside the South Bay's well-known aerospace and defense corridor — companies like Northrop Grumman and SpaceX have major facilities in neighboring Redondo Beach and Hawthorne — but Lawndale itself grew as a post-war residential, bedroom community rather than a manufacturing center; its Hawthorne Boulevard corridor went through a formal urban-renewal project in the early 2000s. El Camino College's main campus is about two miles south in Torrance, close enough that plenty of Lawndale residents and families end up there — but it isn't actually inside Lawndale's city limits.

← Back to Los Angeles County DUI Defense

Ron Chini, Esq.

DUI Defense Attorney · CA State Bar No. 263308

Ron defends DUI cases across Southern California from his Irvine office, in English and Farsi — and works directly with you, not a call center.

Learn more about Ron Chini →