DUI Attorney in La Habra

Reviewed by Ron Chini, Esq. · CA State Bar No. 263308 · DUI defense attorney in Irvine, CA since 2009.
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La Habra runs its own police department, keeps its own city jail, and — unlike every other city on the North Justice Center docket — has no freeway running through it at all. If you were arrested for DUI anywhere in La Habra, on Whittier Boulevard, Imperial Highway, or Beach Boulevard, Ron Chini defends the case from his Irvine office. Here is exactly where your case goes, who booked you, and what makes La Habra's enforcement picture different from Anaheim, Fullerton, Buena Park, and Yorba Linda.

Where a La Habra DUI case is heard

A DUI arrest made anywhere in La Habra is filed at the Superior Court's North Justice Center in Fullerton. The court's own location page lists La Habra among the eight cities that building serves — the others are Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Palma, Placentia, and Yorba Linda. The Orange County District Attorney's Office, not a La Habra city attorney, decides what to charge and prosecutes the case. The one exception is a charge that rises to a felony: the court's own page says the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana hears felony matters for all Orange County cities, so check your arraignment paperwork for the specific courthouse before you plan your day.

La Habra's own police department — and no freeway running through the city

La Habra is not one of the Orange County cities that contracts its police services to the Orange County Sheriff's Department — like Anaheim, Fullerton, and Buena Park, it runs its own full-service department, headquartered at 150 North Euclid Street. That headquarters also houses La Habra PD's own Type I jail, which has booked arrestees since the 1950s: the facility processes roughly 120 people a month, holds them for up to 96 hours after booking, and is built around sobering cells, a padded safety cell, separated male and female sections, and two intake/booking rooms. A DUI arrest made inside city limits is typically a La Habra PD case from the first stop through booking.

Geography is where La Habra really stands apart from its North Justice Center neighbors. Anaheim has I-5, SR-57, and SR-91 running through it; Fullerton sits on the 91/57 corridor; Buena Park straddles I-5 and the 91; Yorba Linda borders SR-91. No freeway runs through La Habra at all. The city is served instead by three state highways — SR-39 (Beach and Whittier Boulevards), SR-90 (Imperial Highway), and SR-72 (Whittier Boulevard) — none of which carry freeway-grade traffic within city limits. La Habra also sits squarely on the Orange/Los Angeles county line: La Habra Heights and the Whittier/La Mirada/East Whittier area (Los Angeles County) border it to the north and west, while Brea and Fullerton (Orange County) border it to the east and south.

• La Habra PD's Traffic Unit runs grant-funded DUI/driver's-license checkpoints — a documented August 20, 2019 checkpoint alone screened 944 vehicles and produced 6 DUI arrests plus 8 citations for unlicensed or suspended driving, funded through a California Office of Traffic Safety grant passed through NHTSA. Confirm the department's current checkpoint calendar before relying on timing.
• Because no freeway runs through the city, the large majority of La Habra DUI stops are made by La Habra PD on city streets (Whittier Boulevard, Imperial Highway, Beach Boulevard) rather than by the California Highway Patrol.
• CHP generally holds concurrent jurisdiction over state highways such as SR-39, SR-90, and SR-72, but CHP's own Santa Ana Area Office page lists its patrolled routes as I-5, I-405, SR-55, SR-22, and SR-91 — it does not name any La Habra route. Confirm the arresting agency named on your citation rather than assuming which department handled your stop.

Rancho La Habra, Nixon's first law office, and an avocado legacy next door

La Habra's name comes from Rancho Cañada de La Habra, a 6,698-acre Mexican land grant given to Mariano Reyes Roldan in 1839 — "la habra" refers to the "pass through the hills," the natural gap through the surrounding hills first noted by Spanish explorers in 1769. Abel Stearns purchased the rancho in the 1860s, and settlers who followed in the 1890s grew grain and raised sheep before turning to citrus and avocados. The city incorporated on January 20, 1925, and by 1928 was the largest avocado-growing center in Southern California.

Two of La Habra's local-history facts are easy to miss. First, Richard Nixon opened his first law office in La Habra in 1938, years before his political career and decades before the Nixon Library was built in neighboring Yorba Linda. Second — and this is the one that surprises people — the single "Hass mother tree," the source tree from which essentially every commercially grown Hass avocado on earth has been propagated, was planted in the 1920s by Rudolph Hass and stood until it succumbed to root rot in 2002 in neighboring La Habra Heights — a separate city despite the shared name, a point worth knowing since the two are easy to confuse. Why it matters here: a city defined by its own police department, its own jail, and an avocado-and-citrus growing history rather than a freeway corridor is exactly the kind of place where people assume CHP or a neighboring agency handled their stop — and get the wrong department when they try to track down their car or their paperwork.

La Habra is one of eight cities routed through the North Justice Center. For the full courthouse picture and the rest of the cities we serve, see our Orange County DUI Defense page.

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.

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