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Yorba Linda calls itself the "Land of Gracious Living," and the nickname fits: rolling hills, horse property zoning in older neighborhoods, and more than 100 miles of multi-use trails — including roughly 30 miles of dedicated equestrian trail — give the city a semi-rural, affluent character that sets it apart from its North Justice Center neighbors. Anaheim has Disneyland-driven freeway and event traffic; Fullerton has a downtown college bar scene. Yorba Linda has neither. Its DUI exposure instead comes from commuters cutting across the Imperial Highway and Yorba Linda Boulevard corridors, weekend drivers near the Nixon Library and the city's wineries and golf courses, and drivers connecting to or from the SR-91 freeway, which runs along the city's southern edge. If you were arrested for DUI anywhere in Yorba Linda, Ron Chini defends the case from his Irvine office — not a local Yorba Linda office — working directly with you by phone, email, and video.
Where a Yorba Linda DUI case is heard
A DUI arrest anywhere in Yorba Linda is filed at the Superior Court's North Justice Center in Fullerton. The court's own location page lists Yorba Linda as one of eight cities that building serves — the others are Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, La Palma, and Placentia. For the address, parking, and courtroom basics, see our North Justice Center guide. The Orange County District Attorney's Office — not a city attorney — decides what to charge and prosecutes the case, the same as everywhere else in the county.
Court & DMV details for a Yorba Linda DUI
Booked at the Intake Release Center or Theo Lacy — not a Yorba Linda jail
Yorba Linda has no city jail, because it has no city police department (see below). OCSD deputies who arrest someone for DUI in Yorba Linda typically transport the arrestee to the Orange County Intake Release Center in Santa Ana — the county's main booking facility, located next to the Men's Central Jail — for fingerprinting, booking, and an initial bail determination. From there, a person held pretrial can be moved to the Theo Lacy Facility in the City of Orange, which houses both pretrial and sentenced misdemeanor and felony inmates. Family members can call ahead or use the Sheriff's inmate locator before driving to either facility.
Policed by the Orange County Sheriff's Department, not a city PD
Unlike Anaheim, Fullerton, and Buena Park — which each run their own municipal police department — Yorba Linda contracts with the Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD) for all local law enforcement, including DUI patrol and collision investigation. The city's current law-enforcement contract runs July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2030, with FY2026-27 charges not to exceed $15,586,583. The arrangement dates back to May 2013, when OCSD won the contract away from the Brea Police Department, which had policed Yorba Linda for decades before that; 19 of the original 26 deputies assigned to the city came over from Brea PD at the time of the switch.
Day-to-day, Yorba Linda Police Services operates out of an office at Arroyo Park, open to the public Monday–Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., (714) 779-7098 — it is a storefront office, not a jail or a stand-alone police headquarters. Patrol itself is run out of OCSD's North Operations division, based at Sheriff's Headquarters in Santa Ana, which also covers the contract cities of Stanton and Villa Park. On the freeway, CHP's Santa Ana Area Office handles DUI enforcement on SR-91 along Yorba Linda's southern edge, the same as it does for the rest of north Orange County.
- A standard DUI stop (not involving a suspended license) is usually towed under Vehicle Code §22651(h) as a vehicle "unsafe to leave at the roadside" — typically released once a licensed driver claims it and pays towing/storage fees.
- If your license was already suspended or you were unlicensed at the time of the stop, the vehicle can instead be held under the 30-day impound rule in Vehicle Code §14602.6 — ask about an early-release administrative hearing, which must be requested within 10 days of the impound notice.
- OCSD deputies, not a separate Yorba Linda traffic unit, make the arrest and complete the police report in almost every Yorba Linda DUI case — ask your attorney to confirm the arresting agency named on your citation.
A suspended license in a car-dependent, semi-rural city
Yorba Linda is the birthplace of President Richard Nixon, and the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, at 18001 Yorba Linda Boulevard, incorporates his boyhood home, a museum, his presidential helicopter, and his gravesite — a genuine local landmark and a frequent destination for weekend and evening drivers. The city has no Metrolink station and limited OCTA bus service compared with Anaheim or Fullerton, and many neighborhoods were built around horse property and equestrian trails rather than transit corridors. That combination matters after a DUI arrest: a license suspension here is harder to work around day-to-day than in a more transit-connected North Justice Center city, which is one more reason to move quickly on the 10-day DMV deadline rather than assume you can simply arrange rides.
Where will my Yorba Linda DUI case be heard?
Does Yorba Linda have its own police department?
Where will I be booked after a Yorba Linda DUI arrest?
I only have 10 days to request a DMV hearing — who do I call?
Could CHP have arrested me instead of a Yorba Linda deputy?
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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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