Yochheim

BACKGROUND

Around 2:00 a.m., a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer was dispatched to reports of a possible traffic collision involving multiple suspects and vehicles in Amador County. Dispatch further advised that one of the callers sounded intoxicated. While driving to the scene, the CHP officer learned that a local sheriff deputy had already detained a possible driver. When the CHP officer arrived about 18 minutes after being dispatched, the sheriff deputy told him: (1) he had spoken to occupants of one of the vehicles, a Mazda, involved in the traffic incident, and they described the driver of the other vehicle, a Chevy, to the sheriff deputy; and (2) he later saw a man matching that description (Yochheim) return to the scene as a passenger in the Chevy. The sheriff deputy detained Yochheim, and waited for CHP to arrive. While the CHP officer investigated the possible traffic collision, a person who was in the Mazda at the time of the incident showed him cell phone video of Yochheim driving away from the scene. When the CHP officer spoke to Yochheim, Yocheim was seated inside the sheriff deputy’s patrol vehicle and was emitting “the strong odor of an alcoholic beverage.”…