McClenahen Law Firm

Pennsylvania Criminal Law Attorney Comprehensive Client Service in Pennsylvania Criminal Defense With a law practice exclusively focused on criminal defense, Matt McClenahen offers clients sound advice, straight answers and resourceful solutions to criminal charges ranging from underage drinking to homicide. To learn how his experience and commitment to the welfare of his clients can benefit you, contact the McClenahen Law Firm in State College. We Serve the Needs of Clients in Central Pennsylvania Many of our clients come to us facing difficult situations and needing quick responses. We provide prompt client attention and effective criminal defense to residents throughout communities in Central Pennsylvania. Our law firm’s location in the heart of the Penn State community means that many of our clients are students who need more from a defense attorney than the resolution of the charges at hand. Our clients also need their counsel to look ahead to their long-range interests in obtaining employment, getting into graduate school, or for professional licenses or security clearances. Our understanding of the needs of student defendants benefits not only clients at Penn State, but also students at Bucknell, Susquehanna, Juniata College and Lock Haven. We also know how to help students meet the challenges of academic disciplinary proceedings that can follow an arrest for an offense on campus. Versatile Defense Counsel With Solid Trial Skills A former public defender, Matt McClenahen has an impressive record of success at trial, and obtained enough experience to become certified to represent defendants facing the death penalty. Now in private practice, Attorney McClenahen handles a wide range of criminal cases including defense of drug crimes, DUI, underage drinking, criminal mischief, and other charges that fall anywhere along the spectrum from summary offenses to felonies.

DUI Defense Defense of DUI Charges in Central Pennsylvania Criminal defense attorney Matt McClenahen offers reliable advice and skilled representation for people charged with drunk driving, drugged driving, underage DUI, and other alcohol-related offenses in State College, the Penn State campus and throughout central Pennsylvania. If you need to deal with an arrest for drinking and driving in central Pennsylvania, contact the McClenahen Law Firm for a free consultation about your options. Even if you don’t have a good defense in your DUI case, we may still be able to minimize the penalties Tougher DUI laws implemented on February 1, 2004, improved police training and practices and technological advances in the toxicology testing that shows blood alcohol content (BAC) have all combined to make a successful trial defense in drunk driving cases harder than ever before. In the early 2000s, groups like MADD and other victims’ rights groups successfully lobbied for changes to Pennsylvania’s DUI laws, which would make it more difficult to defend DUI charges. The extensive revisions of Pennsylvania DUI laws in 2004 closed many of the loopholes and glitches in the old DUI law, which skilled defense attorneys had exploited to win acquittal at trial or have DUI charges dismissed. Nevertheless, some DUI cases are still winnable and an experienced DUI defense attorney can review your case to see if you have a defense that can lead to dismissal of the charges or a victory at trial. In some cases, we can challenge whether the police had reasonable suspicion to make the traffic stop. Without reasonable suspicion, any evidence stemming from the traffic stop will be suppressed (made inadmissible at trial) by a Court of Common Pleas judge. In cases where you were not pulled over or the police did not see you drive, we can argue that the prosecution may be able to show you were intoxicated, but cannot prove that you were actually driving. In other cases, we may concede that you were, in fact, both driving and intoxicated, but that you were not driving on a public road. In some cases where you do not have a strong defense, our legal advice will focus on keeping your penalties and license suspension to the minimum possible. If you are a first time DUI offender, you will usually be eligible for the ARD (Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition) program, successful completion of which results in no jail time, a lessened license suspension and dismissal of your charges and expungement of your arrest record. Second and subsequent DUI convictions carry mandatory minimum prison sentences. We can advocate that you serve this sentence either fully or partially under house arrest instead of jail, have work release for any time spent in jail or that you receive credit towards your sentence for any time spent in inpatient drug and alcohol treatment. The length of the mandatory license suspension is generally based on blood alcohol concentration, the presence of other drugs in your system and prior DUI convictions. We can often find ways to resolve close calls on either of these issues in your favor, either through plea negotiations or by hiring a toxicologist to challenge the accuracy of the BAC test. We also advise clients facing more serious charges related to DUI, such as aggravated assault or homicide resulting from alcohol-related accidents. In these cases, an important issue will usually be the Commonwealth’s ability to prove the role of intoxication in causing the accident.