With over a decade of experience as a public defender prior to starting his own practice, Ryan Peabody has the knowledge and skill to represent you no matter the charges and allegations the government levels at you. Mr. Peabody has tried jury trials ranging from Murder, sex crimes, Robbery, Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Extortion, to DUI (felonies and misdemeanors; drugs and/or alcohol), domestic violence, drug offenses and many others.
Mr. Peabody has had great success defending DUI cases, having earned numerous Not Guilty verdicts for his clients. He has also obtained at least two hung juries in DUI cases in which the prosecution dismissed all charges after trial. He has earned Not Guilty verdicts or dismissals after a hung jury for cases involving only alcohol, cases involving only drugs, and a combination of alcohol and drugs.
Mr. Peabody has also obtained many dismissals in DUI cases through motions to suppress evidence. These ranged from the police taking the blood of his client without a warrant and without an exception to the requirement that they obtain a warrant, to cases where they did not have the necessary reasonable suspicion to effectuate a traffic stop.
He has even had multiple motions to suppress that were denied by the trial judge reversed by the appellate division of the Santa Barbara County Superior Court resulting in all charges being dismissed. He also defeated prosecution appeals of motions to suppress that were granted in favor of his client, also resulting in all charges being dismissed.
In City of Kalispell v. Salsgiver, 2019 MT 126, Mr. Peabody brought about systemic change in the state of Montana when he went to the Montana Supreme Court to successfully challenge the unconstitutional practice, that was pervasive throughout the state, of stripping misdemeanor defendants of their Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury if they missed a court date. He did this after having lost in the trial court and then with the intermediate appellate court. The appellate division of the Montana Public Defender’s Office refused to argue the practice was unconstitutional believing it would be unsuccessful, so Mr. Peabody handled the appeal to the Supreme Court himself and prevailed with a 5 to 2 majority. In that same opinion, the Montana Supreme Court also reversed one of its prior decisions to the advantage of his client.
Mr. Peabody taught law students Criminal Procedure as an Adjunct Professor at the Southern California Institute of Law from 2014 to 2015. The class focused on the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. He has attended the National Criminal Defense College’s Trial Practice Institute in Macon, Georgia. He has previously worked as a public defender in the South Lake Tahoe branch of the El Dorado County Public Defender’s Office as well as Santa Barbara County, Lassen County, and the state of Montana.
He is licensed to practice law in all California state courts as well as the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. He is also an active member of the Montana state bar and an inactive member of the Colorado state bar. He is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oregon School of Law.