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THE FIRST OFFENSE
Your license to drive is gone or at least limited.
The court has the authority to order you into an alcohol
treatment program. You will at least have to attend a
seminar or class on how alcohol affects your body and
you’re driving.
The
first drunk driving offense, if your blood alcohol
reading was less than .20%, is usually a misdemeanor,
some say "only" a misdemeanor. Usually, however, an
offender is charged with a whole list of misdemeanors,
and each of which is punishable by a maximum fine of
$1,000 and jail time of a maximum of ninety days or both.
The list often includes the following: Fourth Degree
Driving While impaired, careless driving, speed
hazardous, refusing the test, and driving while
intoxicated. "Driving While Impaired" usually means that
you were driving with blood alcohol content of over .10
percent, or that you had over .10 percent blood alcohol
within two hours of driving.
The first offense may become a gross misdemeanor under
certain circumstances, which include having a child in
the car and having a blood alcohol content of over.20
percent.
THE SECOND OFFENSE
If you have reached this point, you should
immediately get an evaluation as to whether you are
chemically dependent. you may be an alcoholic. If you're
not, have the evaluation and prove it. you are probably
already being monitored electronically to make sure you
consume no alcohol and being charged for the cost of the
monitoring.
The
monitoring starts before you even go to court, and will
probably continue for months afterward, except when
you're in jail. The second offense in ten years is a
gross misdemeanor (max penalty of $3,000 and a year or
both), and now there are mandatory minimum punishments to
worry about. The mandatory minimum is usually 30 days
imprisonment or eight hours community work service for
each day less than 30 days that you are ordered to serve
in jail. At least 48 hours of the jail time has to be
served consecutively in a local correctional facility.
THE THIRD OFFENSE
New legislation passed in 2000 provides that if you have
been driving while impaired within ten years of two prior
offenses, the "court shall sentence" you to either:
1) a minimum of 90 days of incarceration, at least
30 days of which must be served consecutively in a local
correctional facility or
2) a program of intensive supervision - intensive
probation - which is to include serving at least six days
consecutively in a local jail. Everything we said about
needing a chemical dependency evaluation after a second
offense applies even more so here. It seems these
penalties get more severe every time the legislature
meets.
THE FOURTH OFFENSE
Please don't ever let it happen to you. New
legislation passed in 2002 provides that if you have been
driving while impaired within ten years of three prior
offenses, you are guilty of a felony. First the statute
says that you are to be sentenced to prison for at least
three years and given a fine of not less than
$14,000.00.If the judge decides to stay some of the three
years of time, there is still a mandatory minimum
sentence of "a minimum or 180 days of incarceration, at
least 30 which must be served consecutively..." or a
program of intensive supervision that requires the person
to consecutively serve at least six days in jail; and it
appears also that the judge is required to include an
order for long term electronic monitoring - which of
course the Defendant will be required to pay for.
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