DUI Plea Bargains

At a DUI (driving under the influence) arraignment, the defendant enters a plea of guilty, not guilty, or no contest. If the plea is guilty, your next step is sentencing. If the plea is not guilty, the next step would typically be a criminal trial.

However, a criminal defense attorney will probably try to negotiate a punishment before the case is ever brought to court. Jury trials are expensive and take a lot of time, and it is in everyone’s best interests to enter a plea bargain. As well, a defendant could be found guilty of a more severe crime.

Entering a plea bargain is when your criminal defense attorney meets with the prosecuting attorney. It is necessary to have a defense attorney (or a court-appointed public defender) in order to enter a plea bargain. The prosecutor states what they want your punishment to be, and your defense attorney tries to negotiate a lesser punishment. Your defense attorney might make any number of concessions, from longer community service hours in exchange for a lesser sentence to negotiating your sentence from a DUI (driving under the influence) to a careless driving charge. This is particularly useful because a conviction of driving under the influence can mar the rest of your life when it comes to applying for jobs that require a clean driving record or buying insurance to getting a commercial driver’s license (CDL) or driving a company van or truck.

Penalty options depend on the seriousness of the crime and are completely determined by a judge. If the incident involved a great deal of property damage, personal injury, or a death, your plea bargain may involve your pleading guilty to DUI rather than a more serious charge such as manslaughter. If your attorney and the prosecutor cannot agree on negotiations, your trial date will be set. Before your trial, your attorney might file legal arguments, called ‘pre-trial motions,’ to attempt to get your charges dismissed, perhaps because the police did not follow proper procedure in your arrest or because you used some substance in your mouth before the breathalyzer that distorted the results.