DRUNK DRIVING INFORMATION
Dealing with Your DUI
Getting a DUI is a difficult, if not traumatic experience. One minute you’re driving down the road minding your own business. The next minute you’re sitting in the back of a squad car in handcuffs. If you are charged with DUI in Illinois, you’re not alone. According to the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State, during 2005 more than 50,000 people were charged with DUI in Illinois just like yourself.
Now that the events of your arrest are behind you, you probably have a court date coming up. You may have questions about the process that lies ahead. What are the possible penalties? What could be the different outcomes? What impact is this charge going to have upon your life? Will you be able to keep your driver’s license? Your job? Your freedom?
Here you will find a discussion of some of the basic concepts and laws that are relevant to an analysis of your DUI charge. Because the threat of a driver’s license suspension and possible stiff penalties are involved, it is important to begin your defense immediately. Matthew T. Hoffman P.C. will be happy to discuss your case with you during a free initial office consultation.
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Statutory Summary Suspension
Frequently, an area of initial concern in a DUI case is the prospect of an impending suspension of a person’s driver’s license. A statutory summary suspension is a type of suspension that exists only in Illinois DUI cases.
According to Illinois law, if you drive on a public roadway in this State, you are deemed to have already given your consent to taking a breath, blood or urine test if you have been arrested for DUI. Although the arresting officer has the discretion to pick what test is used, in the overwhelming majority of cases, chemical testing for blood alcohol content (BAC) is accomplished using a breath sample.
When you are arrested for DUI, you are taken to the police department. Once there, the police are required to read you a “Warning to Motorist” that explains the consequences of failing or refusing to take a breath test. If you fail the breath test, your driver’s license will be suspended. Likewise, if you simply refuse to take a breath test, your license also will be suspended. Failing the test means that your breath sample shows a BAC of 0.08 or greater.
It is certainly ironic that the “Warning to Motorist” is a lengthy and confusing document. It is packed with difficult language and legalese. When it is read to them, many people are in no condition—emotionally or otherwise— to even begin to comprehend it. Yet at that moment in a DUI investigation you are faced with a difficult decision. Should you blow, possibly blow over the legal limit and face a mandatory suspension of your driver’s license? Or should you refuse to blow, face an even longer suspension, but deprive the police of possible additional evidence that could be used to convict you on the DUI charge?
The statutory summary suspension itself takes effect on the 46th day after your DUI arrest. Until that time you maintain normal driving privileges. Depending on the situation, summary suspensions have different lengths:
- 3 months if you are a first offender and your BAC is 0.08 or greater;
- 6 months if you are a first offender and refuse to take the breath test;
- 1 year if you are not a first offender and your BAC is 0.08 or greater; and
- 3 years if you are not a first offender and you refuse to take the breath test.
It is important to note that in certain situations you can challenge your summary suspension in court. If you prevail at a court hearing on a Petition to Rescind your summary suspension, your suspension will be thrown out. This means that if it has not yet begun, the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State will be ordered not to impose it. This also means that if your summary suspension already has started, the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State will be ordered to end it.
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Judicial Driving Permit
A judicial driving permit (JDP) is a device used to allow a first offender to drive for work, educational, or medical or alcohol treatment purposes. Commonly referred to as a “hardship license,” a JDP can be obtained from the court in those situations where a summary suspension remains in effect, but a person still needs to drive. In order to obtain a judicial driving permit, you will first be required to obtain an alcohol evaluation.
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Criminal Penalties
The charge of DUI is criminal in nature. Even the least-serious DUI charge is a Class A misdemeanor with a possible penalty of up to 364 days in jail and up to a $2,500.00 fine. If you are convicted of DUI, you face the mandatory revocation of your driver’s license. If your driver’s license is revoked, you will not be eligible for full reinstatement for a minimum of one year.
In certain instances, DUI also can be charged as a felony. A felony is any offense that carries a possible sentence of a year or more in prison. Felony DUI can be charged when a person has had multiple prior DUIs, is charged with DUI while driving on a license that is revoked or suspended for DUI, or is charged with DUI while driving without insurance. Felony DUI also can be charged when death or bodily harm is involved.
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DUI when Under Age 21
Illinois drivers under the age of 21 are subject to the “zero tolerance” law. Under this law, if a police officer stops a driver who is under the age of 21, and the officer has “probable cause” to believe the driver has consumed alcohol, the officer can ask the driver to submit to a breath test.
If the underage driver submits to the test, and the test shows that the driver has any alcohol whatsoever in his or her system, his or her driver’s license will be suspended for a minimum of three months. If the underage driver refuses to take the test, his or her driver’s license will be suspended for a minimum of six months. Repeat underage offenders face longer mandatory suspensions of their driver’s licenses.
This law is called the “zero tolerance” law because it penalizes underage drivers by suspending their driving privileges if they are caught with even a trace of alcohol in their systems. Compared to an underage driver, if a person over the age of 21 submits to an alcohol test, that person’s driver’s license will not be suspended unless the test reveals a BAC of 0.08 or higher.
It is important to note that even a zero tolerance DUI suspension can be challenged in court.
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DUI with Commercial Driver’s License
The most restrictive DUI and traffic laws in Illinois are those that penalize motorists with Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDLs). If a police officer asks a person driving a commercial motor vehicle to submit to an alcohol test and that driver refuses, or if that person submits to a test and it shows a BAC of 0.04 or higher, that person will be disqualified from operating a commercial vehicle for a minimum of 12 months.
If that same person’s BAC is 0.08 or greater, that person will be prosecuted for DUI. His or her non-CDL driving privileges also will be suspended.
The highly restrictive nature of Illinois CDL DUI law carries over into Illinois CDL traffic law. Commercial drivers are subject to the disqualification of their CDL privileges if they are convicted of multiple “serious traffic violations” within a certain time period. This kind of non-DUI disqualification can even take effect after a CDL holder has been convicted of multiple serious traffic violations while operating his or her personal vehicle.
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Attacking the State’s Case
As in all other criminal cases where jail or prison time can be imposed, when you are charged with DUI you have a Constitutional right to a trial and the right to force the State to prove their case against you beyond a reasonable doubt. You are also presumed innocent of the charge until you admit guilt during a plea bargain or you are found guilty after a trial.
Typically, the way the prosecutor goes about trying to prove a DUI case is to call the arresting officer to testify. The prosecutor then questions the officer about his observations of your driving, the conclusions he drew from field sobriety tests, and the results of any chemical breath test.
While the State very much likes to believe that police conduct DUI investigations according to objective and empirical methods, the fact is that many of the conclusions police officers reach in DUI cases are entirely subjective. The subjectivity and frequent inaccuracy of these conclusions can be exposed by your attorney with an effective cross-examination of the officer.
Even the results of a chemical breath test can be attacked if the test was not conducted properly, or if it shows merely that your BAC was over the legal limit when you finally reached the police station, but was under the limit at the time your vehicle was stopped. Video tape footage of your driving, your performance of field sobriety tests, and of your appearance in the booking room at the police station also can be used to demonstrate your lack of intoxication.
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Supervision vs. Conviction
If you are sentenced to court supervision, a conviction for DUI will not appear on your driving record. This is significant because a conviction for DUI causes the revocation of your driver’s license. Thus, resolving a DUI charge with a disposition of court supervision can be a way to avoid losing your driving privileges.
This does not mean, however, that you should accept a disposition of court supervision lightly. This is because you may receive supervision for DUI only once in your entire life. It is important, therefore, that before your case is resolved this way, you and your attorney first conduct a careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the prosecution’s case. There are times when the best course of action is proceeding to trial rather than plea bargaining even for supervision.
Contact This Office
If you are charged with DUI, contact this office toll free at 1-877-360-1880 for a free initial office consultation to discuss your case.
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