One of the big concerns with driving under the influence is that someone could get hurt, and if somebody is hurt as a result of a DUI, everything becomes more serious. If somebody is hurt as a result of the DUI, a district attorney will typically file felony DUI charges with the injury. There also can be allegations of great bodily injury, which are more enhancements. So if someone other than the driver is hurt – it could be a passenger in the car – we’re typically going to be looking at felony DUI, and we are going to be looking at the district attorney prosecuting the case rather than a city attorney. We start off with felony DUIs looking at state prison, which is a lot more severe than county jail or no jail at all on a typical DUI.
When somebody is hurt as a result of drunk driving, there needs to be an analysis done to see whether the injuries are severe enough to justify a felony charge. When somebody is hurt, there needs to be an analysis done to determine whether or not there is great bodily injury. On a typical felony DUI, you may be looking at a sentencing range of 16 months, two years, or three years. If there are great bodily injuries, then the sentencing term is enhanced and people are looking at significantly more time, depending on the number of people that are hurt.
Even if the case is filed as a felony originally, there can be mitigating factors. We can show that injuries are not as severe as originally thought, and we can work on reductions to try to avoid the felony conviction. It’s also very important, if anybody was hurt as a result of a DUI, that they be compensated for any injuries that they might have sustained. A lot of times if there is adequate insurance in place, that can help mitigate the effects of a felony DUI and help get charges reduced from a felony down to a lesser offense.
When somebody is hurt as a result of a DUI, we really need to pull out all the stops and conduct full investigations. We may need an accident reconstructionist to help analyze what happened with the accident, and we may need experts to analyze how people were actually hurt, and causation or why somebody was hurt becomes a very big deal. So when there is an accident and somebody is hurt as a result of a DUI, we are typically looking at felony charges and the felony court procedure. Everything is much more severe, and we need to pay very special attention to felony DUI cases.
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