The minute you are arrested for DUI your driver’s license is in jeopardy. The arresting officer will take your California driver’s license from you and give you a pink piece of paper to act as a temporary driver’s license. The officer will say something to you that, most likely, will go in one ear and out the other. The stressful experience of being arrested for drunk driving is hardly conducive to understanding the technical provisions of law the officer is explaining. Of course there is plenty of fine print on the form that contains so much twisted legal jargon on it that DUI Attorneys in Orange County find it a bit confusing. So here is the summary of what will happen to your driving privileges as a result of DMV action and the court proceedings you and your Irvine DUI Lawyer are facing.
You now face TWO battles to save your driver’s license and TWO suspensions of your driving privileges. The first battle is with the DMV and the second takes place in court. To start, you or your Orange County DUI Attorney must call the DMV within ten days of the DUI arrests and request a DMV hearing. (Called an Administrative Per Se “APS” hearing) If you or your Newport Beach DUI attorney don’t make the call within ten days, then you have already lost the first battle and your driver’s license will be automatically suspended. This “APS” suspension will begin thirty days after you were arrested and the length of the LICENSE SUSPENSION will depend on several factors—including any prior DUI convictions and whether you refused to take a blood test or breath test after the DUI arrest. But if you or your Huntington Beach DUI Lawyer did request an APS hearing, then no APS suspension will occur unless you lose that DMV hearing. Although a DMV hearing is difficult to win—because it is a civil proceeding with a lower burden of proof, no right to a jury, “relaxed” evidentiary rules, and a DMV employee who sits as both judge and jury—DMV hearings can be won. Moreover, the DMV hearing gives your DUI Lawyer in Orange County a great opportunity to cross-examine the police officer without the District Attorney present to make objections.
If you do lose the DMV hearing, then the DMV will send you and your DUI Attorney in Orange County an APS suspension letter, telling you that the suspension will begin. The APS suspension typically begins a week after you and your Mission Viejo DUI Lawyer get the suspension letter from the DMV. For a first-offense DUI the APS suspension is a four-month suspension. However, you can get a restricted license after serving 30 days of the suspension. This 30 days is then followed by five months of “restricted” driving, where you can drive to and from the mandatory Alcohol program and any work related driving.
The second battle for your license happens in the Orange County Superior Court. If you plead guilty to a DUI, or are found guilty by a jury of a DUI, then the court reports this conviction to the DMV. The DMV in turn issues a “conviction suspension” of your driver’s license. This conviction suspension is a six month suspension. However, like the APS suspension, the conviction suspension can be reduced to a 30 day suspension followed by a period of restriction for five months. If your DUI Lawyer in Orange County can avoid a DUI conviction in court—either by getting the charges dropped or reduced to a wet reckless, then no conviction suspension will be issued. Moreover, if you have already served any of the APS suspension, you will get credit for this toward the conviction suspension.
So, for example, if you were arrested for a first-offense DUI with a blood-alcohol level below a 0.15% and your Aliso Viejo DUI Lawyer lost at the DMV hearing and your driver’s license was suspended for thirty days, and then you were driving on a restricted license for 60 days before you get the conviction suspension, you will get credit for the 30 days of suspension that you already served. Thus, you will not actually serve any more suspension time on the conviction suspension. You will now only have to serve five more months of restriction on your conviction suspension and there more months of restriction on your APS suspension. More good news; these two periods of restriction run concurrently. So you will only have to serve five more months of restriction before you can get your full driving privileges returned to you.
It is important to note here that the APS suspension and the conviction suspension run concurrently only if the APS suspension precedes the conviction suspension. In other words, if the conviction suspension is issued before the APS suspension, you wont get credit toward the APS suspension for any time served on the conviction suspension. This is why it is important for your Costa Mesa DUI Lawyer to make sure that the DMV hearing is resolved before your case is finalized in court.
If you have questions regarding the driver’s license suspension that results from a DUI, call The Law Offices of EJ Stopyro for a free and confidential consultation at (949) 559-5500. You can also visit our website at www.EJEsquire.com. We have meeting offices throughout Orange County and our main offices is located at 32072 Camino Capistrano, 2nd floor, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
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