Interviewer: Are there other charges levelled against the driver in addition to the DUI?
Almost Every Driver Will Receive at Least 2 Charges
Brian Sloan: Yes. Just about everyone who’s charged with DUI is going to receive two or more charges. At the very least, it’s going to be DUI impaired to the slightest degree by alcohol, drugs, paper releasing substances, medication or a combination thereof. Usually, a second charge is either going to be DUI with blood alcohol level at or above a point 08 or it’s going to be DUI drugs or prescription medications in their system.
It Is up to the Officer’s Discretion How Many or How Few Charges They will Issue against the Driver
A person can be charged with extreme DUI. They can be charged with super extreme DUI. It is completely up to the officer to decide what ancillary charges to put in that citation. Sometimes, officers will literally charge for every infraction that they saw. They will charge speeding and making a wide turn and failure to use the turn signal and failure to maintain a single lane.
And then some officers will just say, “Well, I got him on DUI. I’m not going to bother charging minor infractions.
I’ve seen people with three pages with the citations and each citation holds five charges simply because the officer felt compelled to do so. Here is a common scenario I see more recently, which is a driver who is charged with DUI as well as speeding as a civil traffic violation.
A DUI with a Speeding Charge: in Arizona, the Charge Could Be a Civil or Criminal Traffic Violation
And speeding can technically be charged as it’s still a traffic violation or the criminal traffic violation. Let’s say speeding it is charged as a civil traffic violation and I seem to see this mostly out of Phoenix Municipal Court.
If someone is charged with two counts of DUI and speeding, the DUI cases are in court. They are find that a person is entitled to a jury trial. Speeding definitely is not required to be a jury trial worthy offense.
Many Drivers Receive Notice about Fines Associated with the Speeding Violation, Which They Sometimes Pay Prior to Consulting an Attorney
So, sometimes, people who receive letter in the mail indicating, “You are charged with the DUI. You’re also charged with speeding. Here is your fine for speeding. Pay off this fine and the speeding charge will go away but you still have to deal with the DUI charges.”
Some people will pay it. I’ve seen the bills. Sometimes, there are a number of other charges, such as 70 dollars here or a hundred dollars there.If they had not already paid those charges, these are charges that I would very likely be able to get dismissed if I was able to negotiate a full payment on behalf of my client.
Now, it’s definitely an issue that they would want to discuss with their attorney. I don’t want them to ignore notices that look like bills coming from courts.
Always Inform Your Attorney about Notices You Receive from the Courts—In Some Cases, Charges May Be Dismissed and the Client Is Not Responsible for Payment
Now, if they received something like that and they’re being represented by an attorney, they will just bring that to the attorney’s attention so that the attorney can properly advise them and every time that my client has shown me a bill like that, I tell them to ignore it because I’m very likely going to get that charge dismissed.
There’s no point in paying off something that I’m just going to again dismiss later on.
On Rare Occurrences, the Police May Charge the Driver with both a DUI and a Reckless Driving
Interviewer: Is it possible to receive both a DUI and a reckless driving?
Brian Sloan: It’s rare. Usually, an officer will not charge a reckless driving just because they charge with DUI. It happens very seldom but if there is really some severe driving involved, such as driving up on people’s lawns, driving into bushes, going exceedingly fast, sweeping all over the road, driving on the wrong side of the road. Every now and again, you’ll see the DUI accompanied by reckless driving charge.
