Arizona DUI Laws Get Even Tougher
Already considered to be among the toughest in the nation, Arizona’s drunk driving penalties get even tougher with new legislation aimed at reducing judicial discretion in sentencing. Under the new law which goes into effect on 9/26/2008, any first offense DUI offender who take a breathalyzer and registers about a .15% BAC faces a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail. If that breath test machine result is above a .20%, the mandatory jail sentence jumps to 45 days.
These are extremely severe penalties for someone with no prior offenses, and no injuries or damage of any kind. The implications if this are several:
- More aggressive legal challenges to breath test machine accuracy are likely. After all, the difference between a .14 and a .15 is one month of your life. Can these machines be trusted to be accurate enough to pronounce judgment with these kinds of life altering consequences? There are many reasons to doubt their accuracy.
- Also because of these severe penalties, the business of Arizona DUI defense lawyers like us are likely to increase. After all, the downside to fighting the case becomes minimum if you are facing jail time for a plea. Even a drunk driving arrest with very bad facts for the defendant becomes worth fighting in front of a jury. Even a 10 or 20 percent chance of winning the case makes sense. So expect courts and jury rooms to get busier with these cases.
Clearly the Arizona legislature thinks the threat of these extreme DUI penalties will bring down the number of drunk driving incidents in the state. That is an open question. But there will be unintended consequences, too. And this law will certainly result in disaster for good, decent people who may have had a single episode of bad judgment. The consequences of one bad decision, where no one even gets hurt, can be a loss of a persons job and their livelihood.
And it can happen to anyone, as evidenced by the wide cross-section of perfectly decent people our attorneys have defended in these cases.
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If you’ve been charged with a DUI offense in Arizona, whether it is a high BAC case or not, it’s obvious that the state is determined to punish you as severely as possible under the law. You need the best DUI defense you can find if you are to maintain your rights under the law, and your very freedom. Please contact our attorneys immediately to take advantage of our free consultation on any drunk driving charge in Arizona.
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