DUI Laws in Glendale, AZ

Being charged with a Glendale DUI can be a terrifying experience. The cops pull you over, demand your driver’s license, and then start bombarding you with questions about your night in an attempt to get you to say something incriminating.

Most likely you’ll be feeling overwhelmed and disoriented, which won’t help if they convince you to take a field sobriety test, and then if you test just barely over the legal limit on the breath test, suddenly your driver’s license is being confiscated and you’re being charged with driving under the influence.

At this point, the average person charged with a DUI is completely out of sorts and wondering what’s going to happen to them and how they should behave. Are they going to go to jail? Lose their driving privileges? How will that affect their ability to get to work? And if they can’t work, how in the world are they going to be able to provide for their family?

The thing that you want to remember is that you don’t have to go through this alone. Finding an experienced Glendale DUI attorney to work with you on your defense gives you the best chance at having a positive outcome from all of this. Not only can they explain how DUI charges work and what you’re going to go through, they can immediately start putting together a case to try to have your charges reduced or even dropped altogether by looking over the records and examining every piece of evidence available.

Many people believe that a DUI conviction is inevitable and not worth fighting against – especially if they fail a breathalyzer test – but good Glendale DUI lawyers know how the system works and have made charges just like yours go away just by following the law.

How Glendale DUI Law Works

If a police officer stops you and tells you that you are being charged with a Glendale DUI, the first thing you should know is that it’s not just one single charge, but two. Under Arizona law, DUI is defined as both:

• Driving while impaired and
• Driving with a .08 or higher BAC

Multiple charges might seem like a bad thing, but the positive to breaking up the law this way is that it is possible to lessen the penalties you face by successfully arguing against one or both of these things. That’s why it’s so important to hire a DUI attorney who knows how the system works in Glendale.

The biggest thing that you need to remember is that even if a cop pulls you over, you have rights. All that you are required to do is stop, hand over your license, and agree to take a breath test if one is offered to you. Refusing a breath test in Arizona violates the state’s implied consent laws and means that your license will be automatically suspended for a year – even if you end up beating the DUI charge! Take the test. Even if you test over the limit, there are ways to argue against the test results in court.

How Glendale DUI Penalties Work

Just like with any other crime, first time offenders have different, lesser penalties than people who’ve already had convictions in the past. What kinds of penalties you face also depend on the circumstances of the incident. If your blood alcohol level was extremely high (.15 or higher), you will be charged with a different kind of DUI called an extreme DUI. And if you were in an accident and caused any damage or harm to another person, your charge immediately goes from a misdemeanor to a felony.

In general, here are the penalties associated with a low-level, first time offense DUI charge:

• $250 in fines, plus a surcharge
• $250 to the Arizona DUI abatement fund
• 1-5 years of probation (typically one year)
• Drug and alcohol evaluation and handling (which could lead to a recommendation for counseling and treatment)
• Jail time that starts at 10 days and can go up to 6 months (typically, agreeing to counseling will cause judges to lower your jail time to a single day)
• A driver’s license suspensionof at least 90 days

For extreme DUIs where you test over .15, the penalties become:

• $250 in fines, plus a surcharge
• $250 to the Arizona DUI abatement fund
• Up to 5 years of probation time
• Drug and alcohol evaluation and handling (which could lead to a recommendation for counseling and treatment)
• Jail time that starts at 30 days (typically, agreeing to counseling will cause judges to lower your jail time to 10 days)
• A driver’s license suspension of at least 90 days
• Having an Ignition Interlock Device installed on your vehicle

Beyond this, a conviction means that you will now have a permanent criminal record that anyone can see if they decide to do a background check on you – lenders, employers, organizations that require licenses.

Don’t let it get to that point. Find a qualified Glendale DUI lawyer as soon as possible and start working to fight for your future now.