Most of the Time When You’re Arrested for DUI You’ll Be Arrested
Video Transcribed: Will I go to jail if I’m convicted of DUI in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa DUI attorney James Wirth, and that’s the question that we have before us today is if you are convicted of DUI, will you go to jail? So first off, most of the time when you’re arrested for DUI, at that point, you go to jail, you’re arrested, you’re taken in, you’re booked, and you’re in there until you have an ability or until you’re able to bond out.
For most crimes in Tulsa County, there’s a bond schedule. So it can be automatically set, which allows you to bond out more quickly. You don’t have to wait to go to court the next day or the day after that, to have it set before you can bond out. So when you’re arrested, most of the time, you go to jail.
But that’s jail and it’s pretrial detention, it’s different than being sentenced in serving a sentence in either the county jail or in the state penitentiary. So as far as the arrest goes, that’s what happens. Now, once you go through your case process, if you are convicted, are you likely to go to jail? That depends on the facts and circumstances.
For a first offense DUI, the range of punishment is from 10 days, which has a 10-day minimum, to one year is the maximum because it’s a misdemeanor for a first offense.
For a second offense though, it goes beyond that, and it’s 1 to 10 at that point. And subsequent ones, 1 to 10 as well. So first offense, a misdemeanor. A second offense and over, it’s a felony. And the punish is more severe for the third and after for a DUI.
But just because it has a minimum of 10 days, even for a first offense, a misdemeanor does not actually mean you go to jail for those 10 days. It’s possible that you could be sentenced to a period of time where the sentence is suspended, meaning you serve it on probation out of jail.
Or it could be that you get a deferred sentence where you’re not actually convicted, but you are on probation while sentencing after you plead guilty, or enter a plea of no contest is deferred to a later date for you to jump through some hoops, to prove you can do those things, and then get the case dismissed and expunged.
So whether you’re going to go to jail or not depends a lot on the facts of your case, how egregious it is, as well as if you have prior DUIs, prior criminal cases, whether you were on probation previously. All of those things can increase the likelihood of going to jail.
But as far as the first offense with no prior history, if I’m representing somebody, not only do we want to keep them out of jail, we want to look at trying to get it resolved in such a way that it doesn’t affect their long-term record. So we want to look at potentially trying to get a deferred sentence, something along those lines if there’s adequate evidence and the evidence was lawfully obtained, which we want to look at those defenses.
So for a first offense, it’s unlikely that you’re going to get jail time. But if it’s in more egregious circumstances, certainly if there was an accident involved, people were injured, people died, that changes the game a little bit.
So you’re going to want to talk to an attorney about your specific circumstances to get an idea of what to expect for your case. To get that schedule with somebody at my office, you can go online to makelaweasy.com.
