Felony DUI in Sacramento Facing a felony DUI? Prison is on the table. So are better outcomes.

When a DUI is a felony

• Someone other than the driver was hurt. A DUI that causes an injury can be charged as a felony, even a first DUI.
• A fourth DUI within 10 years.
• Any DUI within 10 years of a prior felony DUI. Once a DUI has been a felony, the next one can be too, even if it’s only your second.

Each of these can also be charged, or reduced to, a misdemeanor. Keeping it a misdemeanor, or getting it reduced, is one of the main goals.

What’s at stake

• State prison becomes possible. That’s the real change when a DUI is a felony: instead of county jail alone, the judge can send you to prison. A felony DUI can also end with up to a year in county jail instead.
• Higher bail, and expect it to be enforced.
• A felony record, with everything that comes with it: jobs, housing, gun rights.
• Longer license loss and a longer DUI program.
• A warning that follows you. Anyone convicted of a DUI is formally warned that a later DUI that kills someone can be charged as murder.

The fourth question: did the DUI cause the injury?

Every DUI comes down to three questions: was the stop lawful, can they prove you were driving, and can they prove you were impaired? The three questions in every DUI.

When there’s a collision or an injury, there’s a fourth: did you cause it? For an injury DUI, the law requires more than being impaired when someone got hurt. You also have to have broken a traffic law or failed in a duty while driving, and that has to be what caused the injury.

That question decides many of these cases. You could be well over the limit, driving carefully, when another driver runs a red light and crashes into you and gets hurt. That’s a DUI, but it shouldn’t be a felony DUI, because you didn’t cause the crash. Or you may have caused the crash, but not because of the alcohol. I look closely at the collision report, the scene, the video, and any reconstruction to answer it.

The evidence, in detail

Felony DUIs often involve blood tests, sometimes taken hours later, and sometimes drugs as well as alcohol. Those details matter:

• Timing. A blood alcohol level hours after the crash doesn’t always show what it was when you were driving.
• Drug results. A blood test for marijuana, for example, can show both active THC and inactive leftovers that stay in the blood long after any effect. A prosecutor may just see “drug present.” The numbers can show the amount was tiny and unlikely to impair anyone. Many people never look that closely.
• The blood draw. Whether it was taken and handled properly, and whether it was constitutional.

How a felony DUI case can go

• The preliminary hearing. On a felony, a judge decides at a preliminary hearing whether there’s enough evidence to go forward. I use it to test the evidence, including the causation question, and to lock in testimony. How I handle felony cases.
• A reduction to a misdemeanor. Because these charges can be either, the DA can agree to a misdemeanor, and the judge can reduce it before trial. A misdemeanor takes prison off the table.
• Treatment as part of the answer. For someone who needs it, residential alcohol treatment followed by an outpatient program can be powerful. It shows the DA and the judge the problem is being dealt with, and people facing prison have sometimes resolved their cases with treatment instead. Every case is different, and I can’t promise any result.
• DUI Treatment Court. For repeat DUIs, Sacramento’s DUI Treatment Court can mean avoiding much of the custody time, if you’re accepted. More about DUI Treatment Court.

Court and bail in Sacramento

Felony DUIs are heard at the Lorenzo Patiño Hall of Justice, 651 I Street, in Departments 61 to 63. It shares a building with the Main Jail, so most people call it the jail courthouse. Unlike a misdemeanor DUI, you’ll need to be at the main hearings, and I’m there with you. If you or a family member is in custody, here’s how bail works.

The DMV case runs alongside, with its own 10-day deadline. The DMV hearing and your license.

Questions