Al Coholic drinks enough to constitute being too drunk to operate a motor vehicle in all applicable jurisdictions. He is located in Baltimore. He gets in his car and starts driving north on 95, passing through several Counties, small portions of Delaware and Pennsylvania, and he finally gets off the highway and crosses the bridge to Camden, NJ, where he is pulled over by police, who find probable cause to charge him with DUI. Evidence of his trip is found (e.g. he admits that he drove all the way from Baltimore while drunk, the trip is stored in his GPS, a passenger is willing to testify, etc.)
If Al was legally drunk through all these jurisdictions, has he committed multiple DUI offenses? E.g. he is guilty of several DUI’s, one for each jurisdiction in which he committed DUI.
If Al drives drunk in a single jurisdiction for an extended amount of time, or over multiple trips, how is it determined how many “counts” of DUI he committed? e.g. if he drives to the store drunk, parks, turns off the car, shops, then (being legally “drunk” the entire time with no intervening legally “sober” period) starts it up again and drives home drunk, is that two counts of DUI? That is, during the entire period he was too drunk to legally operate a motor vehicle, in theory. If he drives for a whole hour within the jurisdiction but the act of DUI is not interrupted, is that all a single offense?
These questions are primarily theoretical. I know that, in theory, DUI can be prosecuted after the fact, though it is difficult to do so, and the MD, DE, and PA cops (state or local) may be ok with Al just facing a NJ charge.
As is always the case with this type of question, the answer is going to depend on local laws. In MA, police can’t follow you over a town line to make a routine traffic stop. If you are driving drunk in MA and the local police try to pull you over, continue driving to the next town. Then immediately park your car (legally) and get out of it before the police from the second town arrive (the police from the first town will call them). Neither jurisdiction will be able to successfully prosecute you for DUI*. This is because the law in MA says that police may only follow you over town lines if they are following you for an arrestable offense. Most drunk drivers are initially stopped for a non-arrestable moving violation and are only discovered to be drunk after the stop. Since the stop is not valid, the DUI is thrown out of court.
*Unless you commit an arrestable offense before you make it to the next town or the cops from the next town get there before you do, in which case you could try for a third town but should probably just accept your fate.
However, I have heard of cases where someone got stopped, was ticketed for DUI, got back in the car, started to drive off again, was re-ticketed for DUI.
Interesting. Anyone have a cite to an actual case? This is different because the person was stopped first and chose to continue their behavior.
The scenario could also apply if someone was DUI’ing in Philadelphia, then crossed into Camden, NJ, then (still legally too drunk to drive but alert enough to understand where they were), decided that they didn’t want to hang out in Camden and drove back across the bridge to Philly. Since the driving in Philly was interrupted, could the person, in theory, be guilty of two counts of DUI in Philadelphia? Or, say, someone is DUI’ing on the Capital Beltway and, miraculously, survives three laps around it. Did he commit three Virginia DUI’s and three Maryland DUI’s?
Has this ever happened in real life where a real court had to make a determination?
To carry this topic a bit off course and down the road, in Michigan people are routinely charged with multiple 2nd and 3rd DUI offenses. In other words, let’s say Al has already been convicted of three DUIs so far in his career and gets picked up again and charged with DUI. The judge can consider that new offense a 3rd DUI even though it’s clearly the 4th. A person could have a dozen 3rd time DUIs. This discretion goes back to the prosecutor as well. They may or may not charge the actual offense. In Al’s case the prosecutors in various venues might defer to another venue to prosecute if they know it will be done. They may want to save money and time. Or they may charge and the judge could dismiss in favor of the other jurisdiction.