GF got a DUI. What can she expect?

In My Humble Opinion
1

[Preface] This is not a solicitation for legal advice. [/Preface]

Well, GF got popped for DUI in West Palm Beach, FL and spent the day in jail last week. I’ve been reading about FL DUI law and the penalties. Basically, I want to hear about dopers who have experience with this and what she can expect. Was getting a lawyer worth it? She doesn’t have a lot of money (not a doper, but Honorary member of the Hopelessly Poor) so she wants to avoid spending a few thousand on a lawyer who doesn’t do anything if she can.

I’m not going to provide any details to her incident I don’t want it to be a debate on if she should get council or not. I just want to hear stories.

Thanks.

ETA: Mods, please feel free to move if you need to.

2

If she can afford booze, she’s not Hopelessly Poor.

3

I disagree. Booze is the poor man’s vacation afterall.

4

Okay, then, what about the “Honorary” part?

“I realize of course it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either.”
Fiddler on the Roof

5

[Captain Obvious] Might not have been her booze. Just sayin’. [/CO]

6

One liter of Chopin vodka costs $47.95. One liter of Vladimir vodka costs $7.45.

So the poor can well afford to get hopelessly drunk - and if they do it too often, they’ll stay poor.

7

My XGF got a DUI when we were living in Georgia. She didn’t get a lawyer. Didn’t fight the charges - just pleaded nolo contendre (or some such) because she was told a lawyer couldn’t help. Lawyer or not, she was going to lose her license and get fined. The funny thing was that she had a Massachusetts license, but didn’t physically surrender it to the GA authorities. She was actually from Illinois and evidently still had her IL drivers license, too. In the end I think she just skipped town (if she ever goes back to GA she’ll take her chances, I guess). She was a mess. About a year before the DUI she got arrested for possession of weed. Right after we met she lost her car to the repo man. She couldn’t hold a job, couldn’t stay on her meds (she was crazy), couldn’t get along with her family, etc. You wanna know how much of a train wreck she was? She gave great head, and would blow me anytime, anywhere (no shit). But even with that going for her, she was still too much trouble to keep around.

8

Winston, your ex is the exact opposite* as my current GF.

I just got off the phone with her. She’s been calling lawyers and getting rates and stuff. She’s depressed. Are lawyers basically “you get what you pay for”? The rates seem to vary wildly from what she’s told me so far.

  • = except for the BJ part. :smiley:
9

What can she expect? The derision of most of the members of this board, I expect.

10

I’d prefer to assure her things will be OK (despite her mistake) instead of mocking her. This is her first DUI. She’s more worried about the money than anything else. I don’t blame her. I told her I’d help her any way I could.

11

I take it then that she wasn’t convicted? That a trial hasn’t yet happened?
If she is convicted, she’ll have to jump through more hoops to cross the Canadian border. I believe that people with convictions for impaired driving are routinely turned away unless they’ve applied for and gotten specific permission beforehand. I don’t know how other countries handle this.

12

I am a licensed insurance agent, and though I live in NY I write policies in FL so I can possibly shed some light on this for you. However, as I am not YOUR insurance agent or HER insurance agent I claim no responsibility for this advice. If my advice causes her to take dance lessons, tunnel to the center of the earth, or make any other decision of any kind do not hold me responsible for the ramifications of said decision.

She can look forward to renewing her driver’s license every single year for the next 10 years or so, for which she might pay a large fee. She can look forward to dramatically more expensive insurance for the next 3-10 years, depending on the company and the state laws as they change from year to year. If she already has an accident or tickets or something on her record her insurance may choose not to renew her coverage. She can look forward to being refused for insurance from many, many insurance agencies if she decides to change companies. She may sacrifice certian job possibilites, especially if those jobs involve driving. If she currently has a job that involves driving she needs to start looking elsewhere since she will probably be fired soon.

All of these things suck, to be sure, but more importantly she needs to see this as her Get Out Of Death Free card. The results of drinking and driving could have been much, much worse than the massive financial and legal ramifications she is about to experience. She could have killed someone else or herself. Please encourage her to keep that in mind.

13

She needs to get a lawyer. The money won’t matter five years from now. A DUI conviction will.

14

In the Norther Virginia area going with a lawyer that used to be a prosecutor and has argued cases in front of the judge you will be facing is one way of getting the charges dropped or significantly reduced, around here former prosecutors seem to have some pull.

Another method of beating a DUI that is known to work is to have your lawyer demand to look at the source code of the software that is used in the breathalyser device. The manufacturers are very reluctant to provide the said code and if it is not provided there is reasonable doubt that the software is broken and gave a faulty reading.

Good luck, hope your GF gets out of it, but learns her lesson.

15

I had a friend who went through this several years ago. Overall, it took about 3-4 months and cost about $5,000.00 in various and assorted fees and retainers. She had to do many of the things pbbth mentioned also.

16

She made the conscious decision to drive drunk, she needs to live with the consequences, sorry to be a jerk about it, but that’s the way I see it, there’s NO reason to drive drunk, she did the crime, time to do the time

17

This is correct. Court date is the end of the month.

MacTech, I know where you’re coming from, but the world isn’t perfect and people make mistakes in judgment.

And if one wanted to be argumentative, one could say there are plenty of reasons to drive drunk. It’s just that none of them come close to balancing out the reasons not to.

FTR, she’s not in fear of losing her job. She’s a server at a small restaurant and they already know (she called them from jail). She is concerned about the future though and that’s part of what’s freaking her out.

18

Bear in mind, my co-worker was hit by a drunkie a couple weeks back, she totalled his car and the one she was driving, and it turns out she was driving on a suspended licence, so it’s entirely possible that this wasn’t her first DWI conviction

Even before this event occured, I have always had a Zero Tolerance policy on drunk driving, and it’s not something I back down on, we’ll have to agree to disagree

part of it has to do with growing up in Maine, which has very tough DWI laws/penalties

19

I’ve had a couple friends who got popped. Based on their experience: Get a lawyer. Don’t expect to be treated fairly by the courts. Fight it every step of the way. Getting convicted sucks. For years and years.

Also, assure her that getting a DUI does not make her a Nasty Horrible Worthless Murdereress, despite what she may hear from others. All the same, best to keep it quiet if you can, now and in the future.

20

Exactly. But she does need to realize that she did something seriously wrong that could easily have resulted in injury or death for her or someone else. Regardless of whether she gets convicted or not, she should think about what kind of changes she might want to make to her lifestyle to ensure this doesn’t happen again. The OP should be supportive of any changes she makes, and be ready for this to possibly mean some changes in his lifestyle as well.

Things might be OK, but they won’t be the same as they were before.