Legal Question in DUI Law in Washington

An example of successful DUI defense

In law �winning� is a relative term. Clearly a dismissal is a win. However there are many other situations that can also be considered wins. For example I had a client who had just turned 21 and got himself a DUI along with a possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia charge.

Within a few weeks of his first DUI arrest he received a second DUI, and of course the accompanying driving with license suspended charge, a driving with no ignition interlock charge, another possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia charge.

While I was in the process of handling all of these charges he received a third DUI and an additional driving with license suspended charge, a driving with no ignition interlock charge, another possession of marijuana charge, and a drug paraphernalia charge.

This time the judge kept him in custody after his arrest and honestly I expected that he would not see the light of day for quite some time. However both luck and good lawyering were on his side. I was able to negotiate with each of the prosecutors on his cases.

On the first set of charges he pled guilty to DUI and received the mandatory minimum sentence of one day in jail. The possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia charges were dismissed in return for his guilty plea.

On the second set of charges I was able to negotiate an amendment to reckless driving with an agreed sentence of 10 days in jail. The remainder of the charges were dismissed in return for his guilty plea to the reckless driving.

We wrapped the third set of charges into a deferred prosecution so that they would be dismissed upon his successful completion of alcohol and drug treatment. Because each of the sentences were served in jail concurrently he only spent 10 days in jail. I got him into a deferred prosecution program where I knew the program director would make him address is alcohol and drug issues or send him back to jail for a long time. He decided sobriety was far better than jail and has now successfully completed all of this treatment and complied with all of the court orders.

Instead of being a habitual traffic offender with a revoked license, he now has his driver�s license and drives to and from work on a daily basis. I�m happy to say that the roads are much safer today than they were when I first met him. In this particular case everyone wins.