Driving under the influence (DUI) is a priorable offense, meaning the penalties for a second or subsequent offense are harsher than those of the first. A 3rd DUI usually results in a lengthy jail sentence, which can be scary if you face these charges. The duration of the incarceration depends on your case’s special circumstances, although an experienced DUI attorney can negotiate a jail sentence reduction or eliminate the incarceration. Below is the jail sentence for 3rd DUI offenses, aggravating factors, other legal penalties, and your options to prevent a guilty verdict.

3rd DUI Jail Sentence

DUI legal penalties are usually harsh and increase with the criminal record. A third offense within ten years from the prior guilty verdict is persecuted more harshly than a first or second violation. DUI without injury or death is categorized as simple DUI; hence, prosecutors file the offense as a misdemeanor. When convicted for this offense within the lookback period of your prior offense, you will face a minimum of one hundred and twenty days and no more than twelve months of confinement in the county jail. Sometimes, incarceration can happen in the local jail where the violation occurred, not necessarily in a county jail. Chances are you will serve the sentence in the jail where you were detained first before arraignment.

However, the presiding judge retains the discretion on the length of jail time you will serve based on your case’s circumstances. Based on the circumstances and your defenses, you can convince the judge to sentence you to probation or house arrest to avoid jail incarceration.

Aggravating Factors

Your penalties for a third DUI depend on the circumstances leading to the arrest. Usually, you risk a jail term of ninety days to 120 months. However, aggravating circumstances in the case could increase your penalties or result in a felony charge. Aggravating circumstances refer to factors present in the offense that make it more dangerous. The common aggravating circumstances are:

Excessive BAC

If the content of alcohol in your blood is above .15%, the judge will impose the maximum jail sentence. However, if the BAC is at or slightly above .08%, you will face lesser penalties, including a short jail sentence, than the party with an excessive BAC.

DUI Involving a Minor as a Passenger

Drunk or drugged driving when a child is in the vehicle is considered reckless as it endangers the life of the child. Therefore, the court imposes enhanced penalties if the minor was 14 or younger during the drunk driving arrest.

Declining to Submit Samples for Chemical Testing

Refusing to take a blood or breath test after arrest violates the implied consent law and often leads to penalty enhancement. If you decline to take these tests, the court will use these as aggravating factors to increase your penalties.

Other aggravating factors are:

  • DUI causing death or injury
  • DUI causing property damage
  • Overspeeding or reckless driving

These circumstances mean you face harsher penalties than the standard ones, including additional time behind bars.

Third DUI as a Felony

VEH 23550.5 permits prosecutors to file a fourth DUI as a felony. Generally, a fourth DUI is a wobbler, allowing the prosecutor to lodge it as a misdemeanor or felony. Depending on the circumstances of the case, the prosecutor can file felony charges.

Therefore, the offense is a misdemeanor if you are charged with a third DUI. However, the offense can become a felony if drunk or drugged driving leads to a car accident that leaves the victims with severe injuries or death. The confinement for a misdemeanor conviction differs from that of a felony conviction. Normally, a third DUI results in no more than twelve months of jail confinement. Nevertheless, when the offense is a third DUI with injuries, it becomes a felony. A guilty verdict results in confinement in a state prison for sixteen, 24, or 36 months. The length of incarceration depends on the injuries obtained by the victim, your criminal record, and mitigating or aggravating circumstances.

Your third drunk driving offense will also be filed as a felony if your previous conviction was for a felony violation.

Additionally, your third DUI will be charged as vehicular manslaughter under PEN 191.5b if you displayed extremely reckless conduct that caused loss of life. Vehicular manslaughter while impaired attracts 16, 24, or 48 months of prison incarceration. The DA prefers the charge if your behavior while driving portrayed simple negligence.

If the misconduct during the arrest leading to the third DUI were deemed as gross negligence by the prosecutor, you would face charges under PEN 191.5a, which is also a felony but attracts more extended prison incarceration. A guilty verdict for violating these statutes will attract 48, 72, or 120 months of prison confinement. You face the charge if the prosecutor shows that you understood the nature of your conduct and the danger involved and that a sober individual would not have engaged in the same as they understood someone would likely be hurt.

For the DA to obtain a guilty verdict, they must prove you illegally ended the life of another person by acting with wanton disregard for human life and that at the time of driving, you violated VEH 23152, VEH 23140, and 23153. Additionally, the prosecutor should prove that death was the proximate result of your illegal conduct or lawful action, likely to cause death, or was performed illegally.

In other cases, your 3rd drinking and driving offense could result in second-degree murder charges under PC 187. You face the charges if the prosecutor can prove that you had malice aforethought or acted with wanton disregard for life when you drunk and drove, causing an accident that killed someone. Examples of conduct that amounts to malice aforethought or conscious disregard of life include overspeeding on the wrong route of a one-way street when drunk, causing an accident that results in the loss of life. 

Besides, the fact that you have two prior guilty verdicts for DUI shows that you had implied consent during the drunk driving, even though on the day of the accidents that caused the death, you were simply negligent and not acting with malice aforethought.

DUI second-degree homicide, also called Watson murder, is the harshest DUI charge because a conviction results in at least fifteen years of prison confinement. It means that under certain circumstances where the prosecutor can establish malice aforethought in your 3rd DUI, causing death, you can go to prison for over fifteen years if they prefer Watson murder charges and the judge finds you guilty.

Other Third DUI Penalties

Apart from jail or prison confinement, other penalties for a 3rd time drinking and driving conviction are:

  • Thirty-six to sixty months of summary probation
  • $2,500 to $3,000 in court fines and penalty evaluation fees
  • Mandatory installation of an ignition interlock device (IID) for twenty-four months
  • Two and half years of court-certified DUI school
  • 36 months of driving privileges suspension, which you can convert into eighteen months of a critical use DL.

Sometimes, instead of the judge sentencing you to serve a jail sentence, they can introduce alternative sentencing depending on your case’s circumstances. Alternative sentencing options include probation or drug or alcohol treatment. The court imposes rehabilitation or probation in place of jail incarceration because these programs help address the main problem triggering your offenses, like alcohol or controlled substance addiction. If you are treated for addiction, you can prevent future DUI offenses more than a person who is sentenced to jail.

Probationary terms are usually strict, and they include:

  • Operating a car with undetectable blood alcohol levels
  • Agreeing to chemical testing when apprehended for drunk or drugged driving suspicions
  • Avoiding further crimes
  • Attending alcohol or narcotics anonymous classes
  • Paying victim restitution

Each case's probationary terms are unique and depend on your special situation.

A house arrest is another alternative to a jail sentence. The drug treatment options available are live-in, but they are better than spending time in jail.

The worst consequence of jail incarceration after conviction is job loss. Skipping work for several days can result in job loss. Luckily, your attorney can negotiate for a work release in the last 120 days of your sentence, enabling you to leave jail in the day for seven to ten hours of work. Nevertheless, the option is available if you hold a job where you work for at least 35 weekly hours.

Avoiding Jail After a Third Drunk or Drugged Driving Offense

You can avoid jail confinement for a third DUI through alternative sentencing like house arrest, probation, rehabilitation, or work release furlough. Nevertheless, your best option for retaining freedom is through defeating the DUI accusations against you in court. An experienced attorney can negotiate for a charge or sentence reduction if you cannot beat the charges.

The defense strategies your attorney can mount to prevent a guilty verdict and possible jail time are:

  1. The Arrest Occurred at an Illegal Sobriety Checkpoint

All traffic stops for drunk driving must happen at a legal DUI or sobriety checkpoint. A legal checkpoint must meet certain conditions, including:

  • The checkpoint must be publicly advertised in advance
  • It must be in a reasonable location
  • It must have proper signage
  • Supervising officers should make all operational decisions
  • It must have sufficient security measures
  • The detention period must be minimal

If the checkpoint does not satisfy this criteria, an arrest here is unlawful, and you can use this as a defense against your 3rd DUI count to avoid a guilty verdict and jail confinement. Also, the evidence obtained in an unlawful sobriety checkpoint is illegal and inadmissible in court, leading to charge dismissal.

  1. The Stopping Officer Lacked Probable Cause

Police need plausible reasons for a traffic stop and probable cause for an arrest. For instance, an officer must observe your driving pattern, and if you are speeding, driving recklessly, or on the wrong side, they have reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop. If, after the stop, the officer observes signs of intoxication, they will have probable cause for an arrest. When these are absent in your case, it means the officers engaged in misconduct during the arrest, the evidence provided in court will be dismissed, and a conviction prevented.

  1. False Positive Readings

The breathalyzer or chemical test equipment is not always accurate, and your BAC can be read as above the designated limit when it is within the legal limit. False readings are usually due to poorly calibrated or maintained testing devices. Also, it could be due to a health condition like GERD, which can cause the breath test to read a false high when you are not impaired. However, for the defense to work, your attorney must provide device maintenance records to show they were not sufficiently maintained; hence, the results are unreliable. Besides, you can present medical records to show you have GERD and have a medical expert testify on how the condition could interfere with the accurate reading of the breathalyzer test.

  1. Rising Blood Alcohol

The levels of alcohol in your system continue to rise even after you stop drinking. When you drink alcohol, your BAC rises steadily for 30 to 120 minutes. Therefore, if you are stopped for drinking and driving suspicions within this period, the tests can indicate a falsely high result when it is below the standard.

For instance, you drink four beers at eight o'clock in the evening. At 8:15 pm, you decide to drive home. Around 8:30, an officer stops you at a sobriety checkpoint and, upon investigation, notices that your breath smells of alcohol and your eyes are red. The officer takes you to the nearest station for a breathalyzer test. At 8:40, the test results turn out positive at .09%. Under these circumstances, you can argue it was only a few minutes after drinking when the tests were conducted and that the slightly positive results were due to rising blood alcohol.

Other defenses include:

  • Failure to correctly administer field sobriety tests
  • Medical conditions that caused intoxication signs like red eyes or unsteady posture led officers to conclude you were driving while intoxicated
  • Contaminated blood samples lead to false readings
  • Procedural errors during arrest or breath and chemical testing that make the results inaccurate

Find a Competent DUI Defense Lawyer Near Me

A third conviction for drinking and driving can result in at most twelve months of confinement in jail. However, the incarceration period could increase if the offense is a felony, leading to lengthy prison incarceration. If you want to learn more about the jail confinement duration for your offense and how to avoid the sentence, talk to an experienced DUI lawyer for legal representation. At the Law Offices of Jonathan Franklin, we will explain more about your charges and best defenses to avoid a conviction. Call us at 310-273-9600 to discuss your case in Los Angeles City.