Can A DUI Be A Felony In PA?

From Slatington to Coopersburg, New Tripoli to Emmaus, Hellertown to Walnutport, Bethlehem to Easton, prosecutors aggressively pursue charges against people suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (DUI).

DUI penalties in Lehigh County and Northampton County are harsh and may involve jail time, long license suspensions, and steep fines.  A typical DUI may be charged as a misdemeanor.  However, certain DUIs cases be a felony, which means longer jail time, higher fines, longer license suspensions, and many other consequences.

Under Pennsylvania’s DUI laws, a misdemeanor DUI means the person is suspected of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol and it is their 1^st or 2^nd offense.  A 3^rd DUI offense under Pennsylvania law becomes a felony. 

However, there are a bunch of considerations when determining this.  For example, convictions count, not just being charged.  If you got charged with a 1^st DUI in the past and the case was totally dismissed at the preliminary hearing, then you were not convicted, nor even placed in a first offenders program.  This means that if you get charged again, it would be charged as a 1^st offense. 

Another consideration is the look-back period, which is 10 years in Pa.  This means that for a DUI to be charged as a felony 3^rd offense, you must have been convicted of a DUI in Pa or another state at least twice in the prior ten years. 

Yet another consideration is that the first offenders’ program in Pa, called ARD, when completed is not a criminal conviction and actually results in a dismissal of the case (and usually expungement). 

Therefore, if you got a 1st DUI within the last 10 years, received and completed ARD for that case, and then got charged again a couple of years later, that new case would be charged as a first offense, for purposes of mandatory minimum sentencing.  The next one, within 10 years, would be charged as a 2^nd offense, and so forth. 

A separate way that a DUI case in Pa can result in being charged as a felony is if serious harm results.  There is a charge called homicide by vehicle/DUI.  It is defined as unintentionally causing a person’s death while driving under the influence. This is a 2nd-degree felony with a maximum of ten years but also a mandatory minimum incarceration period of 3 years for each person killed.

Another way that a DUI case in Pa can be charged as a felony is a DUI-related accident where no one dies but it causes serious bodily injury.  This is called Aggravated assault by vehicle/DUI. 

There is a lot that a DUI attorney can do, starting with reviewing the sequence of what occurred with the police.  The stakes are high when you’ve reached the felony level of a DUI and therefore most people in that instance must start examining for legal challenges.  There are always legal challenges to make, but the issue for a criminal defense attorney is whether to raise those challenges when to raise them and how to raise them.