If you hurt or kill someone while driving under the influence, you will likely be charged with a felony offense.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, drunk driving is a serious problem in our country. In 2014, nearly 10,000 people were killed by drunk drivers in the United States. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has further determined that every two minutes, someone is injured in a drunk driving accident. Undoubtedly, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is very serious and is a significant cause of many deaths and injuries on American roads.
We know that drunk driving is a very grave problem in California and throughout the U.S. Ideally, nobody would ever drive while intoxicated or impaired. There are times when someone makes the poor decision to drive after drinking alcohol or using drugs, however, and the impact is incredibly serious — affecting not just the driver, but other people that he or she may have hurt or killed.
So what happens if you hurt someone when you are driving drunk? The answer depends on who is hurt, and how badly they have been injured. If only you (the driver) were injured, then the case will be charged as a regular DUI, and will not be enhanced to a “DUI Causing Injury.” The way that this type of DUI is charged will depend on a number of factors, including how intoxicated the driver was, if other factors were present to justify an “enhancement,” and if it is your first, second, third or fourth DUI. As a general rule and without any enhancements or prior convictions, DUIs are charged as misdemeanor offenses. In many cases, a DUI lawyer in Tustin, CA may be able to work out a plea deal to have the charge reduced or even dismissed.
However, if you cause an injury to anyone other than yourself — such as a passenger, a pedestrian or someone in another car — then you could be charged with a DUI causing injury. A prosecutor can choose to charge this as either a misdemeanor or felony offense. The state will have to prove that you were violating California’s DUI laws, that you broke an additional law or otherwise acted in a negligent manner, and that your actions injured another person. A conviction for this charge will likely result much more significant consequences than a regular DUI conviction. The actual penalty will depend on the facts of the case, such as how serious the injury was and whether additional factors were present.
If someone died as a result of your drunk driving, then the prosecutor could elect to charge you with one of three different crimes: vehicular manslaughter, gross vehicular manslaughter, or DUI murder (also known as Watson murder). How this case is charged will depend on a number of factors, such as whether or not you had a prior DUI offense, just how negligent your behavior was, and how intoxicated or impaired you were while driving. Vehicular manslaughter can be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor, while DUI murder is always a felony charge.
If you have been charged with a DUI involving injury or death to another person, you will need high quality, experienced attorneys to defend you. A DUI lawyer in Tustin, CA can help ensure that your legal rights are protected by holding the prosecutor to his or her burden of proving each element of the crime and by putting together a defense to the charges against you. Contact the Chambers Law Firm at 714-760-4088 or dchambers@clfca.com to learn more about how we can help you if you have been charged with a DUI causing injury, vehicular manslaughter or DUI murder. Initial consultations are always free!
