Finally, the point has happened. You have tempted fate one too many times, and it has caught up with you. Following one more hard night of drinking, you were at last detained by the police, whether in Kent, Tacoma, Federal Way, Seattle, or any other municipality, and seized for driving under the influence (driving under the influence).
The consequences of your dealings haven’t hit you until now. The risk of losing your driving privileges, the embarrassment of having to use an ignition interlock mechanism, the scrutiny from family, acquaintances, and coworkers, and the broad shame of the whole thing. Not to mention the cash - legal fees, fines, court expenses, treatment expenses. It seems like a pretty futile circumstance. You ought to know your options going forward.
One of the possible choices for you is called differed prosecution. It is only offered in restricted conditions, however, and meeting the criteria will require a lot of self-reflection and coming to grips with reality. Differed prosecution in Seattle is defined as the name connotes: prosecution for your Seattle DUI accusation is differed for a set quantity of time (customarily five years) so you can have an chance to get help, get treatment, and turn your reputation around.
And yes, I said treatment. Here is the kicker of differed prosecution: you have to be diagnosed by a professional as an alcoholic and acquiesce to undertake fairly deep alcohol abuse treatment. That is your give to the prosecution’s give of holding off prosecution for your DUI. And the advantages to this route are large: no loss of driver’s license; no penitentiary time; no DUI on your record; no requirement of increased insurance payments; no fine; and you get the chance to turn your life around.
To become qualified for differed prosecution, one must hop through various hoops and implore the court for endorsement (I believe it is out of the prosecutor’s hands, which is nice). Once the court approves the implore, you are going to need to comply with the provisions for five years before the drunk driving will be dismissed. If you are going to follow this choice, it should be clear that you will ought a Seattle DUI lawyer to assist you.
One point to take into account here, as this editorial draws to an ending, is that this is not an option for a person that is not an alcoholic. Differed prosecution was enacted into law for a goal: the government understood that in some instances a drunk driving happens not from carelessness but from a true physical problem. Instead of merely shipping these people off to prison, they wanted to present an way to combat that addiction and ending the sequence of abusive drinking. If you are not an alcoholic, this opportunity is not for you. Not only do you have to acknowledge to being an alcoholic, but you must undergo five years of pretty intense treatment. And if you fall short, you have to deal with the costs of your DUI, as you’ve already admitted to the facts of the driving under the influence (a prerequisite of differed prosecution).
Differed prosecution is not something to take frivolously. If you are contemplating it, chat about it with a DUI lawyer in Seattle. They will be able to make the penalties obvious.