Montgomery County DUI Cases: Prosecution

You probably won’t get a first court date in Montgomery County until about six months after the incident. If the case is continued or a jury trial is requested, then the case could extend from up to, or even over, a year. Montgomery County does do instant jury trials, meaning that when you ask for a jury trial, your case will be transferred to the circuit court immediately, sometimes that very day or perhaps the next day. However, if the case is actually going to be set for trial, then it will be continued from that first circuit court appearance.

There are two ways that the prosecution can  prove  a DUI.  The first is under 21-902(a)(1) which is an individual was operating a motor vehicle while their ability to drive was significantly impaired from the consumption of alcohol. To prove this charge the State must show that you were subjectively drunk at the time you’re operating a motor vehicle. The other way that the prosecution will go about trying to prove a DUI case is by proving 21-902(a)(2), DUI per se. To prove this charge, the prosecution needs to show that you were operating a motor vehicle with a breath alcohol content of 0.08 or higher. That second charge, the 21-902(a)(2) charge isn’t about how drunk you were; it’s about what you blew. In order to prove that case, the prosecution needs to prove that you’re operating a vehicle and that there was a validly administered sample of your breath that showed it was a 0.08 or higher. Your subjective level of impairment doesn’t factor into that test.

The officer’s testimony will be presented in court. The officer that pulled you over is going to testify as to why they stopped you, what they observed that caused them to think that they had probable cause to arrest you for suspicion of DUI, what you blew into the breathalyzer or if you blew into the breathalyzer. That’s going to be a bulk of the state’s case. If you have a defense that’s going to consist of your testimony, that could consist of other witnesses testimony or potentially it could consist of expert witnesses testimony to challenge the validity of the breath test or for some other reason.

For sentencing, they will first look to see if this is the first offense or if there are priors. For every offense, the court is going to treat an individual significantly more harshly so first offenses are going to be treated much differently than fourth or fifth offenses. The next thing that the courts are going to be looking at is the facts of the case. That can include considerations of whether there was an accident, whether there was bad driving, whether there was an attempt to leave the scene or some kind of negative interaction with law enforcement. Then prosecutors will look at BAC as well. Somebody at 0.08 would get treated significantly differently than somebody who’s higher than a 0.2. Finally, the court will look at what an individual has done subsequent to the case. The court will look at what kind of treatment an individual has done for alcohol, how seriously it looks like they’re taking this incident, what they have to say in terms of mitigation. All of those will play a factor in sentencing.