Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi there, I'm Charley Mann, and I'm here with Northern Virginia criminal defense attorney
James Abrenio. Now, James, one of the questions that I'm sure you get from potential clients:
on a first time DWI offense or DUI offense, they're coming in scared and saying, "James,
am I going to jail for a year because of this offense?" Because, it that, first off, a possibility?
Well, a DUI in Virginia is a class one misdemeanor. So, what that means is the General Assembly
of Virginia said, "We authorize a court to sentence somebody to a year in jail for a
DUI." That doesn't necessarily mean, and frankly it doesn't mean that you're gonna get a year
in jail. For a first time DUI that'd be very very unusual. A lot of the time is, for the
first offense you're not even necessarily focused on the jail time itself. It's really
the court's concern about making sure you don't do it again. So, other things like license
suspension, ASAP, and all these other consequences are really the focus.