Informal DUI Arraignment Hearing
Once you have gone through the process of being booked on the charges of DUI, you will mostly likely have to spend a night in jail. The next phase requires you to stand before a judge at an informal arraignment hearing which usually takes place the following day. During this process, the city or county judge will ask you to stand and tell you what you have been charged with. Upon reading you the citation, they will then set a bail amount for you at their own discretion, and inform you of the date you will be required to report in for your official preliminary hearing.
If the circumstances of your arrest are as such that there are no aggravated circumstances surrounding your arrest, then in many cases they will release you. However, if the circumstances of your DUI resulted in a vehicle accident, you damaged someone’s personal property, caused a serious life threatening injury to a pedestrian or caused the death of another person while intoxicated behind the wheel, the judge will not release you but will keep you in custody for a period not to exceed 10 calendar day. Concurrently, if you were found to be in possession of illegal drugs such as narcotics, you will more than likely remain in the county jail.
In either case, your car will have been impounded and you will have to make alternate travel arrangements. It is important to note that even after the 10 days has expired, the presiding judge can deny bail and keep you in custody until the scheduled hearing date. This hearing may be within 7 – 14 days and if you are released during this time on bail and fail to report in, a warrant will be issued for your arrest.
As soon as you are released, you should start searching for a DUI lawyer so they will have adequate time to access and read the crimes you have been charged with and start preparing a defense strategy on your behalf. Highly experienced, private defense attorneys cost more than public defenders. Should you decide to retain the counsel of one, be prepared to pay their fees. If you do not have access to any cash in savings or cannot seem to come up with the money, just tell the judge or court officials that you would like to get a public defender assigned to your criminal case.
Many folks have reservations when it comes to using the legal services of a public defender. Some think they are not really invested in your defense. The choice is up to you to decide based on your ability to meet the financial costs of the lawyer’s legal fees. It you don’t have any money to hire the best DUI defense lawyer in the area, you are better off using a public defender since it is better to have some legal representation than none at all. The success of failure of a case depends on the skills and experience of the representing attorney. For this reason, you should enlist the best legal help money can buy if you can. Once your arraignment is complete, you will either be released or escorted back to your jail cell depending on the circumstances of the initial arrest.
