| peco,
I'm from Louisiana, and the entire extent of my criminal career was a DWI I received in 1995. Long story short, I didn't hire a lawyer, and before I was even arraigned I contacted the DA's office...I assume now that since I was non-represented, an ADA talked to me. What I did was, in hindsight, probably not the wisest thing to do, but in my case, I did the crime, I knew that I did it, and I knew exactly how wrong it was, so I had no qualms about speaking with the prosecutor about it. Believe it or not, I felt bad about it, and not bad about it for me...in fact, I kept thinking how extremely lucky I was to not be saying "Oh, if I only had the chance to do this all over again" after I had killed some family riding down the road. Anyway, my main question to the ADA was if he could kinda let me know what I would be expecting in the way of driver's license suspension because I wanted to plead guilty as soon as possible, which he quickly told me. Then, he did for me what I consider to be a huge favor...he said for me to "plead guilty as a first offender, and ask the judge to be allowed to do so under Article 894 (I think that's the #)".
By the time it was court day, I found out that I was "represented" by a Public Defender (who I never laid eyes on to this day), in that his fees were part of my fine, monetary fees, etc. Well, I was nervous as could be, and the judge called up "all first offense DWIs that were pleading guilty". We all (four) walked up and were sentenced at the same time. I never even had a chance to request anything, but I didn't need to because the judge hit us all with the same punishment (best I can recall it was like $500.00 fine, 32 hours community service, attend a victim's impact panel meeting and pay for that, attend a safe driving school and pay for that, suspended license for 90 days (30 days I could drive with a slip he gave me, 30 days I could drive to work on certain specific routes and times, and 30 days NO DRIVING WHATSOEVER!), a year unsupervised probation plus paying I believe $20/month for that, pay for the Intoxilyzer test, pay court costs, pay public defender fee, etc. About $1500 to $2000 total, I think). Well, the judge also explained that we were pleading under Art. 894, which meant two huge things: one was if you kept clean for a year, the charges were "dropped", and two, that our vehicle insurance would not find out about it. There were some other few things, also, like that even if we went the year and had the charges "dropped" ( I wish I remembered the exact term...it doesn't seem to be "diverted", but moreso a similar term that meant about the same thing), we would still be considered as getting a second offense DWI if we repeated w/in 5 years (10 now). It seems like I was told that in later years, if my DL was run by law enforcement, they would see that I "had submitted to test in 1995", and that was all, but I don't know for sure. Oh, and in addition to the guilty plea, they dropped all of our collateral charges that accompanied the DWI's, as in improper lane usage, etc.
The gist of all this jabbering is that I would think that it could be possible for you to do this on your own, but believe me if the preservation of your immaculate record concerns you and there is possible mitigation available, I'd invest in the lawyer. In my case we were all given that break together, so I am more inclined to believe that this was simply the same punishment given in all or in the bulk of "standard" 1st offense DWIs. Also, the Public Defender, who none of us ever saw but all were technically represented by, may have arranged this deal, kinda like en bulk. He may never show up court, or he may have just been out that day, I just don't know what to attribute that to.
So, let me say this and hope that the truly smart people on this forum will correct me if I am wrong: Since you are currently not represented, why don't you make an appointment and speak to an ADA and ask him if his office would be amenable to your guilty plea under this diversion program. It seems like there are MANY things wrong with that bit of advice there, with the entire previous sentence as a matter of fact, but maybe in this specific case of a pretty minor charge and with you quite willing to plead under a diversion program, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be allowed to. Again, though, you would DEFINITELY be much better off with counsel. I would think that maybe you should speak with the DA's office and go from there.
I am pretty sure that I'll be promptly checked by someone pretty quickly if the advice I gave is bad here.
Finally, I can, in hindsight, say with absolute honesty that the DWI I received was most definitely a good thing. I didn't stop drinking then (although I did, flat out, later on in about 1999), BUT I NEVER drove under the influence ever again. All I can do is thank God that I never hurt anyone else due to driving drunk. The fine, the fees, the assignments were all much more than fair, and it was a shame that I had to be arrested for something to stop doing it!! The diversionary aspect of my sentencing along with the fact that my auto insurance company never found out about it are two things that I consider HUGE gifts!! Think about it....we all pay for insurance, and drunk drivers getting in accidents surely raise fees astronomically....so, my getting a break there was at the potential expense of every insurance customer. That is quite a favor, so please remember if you DO get into a diversion program that you are extermely lucky to do so, and never repeat it again.
Hope this helps you out in some way. |
07-13-2005, 07:36 AM
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