How is the Washington DUI Court Process?
Reader’s Question:
I was charged with DUI here in Washington State and I want to know what will come my way with regard to my criminal prosecution. How does a court process a trial for DUI?
Brad
Vancouver, WA
Successfully navigating your way through a criminal prosecution for DUI in Washington State requires a clear understanding of the DUI court process. If you know what is coming your way, it would greatly reduce the amount of stress you feel when fighting a DUI charge.
Your Court first appearance is called the Arraignment. It is when you are formally told about the charges against you. You may already know what the charge is before you even enter the Courtroom in the case of DUI. But there could be additional charges that you were unaware of like infractions for bad driving or additional criminal charges the prosecution filed after your arrest for DUI.
The next step would be Pre-Trial Hearings that place at Court and in front of a Judge. The Judge wants to know what the status of the case is during a pre-trial, whether the prosecutor or defense want to enter a Guilty Plea, want to set a time for a Motion Hearing, or want to have a trial or they don’t know what they want and are simply asking for more time.
The next stage would be Motion Hearings. These are written legal arguments on why evidence in your case (sometimes the whole case) should be thrown out. There are potentially a lot of motions that could be filed in a criminal case. Your DUI lawyer would know which ones (if any) apply to your specific facts.
Your next court date will be for Trials which come in two flavor, Bench and Jury. A bench trial is a trial where the Judge decides everything. A Jury trial is a trial where six people (twelve in the case of a Felony) decide what the facts are and the Judge decides what the law is. The outcome of these trials would be either you win or lose. If you win your DUI case, you go home. If you lose, you will typically (though not always) end up with a little more jail time and a little more fines than if you had plead guilty.
It’s something for you and your DUI lawyer to decide if all of these are worth taking the risk rather than pleading guilty during the Arraignment of your DUI case.
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