OTHER DUI/DWI RESOURCES

No Jail - Alternative Sentencing

Choices to confinement in California include alcohol and drug rehabilitation and sober living surroundings, electronic surveillance and house arrest, work release and work furlough, community service, Cal-Trans work, graffiti removal, and many more. There are pros and cons to each, and a educated California DUI trial lawyer can aid you decide which is best, and make certain that these choices are available to you.

Time spent in an alcohol and drug healing center, or a sober living environment, is plainly authorized by the Penal Code. It is startling how few criminal defense trial lawyers understand the operation of Penal Code Section 2900.5, and that even fewer criminal defense attorneys avail themselves of this section for the benefit of their clients.

California Penal Code Section 2900.5 authorizes time spent in a psychotherapy office building or sober living to be credited upon a term of confinement in all felony and misdemeanor convictions. This is right where both pre-sentence credits and post-sentence credits; this means that alcohol psychoanalysis environments or sober living environments are selections to pursue while the case is awaiting, or after sentencing.

Even in cases where mandatory jail time is set, Penal Code Section 2900.5f explicitly allows time spent in alcohol rehabilitation programs to satisfy these mandatory least jail terms.

The office building in California must be "custodial" (which includes rehabilitation facilities, halfway houses, and sober living environments), and that the custody be due to the actions about the same conduct for which the defendant has been accused or convicted. Consulting a qualified California criminal defense lawyer with skill in sentencing choices will be able to help you in deciding the proper alternative sentencing option that will be finest in the particular case.

Electronic checking or house arrest is another sentencing choice that may be available. Because many of the electronic checking programs now include alcohol testing, courts are progressively more allowing these sentencing alternatives, especially because the jail overcrowding which is endemic in many counties.

There is usually a cost associated with electronic monitoring or house arrest, and this is typically on a sliding scare based on the defendant's ability to pay. Just as with other forms of alternative sentencing, must consult with a criminal defense attorney who is educated in all aspects of different sentencing. Darren Kavinoky is just such a criminal defense lawyer, whose practice is entirely committed to criminal defense matters. Please call upon us for a session in California at no cost or responsibility to explore your choices.