July 2010 Changes To DUI Law

A new set of DUI sentencing laws went into effect in Colorado in the summer of 2010. The new law increases sentences for drivers who are charged with a second or subsequent DUI or DWAI offense, regardless of the age of the prior. House Bill 1347 took effect on July 1, 2010, and is another in a long train of legislation to increase penalties in DUI cases. This piece of legislation grew from a legislative effort that was originally aimed at making second or subsequent DUI offenses into felony cases in the state of Colorado. The effort to reclassify these cases as felonies ultimately failed, but Colorado drivers will be confronted with significantly increased penalties for second and subsequent DUI offenders, even though the classification a second or subsequent DUI still remains a misdemeanor traffic offense.

The law is complicated and makes a number of changes to the existing DUI sentencing structure, but the most significant changes will be felt by drivers who have been previously convicted, in any state at any time, for an alcohol-related driving offense. For example: under the new law, drivers who are arrested for the alcohol-related offenses of Driving Under the Influence and Driving While Ability Impaired by alcohol will face mandatory jail penalties that must be imposed for any alcohol-related conviction. A driver who has a single prior alcohol-related offense within five years of their new arrest will have to serve a minimum of ten days in the County Jail, in addition to completing a lengthy probationary period of alcohol treatment, monitored sobriety, and community service. Before the new law, this same driver would have faced similar penalties, but would have been able to ask the judge presiding over his case for permission to serve his ten-day jail sentence through a day-reporting work program, or on house arrest, or to serve his jail sentence in several smaller chunks of time so as not to disrupt his employment. As of July 1, 2010, jail means jail—at least ten consecutive days in the County Jail—and none of these other options are possible. And for drivers who have had more than one prior alcohol related conviction in their lifetimes, no matter how long ago, the new statute is even tougher: these drivers get a mandatory minimum of sixty days, served consecutively in a single stretch, in the County Jail.