What happens if I am convicted of a DUI or DWI in Charlotte North Carolina?

North Carolina DWI Lawyer Brad Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question: What happens if I am convicted of a DUI or DWI in Charlotte North Carolina?

Question: "What happens if I am convicted of a DUI or DWI in Charlotte North Carolina?"

Brad Smith:

If you are convicted of a DWI a judge will conduct a sentencing hearing on you. He will sentence you as either a level one, level two, level three, level four or level five. And his judgment as far as level one being the most severe judgment and level five being the least severe judgment.

Your sentence will depend on a number of things, but basically if you have any prior DWI convictions your sentence will be more severe, the amount of time that you go to jail will be more severe.

If you don’t have any driving while impaired convictions, you have a clean driving record then a standard judgment for somebody that’s a first time offender, that didn’t have a child in the car, that the incident didn’t result in an accident, no one was hurt then your typical judgment is that you would lose your drivers license for a year, you have to do either 24 hours of community service or 24 hours in jail, you are placed on probation for a period of time, which is usually about 12 months, you are required to do some alcohol classes, pay the costs for court and a fine.

That is generally what a judgment is when you don’t have any other what are called grossly aggravating factors present