DUI - How much trouble are you in?



- How much trouble are you in when you get charged with a DUI?

- That’s what I am going to cover in this article.

- Any DUI charge is a serious criminal charge.

- However, there are levels of seriousness associated with DUI charges.

- Specifically, if the crown decides that your DUI will proceed as an indictable offence and not a summary offence, that is a much more serious categorization of your DUI charge.

- Let me explain what this means in plain English.



1/ Summary vs Indictable Offence



- First, some important context.

- In the Criminal Code of Canada, criminal charges are defined as indictable or summary offences.

- In the United States, there is a similar categorization of felonies and misdemeanours.

- Indictable offences are more serious than summary offences.

- The crimes and penalties associated with indictable offences are more serious than summary offences.

- And the legal process you go through is also significantly different.



2/ Hybrid Offences



- Finally, there is a third category of criminal offences known as hybrid offences.

- Hybrid offences give the Crown, who is the lawyer representing the Canadian government, the power to decide how they will proceed with a criminal charge.

- In other words, with a Hybrid offence, the Crown decides whether to proceed with the criminal charge as an indictable or a summary offence.

- That decision is called an “election,” and the Crown needs to make that election on the record in a formal court setting.



3/ DUI Hybrid Offence



- In Canada, DUI charges are Impaired Driving by Alcohol or Drug, Over 80 and Refusal to Take a Breathalyzer test.

- These charges are defined in the Criminal Code of Canada as hybrid offences.

- So, the Crown will decide how they want to proceed with your DUI charge.

- The Crown's decision as to whether to proceed as an indictable offence or a summary offence will be dictated by the facts about what happened.

- The more serious the facts, the more likely you are to be facing an indictable DUI offence.

- DUIs handled as indictable offences indicate that you are in much more legal jeopardy than if the Crown handled your DUI as a summary offence.



4/ Impact on DUI Pardon in Canada



- Finally, the impact of how the Crown decides to handle your DUI will have serious consequences for your ability to get a DUI Pardon in Canada, which is now called a Record Suspension.

- If you are convicted of a DUI, your conviction will be reflected in your criminal record.

- Your criminal record will be stored in the CPIC database, which is the criminal records database managed by the RCMP.

- That means your DUI conviction will be disclosed on a criminal record or any background check, which will be an obstacle for employment, volunteering or travel.

- To remove your DUI conviction, you need to get a DUI Pardon in Canada.

- There are strict rules regarding DUI Pardons in Canada and those rules are impacted by whether the Crown handled your DUI as an indictable or summary offence.

- If the Crown handled your DUI as an indictable offence, your wait time before you can get a DUI Pardon in Canada is 10 years from the completion of your sentence.

- If your DUI was handled as a summary offence, your wait time to get a DUI Pardon in Canada is only 5 years from the completion of your sentence.



https://youtu.be/FXVhkaXdFrQ https://www.nextlaw.ca/2022/10/26/dui-how-much-trouble-are-you-in/