If you have been arrested for OWI/DUI in Lake County, Porter County, LaPorte County, or elsewhere in Northwest Indiana, we invite you to contact us to hear our plan for your best defense. Eliminate the fear of the unknown and hire the DUI lawyer Indiana. Call the Stracci Law Group today.
With decades of high-profile OWI/DUI experience, there isn’t a situation that the Stracci Law Group hasn’t already seen and defended. Whether you received your OWI/DUI at a roadblock or driving a jet ski, left the scene, or the unthinkable occurred and someone died as a result of a crash you were involved in, we’ve seen it and defended it. We will protect you from poor, overreaching, or unconstitutional law enforcement practices. We are a leader in innovative OWI/DUI defense practices in NWI.
We often dispute the accuracy of breath test results and the alleged refusal of breath tests. Our team regularly pushes the envelope and successfully utilizes aggressive legal techniques challenging such practices as the validity of a blood draw without a valid search warrant, disputing hospital blood draw and urine screening procedures and lab results for alcohol and controlled substances, or attacking the constitutionality of sobriety checkpoints just to name a few.
There is a reason public officials, judges, police officers, and even other Crown Point DUI lawyers call Paul Stracci when they or their loved one get into trouble. Don’t you deserve the same high-quality defense team those people do? Call the Stracci Law Group at 219-525-1000, so we can get started helping you get your license back today!
If you have been arrested for DUI/OWI, you first need to know what you are charged with and the potential penalties. The most important question is whether you are facing misdemeanor or felony charges. While even a misdemeanor conviction can have serious consequences (see below), if you are being charged with a felony, you could be facing years, maybe even decades, behind bars.
Some of the most common circumstances leading to felony DUI/OWI charges include:
Learn more about the DUI/OWI Laws and penalties in Indiana:
“Intoxication” Charges:
“Per Se” Charges: Charges that don’t require the State to prove that you were intoxicated (an impaired condition of thought and action and the loss of normal control of your faculties). The State merely needs to prove that you had the specified amount of alcohol, controlled substance, or its metabolite in your blood while you operated a motor vehicle or watercraft.
Whether you were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint or the police pulled you over on the highway, the consequences of your arrest (and a possible conviction) are the same. These consequences may include suspension of your driver’s license prior to and following a conviction, as well as the threat of jail time, fines, court costs, costly substance abuse classes, probation, other penalties such as the installation of Ignition Interlock Devices, GPS, and SCRAM monitoring devices. While the specific penalties you are facing depend on your criminal history and the exact charges against you, even a “standard” first-time OWI/DUI requires a comprehensive and strategic legal defense with an experienced Lake County OWI attorney.
Learn more about the consequences of getting convicted for OWI/DUI in Indiana:
CDL drivers are held to a higher standard. Indiana Code IC 9-24-6.1-6 states a CDL driver can be charged with an OWI in his commercial vehicle with a blood-alcohol level as low as .04. Additionally, if a CDL licensed driver gets an OWI in a personal vehicle, Specialized Driving Privileges will not allow the person to drive their commercial vehicle.
The Alcohol and Tobacco Commission (ATC) for the state of Indiana regulates alcohol license holders. If you have had any OWI or DUI charges within the past 10 years, this may affect your application process. Additionally, you risk losing your alcohol license if you receive an OWI.
Indiana Code IC 9-30-10 provides serious penalties for drivers who have repeatedly committed traffic offenses over a 10-year period. 10-year suspensions can result from 1) two major offenses resulting in injury or death, 2) three major offenses, or 3) none traffic violations plus one major offense.
Indiana Code § 9-30-15.5-2 states that the State may seek to have a person sentenced as a habitual vehicular substance offender for any vehicular substance offense by alleging that the person has accumulated two (2) or three (3) prior unrelated vehicular substance offense convictions.
Indiana Law states a person may not operate a motor vehicle in Indiana if financial responsibility is not in effect with respect to the motor vehicle operated, or the person is not otherwise insured to operate the motor vehicle. All motorists that operate a motor vehicle on Indiana roadways are required to maintain the state’s minimum amount of liability insurance coverage for the vehicle they operate. The state of Indiana has a 25/50/25 minimum liability insurance requirement. This required minimum coverage includes $25,000 for bodily injury to or the death of one (1) individual, $50,000 for bodily injury to or the death of two (2) or more individuals in any one (1) accident, and $25,000 for damage to or the destruction of property in one (1) accident.
Sobriety checkpoints are legal in Indiana and do not violate the Indiana Constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizure, but there are very specific rules for conducting and enforcing them. Typically, sobriety stops are of a short duration of between thirty (30) seconds to two (2) minutes. They are set up at temporary, random locations and must not last longer than is reasonably necessary. Checkpoints must be publicized ahead of time.
Under Indiana’s Implied Consent Law, if a driver refuses to submit to a properly offered chemical test, their driver’s license will be suspended for a minimum of one (1) year. I.C. 9-30-16-6(b) permits the court to terminate all or part of a refusal suspension if the court finds that it is “in the best interests of society.”
If your driving privileges are suspended upon conviction of certain court-related offenses or for insurance violations, Indiana law may require you to hold SR22 insurance. The SR22 form demonstrates that you have a motor vehicle insurance policy that meets the state’s minimum standards, and it cannot be canceled without prior notice given to the Indiana BMV.
A person whose driving privileges have been suspended by the BMV for an OWI may petition the court for Specialized Driving Privileges. At Stracci Law Group, it is our goal to avoid the suspension completely, if possible. The sooner you contact us, the sooner we can begin fighting for you.
An ignition interlock device (“IID”) is a device that is attached to a vehicle which prevents the vehicle from starting without the operator blowing into the device to measure the operator’s blood alcohol concentration (“BAC”). An IID will prevent a vehicle from starting if the device registers a BAC of 0.02 or higher.
When you first call our attorneys, we don’t merely give you a free phone consultation - we quickly and thoroughly assess your situation and the charges against you by listening to your detailed story, but more importantly, gathering all available information from the local county jail, the Prosecutor’s office, and the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Armed with this information, a member of our team walks you through a comprehensive consultation of the charges you are facing, the possible defenses, and the potential outcomes. We give you immediate recommendations on how you should proceed and answer any questions you may have. We also explain what steps need to be completed to properly defend your case. This may include things like obtaining video from the officer’s vehicle, body cam, and the county jail or hiring an accident reconstructionist to preserve the scene. Sometimes by acting quickly enough, we can even resolve your case before charges are ever filed, or your license is ever suspended.
We realize you pay us to provide a service, and in exchange for that payment, we do everything we can to make this experience as simple and painless as possible for you. In addition to providing you with an extremely thorough initial consultation, we keep you completely informed throughout your case and are available when you have a question you need answered.
Additionally, we eliminate unnecessary court appearances. In the case of first-time offenders, we can typically resolve the entire case in just one hearing - eliminating the inconvenience and expense of regularly traveling back and forth to court, which causes missed time at work and/or the need for additional daycare, etc.
If you have been arrested for OWI/DUI in Lake County, Porter County, LaPorte County, or elsewhere in Northwest Indiana, we invite you to contact us to hear our plan for your best defense. Eliminate the fear of the unknown and hire the attorneys the professionals hire. Call the Stracci Law Group today.
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