If young Florida residents needed any confirmation of the potential perils of being charged with DUI, the plight of Willy Mitchell at University of Central Florida (UCF), as reported in the Orlando Sentinel, should serve as a warning.
Mitchell is a junior starting linebacker at UCF, but has just been suspended by his head coach because of a DUI charge hanging over his head. He will miss several upcoming games, including one with Penn State and another with South Carolina.
Mitchell was arrested for DUI on 7th September by a UCF police officer. He was alleged to have not had his lights that evening when this was noticed by the officer. He was also alleged to not respond to the officer alerting him by honking his horn. Mitchell, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge and his arraignment has been cancelled.
The football coach at UCF said that Mitchell’s conduct may have breached the university’s student conduct rules and he will be suspended until his court case has decided the charge one way or another.
Willy Mitchell’s story highlights the seriousness of a DUI charge in this state and the effects that a conviction can have on a young person. Minors in Florida basically should not drink at all if they intend to drive as the legal limit is only 0.02%. This is a very small amount and it would take only a very small amount of alcohol to bring somebody’s blood alcohol levels above the limit allowed. The legal limit for anybody 21 or over remains 0.08%, as it is everywhere else in the United States, but police officers can also use other evidence to convince a jury that somebody was DUI at the time they were driving.
If somebody is convicted of DUI in Florida for the first time, then they can be looking at both short term and long term consequences. In the short term, there is a possibility of a jail sentence, but more likely there would be a fine, the loss of a license for a mandatory period and points added on the license. The rules have softened a little this year in this respect, as there is now the possibility of getting a restricted license for use during what would have normally been a mandatory suspension period as long as the person charged does not attempt to dispute the license suspension and accept a course at DUI school.
The longer term consequences result from the seriousness of a DUI charge in Florida law. It is not an ordinary traffic offense, but a criminal offense. A first offense is normally a misdemeanor charge, unless somebody has been seriously injured. Further offenses can mean longer periods of license suspension, larger fines, jail and probation as well as the likelihood of having to use a device like a interlock device to prevent any more driving while under the influence.
The effects on career prospects and job applications, and as this story demonstrates, opportunities at college and university, even in a sports team, can all be prejudiced by that one criminal conviction.
Taking all these possibilities into consideration it is preferable to fight a DUI charge if arrested. There is no necessity to think that being arrested for DUI automatically means a conviction. In Florida, DUI prosecutors must still attempt to convince a jury that somebody arrested for DUI was over the legal limit allowed while actually driving. Often, the threshold of certainty is not reached and the person accused of DUI is able to be free of the charge altogether. If you hire an experienced Tampa DUI attorney to help you defend you, then it is much more likely that you get the judgment that you deserve and not one that has been distorted by a police officer on shaky evidence.
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