It depends on the court. The first court date usually comes within a month or two of the arrest. If the DUI is contested, some courts take care of them within a few months, while some can go well over a year.

Under current expungement laws in South Carolina, a DUI cannot be expunged at any point in the future.

Yes. While blood-alcohol concentration is one piece of evidence that can be used to convict you, even if you don’t have to give a breath sample, police can still submit other forms of evidence. Some examples are testimony of odor of alcohol or slurred speech, descriptions or video of failed field sobriety tests, and admissions to drinking by the defendant.

No, a DUI 1st offense is not a felony. However, if the DUI causes serious bodily injury or death, it can, and likely will, be charged as a felony. For more information, read our article about Felony DUI in South Carolina.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) maintains criminal backgrounds. If you are arrested and fingerprinted, then the charge will likely show up on your SLED record. In some instances, if your DUI is rewritten to a charge for Driving with Unlawful Alcohol Concentration (DUAC), then there are no fingerprints that are associated with the DUAC ticket, and SLED won’t report it. However, more and more courts are implementing additional paperwork that does away with this loophole so that the DUAC still shows up on the SLED record.

A DUI does not carry any points. It has its own set of rules that govern whether you get suspended, so points don’t matter with DUI.

This number is not created by the courts. It’s created by the insurance companies, and their quotes are based on a series of factors and not just the fact that someone is convicted of DUI. So, we can’t quote the insurance companies. What we generally tell clients is to be prepared for your insurance rates to triple, and if the premium is any lower, they should consider it a bonus.

No. DUI’s and other driving offenses under Title 56 of our Code of Laws are excluded from PTI eligibility.

Technically, the answer is no. However, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement to successfully prosecute for a DUI if you are not either caught either in the act or within a few hours of your driving. We have seen situations where a person drives away from an accident thinking they can sober up before they are caught. Unfortunately for these people, they can still be charged with leaving the scene of an accident, which can still carry stiff jail sentences if someone was seriously injured or killed.

ADSAP (South Carolina Alcohol and Drug Safety Action Program) initially schedules you for an assessment. At the assessment, they determine how long you will be in the program. The most common plan we see requires the following: an enrollment, an assessment, and then one class a week for eight weeks. Sometimes, a person may be required to go for 12 or more weeks. We have seen instances where a person goes on both Saturdays and Sundays, so they go twice a week but cut the total time in half. We cannot give any firm answers to this question because it is completely in ADSAP’s hands.

If you submitted a breath sample of less than 0.15% and it is your first offense for DUI within the last 10 years, then you likely qualify for a provisional license. If you are convicted of a DUI with a refusal, a DUI with a breath sample of 0.15% or higher, or a DUI 2nd offense or greater, then you will not qualify for a provisional license. Except in extreme cases, even without a provisional license, you can likely keep driving if you install an Ignition Interlock Device in your vehicle.

In South Carolina, it is unlawful for a person to drive a motor vehicle within this State while his alcohol concentration is eight one-hundredths of one percent or more. The prosecution has the choice of convicting a driver for a DUI (proof of impairment which may include proof of BAC) or driving with an unlawful alcohol concentration also known as DUAC (proof of BAC .08 or greater and the driver is guilty).

South Carolina law requires officers making DUI arrests in Charleston and elsewhere to videotape the subject’s conduct at the scene of the stop, including any field sobriety tests administered.  If the video is not provided or doesn’t contain everything it’s supposed to, it can result in a dismissal of the DUI! The one exception to the videotaping is rule is when the arresting officer submits an affidavit certifying that the video recording equipment was in inoperable condition and that reasonable effort was made to maintain the equipment.

The Standardized Field Sobriety Test (SFST) is a series of three tests developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).  The three tests are:

1. Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus

   Horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) is an involuntary jerking of the eyeball which occurs naturally as the eyes gaze to the side. Under normal circumstances, nystagmus occurs when the eyes are rotated at high peripheral angles. However, when a person is impaired by alcohol, nystagmus is exaggerated and may occur at lesser angles. An alcohol-impaired person will also often have difficulty smoothly tracking a moving object. In the HGN test, the officer observes the eyes of a suspect as the suspect follows a slowly moving object such as a pen or small flashlight, horizontally with his eyes.

2. Walk-and-Turn

   In the walk-and-turn test, the subject is directed to take nine steps, heel-to-toe, along a straight line. After taking the steps, the suspect must turn on one foot and return in the same manner in the opposite direction. The examiner looks for seven indicators of impairment: 1) if the suspect cannot keep balance while listening to the instructions, 2) begins before the instructions are finished, 3) stops while walking to regain balance, 4) does not touch heel-to-toe, 5) uses arms to balance, 6) loses balance while turning, or 7) takes an incorrect number of steps. NHTSA research indicates that 68 percent of individuals who exhibit two or more indicators in the performance of the test will have a BAC of 0.10 or greater.

3. One-Leg Stand

   In the one-leg stand test, the suspect is instructed to stand with one foot approximately six inches off the ground and count aloud until told to put the foot down. The officer times the subject for 30 seconds. The officer looks for four indicators of impairment, including 1) swaying while balancing, 2) using arms to balance, 3) hopping to maintain balance, and 4) putting their foot down.

Not always. Field sobriety “tests” (FST’s) have been used by South Carolina law enforcement officers to identify drivers who are impaired by alcohol. Yet, in a study conducted by two scientists at Clemson University, officers misidentified 32% of individuals in a laboratory setting as being above the “legal limit” when these individuals actually were sober! If these are supposed to be actual “tests,” then why were these police officers mistaken 32% of the time?  Essentially, the “tests” are unfamiliar and they aren’t easy to do without practice. To a police officer who has demonstrated the tests many times before, the tests may seem easy to do. Likewise, to a casual observer, the tests may seem straightforward. However, when a sober, untrained person performs the tests, they oftentimes discover that the tests aren’t as easy as they look and that an untrained person doesn’t always have the motor skills to perform the tests properly.

First-time DUI offenders who had a blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.15 or greater will be required to install an ignition interlock device in their vehicles for 6 months. People convicted of a 2nd DUI or DUAC are required to install the device for 2 years.

In South Carolina, the breath testing device is the DMT Datamaster. According to the DMT Datamaster’s Owner’s Manual, the “best breath sample is produced by a continuous exhalation. It does not need to be a hard blow . . . .” Essentially, the DMT Datamaster’s programming is designed to read from a “smooth exhalation,” not a hard burst of air. Further, the manual warns the operator – “Do not tell the subject to blow ‘hard'”.

A common DUI negotiation in South Carolina results in the defendant pleading to reckless driving, along with some other stipulations such as alcohol classes. What some people, and even some lawyers, don’t know, is that a reckless driving plea can result in serious consequences against the person’s driver’s license. For example, if a South Carolina driver receives two reckless driving convictions in a 5-year span, that driver will receive a 90-day suspension of his driving privileges. The driver will not be eligible for a route-restricted or provisional license. Also, the driver will have to carry SR-22 insurance for 3 years in order to drive after the suspension is over. Therefore, a person charged with DUI should be sure their lawyer knows of any previous criminal convictions or traffic offenses they received in the past 5 years.

South Carolina law permits law enforcement to draw a blood sample from a suspect in a felony DUI case (meaning the impaired driver caused death or great bodily injury). Also, in misdemeanor DUI cases, law enforcement can obtain a blood sample where the person is unable to provide a breath sample because the person (1) is unconscious, (2) is dead, (3) has an injured mouth, or (4) for any other reason considered acceptable by licensed medical personnel.

One way to challenge the Datamaster results is through a “Landon” motion. If you can show the existence of malfunctions, repairs, complaints, or other problems regarding the Datamaster machine that occurred close in time to when the driver took the test, then the defense may be entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the admissibility of the breath results. At this hearing, the prosecution must then prove that the machine was working properly at the time of the test. However, the fact that the machine registers a series of self-checks every time a test is run may constitute enough evidence that the machine was working properly if enough tests were run between the time of the problem with the machine and the time of the driver’s test. In all, knowing what records to look for regarding the Datamaster, how to understand and interpret those records, and how to properly make a “Landon” motion is a vital part of any DUI defense.