Windham County DUI/OUI Defense Attorney

Connecticut DUI Laws, Defending Clients Throughout Willimantic & Throughout Eastern Connecticut

At The Law Office of Jerome Paun, we can help you fight your license suspension in front of the DMV and in criminal court. We’ll put our legal experience to work defending your freedom. From our law office in Willimantic, we represent clients throughout Eastern Connecticut.

A Connecticut arrest for OUI involves two separate but related proceedings:

• An administrative per se license suspension hearing at the DMV to determine whether your driver’s license or privilege to drive in Connecticut should be suspended by the DMV.
• A criminal proceeding in superior court to determine if you’re guilty of operating under the influence (OUI) and, if you are, the penalties to be imposed by the court, including a suspension of your driver’s license or right to drive in Connecticut.

Our Windham County DUI attorneys have the experience needed to properly advise and represent you in both proceedings. Requesting a DMV per se license suspension hearing may enable us to use the DMV process to learn facts that can be helpful in the criminal court proceeding. If you retain our services soon after your arrest, we can intervene early to help you meet all filing and notification deadlines regarding your right to an administrative per se license suspension hearing.

Please call The Law Office of Jerome Paun at (860) 455-4202 for an appointment to discuss what you should do.

What’s the Difference Between DUI & OUI?

There’s a big difference between driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (DUI) and operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs (OUI) in Connecticut. Connecticut General Statutes § 14-227a uses the term operating under the influence and sets a blood alcohol concentration limit of 0.08% for drivers age 21 and older. Drivers under 21 are subject to the 0.02% zero-tolerance limit under § 14-227g.

Driving a motor vehicle is what many of us know and love. We drive down the road steering the vehicle, stepping on the gas to make it go, applying the brakes to make it stop, and shifting gears as needed with a manual transmission vehicle.

Operating a motor vehicle includes driving but goes way beyond it. If you’re sitting or even sleeping in a motor vehicle with the key in the ignition, even if the engine is off, the car is in park, and the parking brake is set, you can still be arrested for OUI in Connecticut!

The moral of this story is, if you have had too much to drink or are under the influence of any legal or illegal drugs and want to just sit or sleep in your motor vehicle in Connecticut, be absolutely certain your vehicle is safely parked with the engine off and the key out of the ignition!

Should You Challenge the DMV Per Se Suspension of Your Driver’s License?

Unless you successfully challenge the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) per se license suspension, a first-offense administrative suspension lasts 45 days.

After an OUI arrest, you should receive a letter from the DMV informing you that your Connecticut driver’s license or privilege to drive in Connecticut will be suspended for 45 days beginning at midnight on the 30th day after your arrest. It’ll also inform you that, after a first-offense 45-day suspension, you’ll need to have installed at your own expense an approved ignition interlock device (IID) for one year. This DMV-imposed license suspension and IID installation is separate from any license suspension and IID installation ordered by a court if you plead guilty to or are convicted of DUI after a trial.

The DMV letter will also tell you that you have a right to appeal this suspension by calling the phone number in the letter and requesting a hearing. You have seven days from the date the DMV mails the Notice of Suspension to request that administrative hearing. Whether you have a decent chance of winning a DMV per se license suspension hearing usually turns on technical issues that can be discovered by a careful review of the evidence.

The police may have taken your driver’s license when you were arrested. If they did, you can have your driver’s license returned to you the next day, 24 hours after it was taken. This isn’t a license suspension. But it’s illegal to drive a motor vehicle without your driver’s license. So, before you drive, get your driver’s license back from the police.

The Pretrial Alcohol Education Program: Your Charges Could Be Dismissed

If you have no prior OUI convictions in Connecticut or elsewhere, and you haven’t used the pretrial Alcohol Education Program (AEP) in Connecticut during the preceding 10 years, you may be eligible to use it to avoid an OUI conviction. If the court grants your AEP application and if you successfully complete its requirements, the OUI charge against you’ll be dismissed and you won’t have an OUI conviction record. We can help you maximize your chances of getting approved for the AEP and avoiding an OUI conviction.

The Law Office of Jerome Paun Drunk Driving Legal Counsel

• Schedule a free confidential consultation: If you have been arrested for operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs, we can help you. If you contact us, we’ll schedule a free confidential appointment for you. At that initial consultation, Attorney Paun will explain the criminal/motor vehicle charges confronting you in plain English so you’ll understand them. He will carefully listen to your version of what happened. He will explain and discuss with you your constitutional, statutory, and procedural rights in court and before the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) administrative per se license suspension hearing. There’s no obligation to retain us after the consultation. If you retain us, pre-trial representation is billed as a fixed fee that varies by case, and payment-plan arrangements may be available in appropriate cases.
• Explore your legal options: Attorney Paun will explain your legal defense options from the potential to get a diversionary program granted to avoid a conviction to going to trial, and everything in between. He will explore whether you might qualify for the pretrial Alcohol Education Program (AEP). The AEP is a diversionary program that, if granted by a judge and successfully completed by you, results in the dismissal of the impaired driving charges.
• Review the evidence with you: If you retain The Law Office of Jerome Paun to represent you, we’ll secure copies of the evidence against you from the state, referred to as disclosure material. That includes a copy of the police report of your arrest and a copy of the A-44 form, a form completed by the police in all OUI arrests in Connecticut. Other evidence we may need to get from the state includes dash-cam, body-cam, and booking-room video recordings. We review field sobriety test evidence, including roadside walk-and-turn and one-leg-stand evaluations used before an OUI arrest. We also examine breath-test evidence obtained by the state when evaluating your defense options.
• Advise you on your best course of action: Once we have gotten all the evidence the state has, we’ll study it and review it with you so we can discuss your legal defense options with you. Where possible, we’ll challenge questionable evidence from being used against you. We may even be able to get the charges against you dismissed if the evidence the police have was gotten illegally.

What Happens After First DUI in CT?

A first-time DUI/OUI conviction in CT carries a fine of $500 to $1,000 and up to six months of imprisonment. The sentence includes either a mandatory minimum jail term or a suspended sentence with probation requiring 100 hours of community service. A first administrative per se suspension lasts 45 days, followed by one year of driving with an ignition interlock device.

Learn more information about what happens after first DUI in CT.

Whether you’re a program-eligible first-time OUI offender or facing a potential second, third, or subsequent OUI conviction, we’ll provide you with vigorous OUI defense representation and work to minimize negative consequences. Connecticut uses a 10-year look-back period for repeat OUI convictions. A second conviction within that period carries a $1,000 to $4,000 fine and up to two years of imprisonment, with a mandatory minimum of 120 days. A third or subsequent conviction carries a $2,000 to $8,000 fine and up to three years of imprisonment, with a mandatory minimum of one year. It also results in permanent license revocation, with a reconsideration hearing available no sooner than two years after revocation.

Charged with a first-time DUI/OUI offense? For a free consultation with an experienced Windham County drunk driving defense attorney, contact The Law Office of Jerome Paun today.