Penalties for a First Offense OVI in Ohio Explained by DUI Defense Lawyer

Ohio OVI attorney Brian Joslyn explains the potential penalties for a first offense OVI in Ohio. Joslyn Law Firm is experienced in defending people accused of OVI offenses in Ohio. If you have been accused of a crime or arrested in Ohio, please call (614) 444-1900 to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss your case.

For a first offense OVI the minimum penalty you can receive is a 3 day driver intervention program or 3 days in jail. A driver intervention program is essentially a program where you’re educated about alcohol impairment, drinking and driving, generally. In addition to the 3 day driver intervention program, or jail, it’s generally not jail, there’s also a mandatory minimum 375 dollar fine but it can not exceed 1,025 dollars. In addition to that there’s a mandatory minimum 1 year license suspension and up to a 3 year driver’s license suspension. If the court imposes that suspension there are some clever things that you can do to minimize that suspension. One of those is what’s called backdating. Backdating means that we go to the judge and say although you’re imposing a court suspension now, this incident happened 4 months ago, 3 months ago depending on how long this case is going on. And our client has had driving privileges or a stay that entire time so he hasn’t really realized the suspension. But we ask the court to backdate the start of their court-imposed suspension to the date of the offense. And that can sometimes knock off significant chunks of a suspension that might be imposed. Now when the court imposes a suspension, I’m usually able to get renewed driving privileges. Do that even if you previously had them, they’ll get renewed. So your ability to drive wont change as much. But your 1 year suspension period that is imposed might not be a realized 1 year suspension.