A plea to a second DUI within five years it tough enough in Georgia, but when Georgia law requires you to install an ignition interlock device on your vehicle when you now live out of state, that is near impossible to comply with. Our client came to us after she entered a guilty plea for a second in five year DUI in Forsyth County State Court that she had entered into while being represented by a different law firm. She now lived far away in a different state and needed to be able to get a license in her new state to work. Here are some of the hurdles we need to go through to accomplish our client’s goals: Georgia Department of Driver Services requires that the ignition interlock be installed and monitored by an approved ignition interlock provider here in Georgia. That requirement must be satisfied in order to reinstate Georgia driving privileges once the suspension period ends. Of course if you live out of state, that is next to an impossible task. Luckily, the Georgia code has a provision to have a court issue an order waiving the ignition interlock requirement that is presented to the Georgia Department of Driver Services. If it is granted, the driver simply waits out the rest of the suspension period and submits proof of any remaining requirements for reinstatement and pay the reinstatement fee. The court really is only to determine if there is a financial hardship to obtaining the Ignition Interlock Device. In practice unfortunately, the court looks at a person’s criminal history (past and present), and whether that person was successful on probation. Part of what we do is run a new criminal and license history to make sure we file a motion for the Ignition Interlock Waiver Order in the right court. We then gather information from our client on what terms of the sentence has been completed and what remains and whether there have been any probation violations. Then we prepare our client for a hearing with the court by putting us in the best position to persuade the court to grant the request. We accomplished just that in a recent case in Forsyth County with our out of state client and our client was able to obtain a license in the state where the client currently lives.
