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Committee advances bill replacing ARD for DUI with DUI treatment court program
Summary
House Bill 1615 would replace Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) for DUI with a DUI treatment court program, require an admission of guilt as a condition of program entry, and retain expungement on successful completion; the committee reported the bill as amended, 25-1, amid debate over constitutional safeguards for pleas.
Chairman Kaufman and other sponsors introduced House Bill 1615 to respond to a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision (the Shiflett decision) limiting the use of ARD for DUI when prior acceptance was treated as a prior conviction for sentencing enhancement.
Chairman Kaufman said district attorneys asked for legislative direction after the Supreme Court ruling, and the bill would replace ARD for DUI offenses with a DUI treatment court program that, as much as possible, retains existing ARD practices and provides for automatic expungement of the participant's DUI conviction upon successful completion.
Committee counsel described a late-filed amendment that replaces an existing subsection with the current failure-to-comply process used in ARD and explained that, under the bill as amended, admission of guilt (effectively a guilty plea proceeding) would be a condition of entry to the program so that the constitutional safeguards the Court required would apply. Counsel said the eligibility and license-revocation provisions generally mirror existing ARD law in Title 75 §3807.
Representative Hohenstein said he respected the sponsors' work but would vote no because the bill requires pleas that may be entered without full constitutional safeguards and could have downstream consequences. Representative Kinkade said he would support the bill but questioned whether a prosecutorial administrative fix might better preserve ARD access without requiring pleas.
After debate, the committee recorded a roll call and reported the bill as amended by a vote of 25-1.
