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Committee considers changing how prior DUIs are counted — use violation date not conviction to preserve priors
Summary
Legislative counsel and senators discussed a proposal to count prior DUI offenses from the date of the underlying violation rather than the later conviction date so long pretrial delays do not erase prior‑offense windows that increase penalties.
A separate bill reviewed by the Senate Judiciary committee would change how prior DUI convictions are measured for purposes of enhanced penalties. Under current statutory language, subsequent‑offense windows look back 20 years from the date of conviction; counsel and senators said prolonged pretrial delays or long adjudication timelines can render a prior outside the 20‑year window even though the underlying violation occurred within it.
Eric Fitzpatrick of the Office of Legislative Council explained the proposal: instead of counting back 20 years from conviction, the statute would look back from the date of the violation (the moment the offense occurred). Fitzpatrick said that approach prevents the time consumed by trials and slow processing from unintentionally excluding prior offenses. "You're basically just want to take out the time of the trial," a committee member said, and Fitzpatrick agreed.
Practical questions: Senators raised edge cases (dropped charges, whether the date should be violation, arraignment, or filing date) and asked staff to follow up with clarifying language; Fitzpatrick suggested further consultation with prosecutors or other stakeholders to confirm the precise anchor date for the lookback.
Next steps: Committee did not vote; members asked staff to refine statutory language to address dropped charges and to discuss whether violation date, arraignment date or filing date best anchors the lookback period.
