Getting a DUI is an excruciating experience. It is a criminal offense in all 50 states in the US. Many consequences resulting from a DUI can make it intolerable. It continues to affect your life in the long run. Your criminal record plays a major role in this. In this article we will examine how a DUI affects your record through a DUI process.

Getting arrested for a DUI:

Once you get arrested for a DUI, you will be involved in two processes. 

1. Administrative license suspension process
2. Criminal process

Administrative license suspension process:

Immediately after a DUI arrest, your driver's license gets suspended. This happens even before you go to court. In order to get your license back, you must request a DMV administrative hearing within a short period of time after your arrest. This is different from your court hearing. This hearing is held to determine your driver's license suspension. 

Criminal process:

The criminal process involves around fines, penalties, sentencing and probation. After your DMV hearing you are required to attend the court hearings such as arraignment or preliminary hearing, pre-trial conference, suppression hearing, trial and sentencing. 

There are three types of DUI charges one can be charged with such as misdemeanor, felony and vehicular manslaughter. Misdemeanor charges are a crime less than a felony. Those charged with this offense could serve a year in a county jail along with fines. A felony is charged when someone is injured due to DUI. This offense could land the offender in the state prison for more than a year and must pay fines. A vehicular manslaughter is a felony charge involving death due to DUI. This offense lands offender in state prison.  

Criminal record:

Hence, people convicted of DUI will have a resulting criminal record. A DUI on your criminal record is easily accessible by your employers, landlords, educational institutions and almost anyone who performs a background check on you. Therefore, having a DUI record is a barrier to your career, personal and social life. Many people think that their conviction falls off from the criminal record after a set period of time. But it never works in that way. It has to be expunged by petitioning the court. You can achieve this by requesting an expungement in your county courthouse.

You may also want to expunge your DMV records. Your DUI affects both the criminal and DMV records. A DUI on your DMV records can affect your auto insurance rates greatly. You can achieve this by going to your local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and requesting an expungement. Unfortunately, there are states that do not allow expungement.