DUI – How much trouble are you in?

• How much trouble are you in when you get charged with a DUI?
• That’s what I am going to cover in this article.
• Any DUI charge is a serious criminal charge.
• However, there are levels of seriousness associated with DUI charges.
• Specifically, if the crown decides that your DUI will proceed as an indictable offence and not a summary offence, that is a much more serious categorization of your DUI charge.
• Let me explain what this means in plain English.

1/ Summary vs Indictable Offence

• First, some important context.
• In the Criminal Code of Canada, criminal charges are defined as indictable or summary offences.
• In the United States, there is a similar categorization of felonies and misdemeanours.
• Indictable offences are more serious than summary offences.
• The crimes and penalties associated with indictable offences are more serious than summary offences.
• And the legal process you go through is also significantly different.

2/ Hybrid Offences

• Finally, there is a third category of criminal offences known as hybrid offences.
• Hybrid offences give the Crown, who is the lawyer representing the Canadian government, the power to decide how they will proceed with a criminal charge.
• In other words, with a Hybrid offence, the Crown decides whether to proceed with the criminal charge as an indictable or a summary offence.
• That decision is called an “election,” and the Crown needs to make that election on the record in a formal court setting.

3/ DUI Hybrid Offence

• In Canada, DUI charges are Impaired Driving by Alcohol or Drug, Over 80 and Refusal to Take a Breathalyzer test.
• These charges are defined in the Criminal Code of Canada as hybrid offences.
• So, the Crown will decide how they want to proceed with your DUI charge.
• The Crown’s decision as to whether to proceed as an indictable offence or a summary offence will be dictated by the facts about what happened.
• The more serious the facts, the more likely you are to be facing an indictable DUI offence.
• DUIs handled as indictable offences indicate that you are in much more legal jeopardy than if the Crown handled your DUI as a summary offence.

4/ Impact on DUI Pardon in Canada

• Finally, the impact of how the Crown decides to handle your DUI will have serious consequences for your ability to get a DUI Pardon in Canada, which is now called a Record Suspension.
• If you are convicted of a DUI, your conviction will be reflected in your criminal record.
• Your criminal record will be stored in the CPIC database, which is the criminal records database managed by the RCMP.
• That means your DUI conviction will be disclosed on a criminal record or any background check, which will be an obstacle for employment, volunteering or travel.
• To remove your DUI conviction, you need to get a DUI Pardon in Canada.
• There are strict rules regarding DUI Pardons in Canada and those rules are impacted by whether the Crown handled your DUI as an indictable or summary offence.
• If the Crown handled your DUI as an indictable offence, your wait time before you can get a DUI Pardon in Canada is 10 years from the completion of your sentence.
• If your DUI was handled as a summary offence, your wait time to get a DUI Pardon in Canada is only 5 years from the completion of your sentence.