California DUI Preliminary Hearings
If you are arrested in California for a felony DUI…and plead not guilty to the charge(s)…you are entitled to a preliminary hearing. A California preliminary hearing is held to determine if there is enough evidence to hold you to answer for your felony DUI charge(s).
Because California preliminary hearings aren’t held in misdemeanor cases, the majority of this state’s drunk driving cases skip this phase of the California criminal court process, since most DUIs are misdemeanor offenses.
This means that persons who face felony DUI charges…either because they have four or more DUI convictions within a ten-year period or were involved in DUIs that caused injury or death…will want to make sure they put the prosecution to the test at the preliminary hearing.
If, for example, you are charged with a DUI causing injury, your California criminal defense attorney will likely try to introduce evidence at the preliminary hearing to prove that it wasn’t your negligence that caused the injury. If you were not the cause of the injury, you are not guilty of the offense.
This is why the California preliminary hearing is so important. It saves a defendant the time and expense of enduring a trial when there simply isn’t enough evidence to support the charge(s).
