Changes to Mississippi's DUI law - Part 1

You may have heard that there are going to be significant changes to Mississippi's DUI laws taking effect on October 1, 2014.  Well that's true, and here are a few of the major changes the public should know about.

1. Ignition interlock comes to Mississippi - Long a staple of DUI laws in other states, the ignition interlock device will now be a major part of DUI cases in Mississippi.  An ignition interlock device is a breath test machine that is wired to a car's starter system, making it impossible to start a vehicle's engine if alcohol is detected on the driver's breath.  People convicted of DUIs in Mississippi after October 1, 2014 will be forced to have these devices installed on their cars for a period of 90 days.

2.  Non-adjudication returns - Under certain circumstances, a person facing a DUI charge in Mississippi will be eligible for non-adjudication.  This is a program under which a person charged with DUI enters a plea of guilty to the DUI charge, but is not found guilty of DUI.  Instead, the DUI defendant must undergo a period of probation, pay all court costs and fines that they would have paid if convicted, pay a $250 non-adjudication fee into the Interlock Device Fund of the State Treasury, attend the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program (MASEP), and have an ignition interlock device installed on their car for 120 days.  Upon completion of these conditions, the DUI charge is dismissed, and can be removed from the person's record.

3.  Expunction (a.k.a "expungement") will be available for DUI - In the past, a person could not remove a DUI from their criminal record.  That will change come October 1, 2014, so long as certain requirements are met.  First, at least five (5) years must have passed since the person successfully completed of all terms and conditions of their DUI sentence.    Second, the person cannot have refused to submit to a blood or breath test when stopped for the DUI.  Third, if there are test results available from the blood or breath test, the person's BAC cannot have been higher than 0.16%.  Fourth, the person cannot have any other DUI conviction or pending DUI charge.  Finally, the person must provide the judge with a reason why the conviction should be expunged.

There are several other very important changes, and more to the ones listed above.  I'll post more about the new DUI laws in the near future.

The current landscape of collateral consequences of conviction, and the coming debate

Currently in Mississippi, felony convictions are like diamonds: they're forever.  There are a few rare exceptions, outlined generally in Section 99-19-71, that allow for expunction (often called "expungement") of records of felony convictions.  Currently, felonies which may be expunged include convictions for bad checks, possession of a controlled substance, false pretenses, larceny, malicious mischief, and shoplifting.  Of course, as always, there are many intricacies to the law, so you'd need to seek the advice of an experience criminal practitioner in order to make sure a particular conviction is eligible for expunction.

What that means is that all other nonviolent felony crimes carry enormous consequences, which will never go away.  First, you can no longer legally carry a firearm.  If a convicted felon is found guilty of carrying a firearm, the maximum sentence is 10 years.  Think about that for a second.  I'm sure we all know good people who made bad mistakes when they were in their late teens and early twenties.  Those folks can't go hunting without risking a decade in the penitentiary.  To say nothing of their inability to vote and their difficulty finding a job.

These "collateral consequences" of a felony conviction make sense in certain instances.  For example, we probably are justified as a society having a rule that people convicted of armed robbery don't get to carry handguns.  That makes sense.  But over the last few decades of being "tough on crime", we've created a situation in which we are making it more and more difficult for first time, nonviolent offenders to recover from the error in judgment that led to their conviction.

That's where the National Inventory of the Collateral Consequences of Conviction comes in.  Launched yesterday by the American Bar Association, it promises to be an invaluable tool for defendants, prosecutors, judges, and criminal defense attorneys.  I predict it will also have a collateral consequence of its own, however.  I'd bet that as the Mississippi information is added to the site, our politicians are going to be armed with the information to have a serious debate about how we treat citizens convicted of nonviolent crimes.  And I think that will be a good thing.

Read the companion post at Cottonmouth.