Legal Blog

The law does not distinguish between people who are Pennsylvania residents and people who are residents of other States. This means that you will face the same penalties as a Pennsylvania resident would. A conviction for a DUI can carry a mandatory jail sentence, a mandatory fine, and a mandatory license suspension. If you are sentenced to jail you will have to serve that jail time here in Pennsylvania. In addition, because you are not from Pennsylvania you may not be eligible for most of the programs that Pennsylvania offers as alternatives to jail time because they will have difficulty supervising you from another state.

If you are convicted of a DUI in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania cannot suspend your out of state license. They will, however, suspend your driving privileges in the state of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will send you your suspension information telling you to turn PA your driver’s license into them. Since you do not have a PA license you need to fill out a PennDOT form that says, “I acknowledge my suspension in the state of Pennsylvania” and state on that form that you are not licensed in Pennsylvania. You will then send this form into PennDOT instead of your driver’s license. PennDOT will hold on to that form until your suspension is up. You will also have to pay a restoration fee and complete any other requirements that are in the suspension information that PennDOT sent to you. Once everything is complete PennDOT will restore your driving privileges in the state of Pennsylvania. The big catch here is if the state where your license is issued from finds out about the suspension in the state of Pennsylvania through reciprocity. If your home state has reciprocity with PA, your home state would be made aware of the PA suspension and they could also suspend your license. The state that issued you your license can suspend your license for an offense that you committed in the state of Pennsylvania. The length of that suspension is dependent on the laws in that state. Your license could be suspended for the same amount of time as Pennsylvania or they could suspend you for a longer period depending on their laws.

If you refuse to take to a blood test or a breath test, PennDOT can punish you through civil law by suspending your driver’s license for a minimum of 12 months. If you have a prior refusal, or a prior DUI conviction, or a prior ARD for DUI your suspension will be for 18 months. PennDOT does this by suspending your privilege to drive in Pennsylvania. If you have a Pennsylvania driver’s license, you will be required to send your physical driver’s license into PennDOT. The clock on the license suspension will not start until PennDOT receives your license.

If you refuse a BAC test, the officer will have to fill out the refusal paperwork and mail this paperwork into PennDOT. There is sometimes a delay between the refusal and the filing so there is sometimes an opportunity to intervene before the filing with PennDOT occurs. If not, then PennDOT will send you suspension paperwork and tell you when and where to turn in your license. This suspension can be appealed; however, there is a strict deadline of 30 days to appeal this suspension. This is determined by the ‘mail by’ date on the letter of suspension from PennDOT. These suspensions are in addition to any other suspensions you may receive for the criminal DUI case.

If you have a driver’s license from another State, you will have to send in a form acknowledging your suspension of driving privileges in Pennsylvania. If the state which issued your license finds out about the suspension, they can suspend your license, but this depends completely on each state and their laws handling such matters.

In most circumstances you cannot fight the license suspension that results from a DUI conviction. However, there are rare circumstances in which you can challenge a license suspension. Those circumstances include when the Court sent the wrong paperwork to PennDOT or when PennDOT attempts to suspend your license when it should not have been suspended. In these rare situations you can challenge the license suspension through what is known as a License Suspension Appeal. This will allow you to challenge the suspension of your license that PennDOT is trying to impose.

If you received an ARD disposition for a DUI, then yes you can own or possess a firearm. Sometimes a condition of ARD is that you do not possess a firearm. In that case, you would not be able to possess your firearm until your ARD supervision was over, even if you have a concealed carry permit.

The answer to that question depends on the grading of the DUI for which you were convicted.

If you are convicted of a DUI that is graded as an ungraded misdemeanor (M) or a misdemeanor of the second degree (M2), then yes you can own or possess a firearm.

If you are convicted of a DUI that is graded as a misdemeanor of the first degree (M1) or a DUI graded as a felony of the third degree (F3), then no you would not be able to own or possess a firearm. In other words, it would be illegal for you to possess a gun owned by someone else in addition to personally owning a firearm.

If you received an ARD disposition for a DUI, then yes you can own or possess a firearm. Sometimes a condition of ARD is that you do not possess a firearm. In that case, you would not be able to possess your firearm until your ARD supervision was over.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Occupational Affairs oversees licensing certain professions, including Nursing, Medicine, Cosmetology, Real Estate, and others. They are also in charge of determining if action to suspend or revoke a professional license is necessary.

Currently, a DUI conviction may result in a professional license being suspended or even revoked. Starting at the end of December 2020 the Licensing Rules will change. A DUI conviction should only result in action on a professional license if the DUI is “directly related” to the person’s performance of their duties under the license or the nature of the DUI posses a “substantial risk” to the person’s performance of their duties. An offense is “directly related” if the nature of the criminal conduct for which the person was convicted has a direct bearing on the fitness or ability to perform one or more of the duties or responsibilities necessarily related to the profession, trade, or occupation for which the individual is licensed. A determination of whether an offense poses a “substantial risk” involves the board looking at 11 factors. They are:

1) Criminal conduct involved act or threat of harm, including property/reputation

2) Facts and circumstances around the conviction

3) Number of convictions

4) Increase in age/maturity since the date of conviction

5) Criminal history, if any, after conviction

6) Completion of education/training, including in incarceration

7) References from employers or others (including from incarceration)

8) Personal rehabilitation

9) Meets other licensing requirements

10) Criminal history while engaged in the occupation

11) Any other factor believed relevant to fitness

If you have a professional license and are charged with a DUI or any other criminal offense it is important to make sure you speak with a lawyer who understands both criminal law and the professional licensing laws that apply in your case.

House arrest or in-home detention and sentencing options which allow you to serve part of a jail sentence in your house rather than in a jail. The law has recently changed and “house arrest” is now part of a sentencing possibility known as Probation with Restrictive Conditions. One type of “restrictive conditions” is in-home detention. Regardless of the name, they all refer to the same thing, being able to serve all or part of your jail sentence in your own home. Not every county will agree to house arrest in a DUI case. The law allows you to be sentenced to in-home detention, but not every county has the resources to allow for this type of sentence. In addition, there are several restrictions on whether the county will allow you to serve your time at home on house arrest. Some of those are your residence, who you live with, your history with the criminal justice system, whether or not you live in county, whether or not your home county will allowed you into their program, and many more.

If the county does allow for in-home detention, how much time you spend in in-home detention is a complex question. Some counties will let you do all your jail time on house arrest. Some counties make you do more time on house arrest for the privilege of not going to jail. Some counties make you serve part of your time in jail and the rest of the time on house arrest. Which option would be available to you depends on your specific case and what county the offense occurred in.

There is not a specific crime for refusing a chemical test in Pennsylvania. However, if you refuse a chemical test it may affect the level of DUI charge you later receive. If you refuse a blood test, and the police did not obtain a search warrant and are convicted, you could receive the lowest tier of punishment. If you refuse a blood test after a search warrant is obtained, then you will receive punishment at the highest tier if convicted. If you refuse a breath test, you will also be in the highest tier if you are convicted. Some jurisdictions will also charge you with obstruction of justice if you refuse a blood test after the police obtain a search warrant.

There are civil penalties for refusing a chemical test. Those include a separate 12 to 18-month license suspension and a large “fee” to get your license restored. This is not a criminal issue and can happen whether the police charge you with a DUI or not. This suspension is consecutive to any suspension you receive if you are convicted of a DUI. A suspension for the DUI conviction can range from 12 to 18 months. See our resource guide for more information on sentencing and license suspensions. resources page