A Coweta DUI Starts Two Clocks. Most People Watch the Wrong One

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Georgia is heading into its heaviest stretch of impaired driving enforcement of the year. Football Saturdays, the holiday party season, and the state's year-end campaigns all land between now and January 1, and the Governor's Office of Highway Safety builds its calendar around them.

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The scale is easy to underestimate. Over a single 78-hour holiday travel period earlier this month, state troopers alone arrested 364 people for driving under the influence. That figure does not count arrests by the Coweta County Sheriff's Office, the Newnan Police Department, or the city police in Senoia, Grantville, and Palmetto. Coweta County has also hosted GOHS Thunder Task Force operations, three-day pushes that combine local agencies with H.E.A.T. units from around the state and run DUI checkpoints at multiple locations across the county.

For anyone caught up in that enforcement, the arrest is not the part that costs them first.

"They go home, they look at the paperwork, and they see a court date four or six weeks out. So they wait," said J. Ryan Brown, founder of J. Ryan Brown Law, LLC in Newnan. "Nobody tells them there is a second deadline running at the same time, and that one is the one that takes the license."

A DUI arrest in Georgia starts two separate processes. One is the criminal case, which moves through Coweta County State Court in Newnan or through a municipal court depending on which agency made the arrest. The other is administrative, handled by the Georgia Department of Driver Services. It runs on its own schedule, it answers to nobody in the courtroom, and it takes effect whether or not the driver is ever convicted of anything.

Under O.C.G.A. § 40-5-67.1, a driver has 30 days from the date of arrest to respond to that administrative suspension. Thirty calendar days, counted from the arrest, not from the court date.

There are two ways to respond.

The first is to request an administrative license suspension hearing. The request goes to DDS in writing, and the hearing is held through the Office of State Administrative Hearings. Filing it holds off the suspension and keeps the driver on the road while the case is pending. The issues at that hearing are narrow. Whether the officer had reasonable grounds to believe the driver was impaired, whether the arrest was lawful, whether the implied consent notice was read correctly, and whether the driver refused or submitted to testing.

The second is an ignition interlock device limited permit under O.C.G.A. § 40-5-64.1. The driver installs the device at their own expense and keeps it for 12 months, and in exchange keeps limited driving privileges. A driver who refused testing has to sign an affidavit withdrawing that refusal. Choosing this route means giving up the hearing.

Brown said the refusal cases are where those 30 days matter most.

"If you refused the test and you let the window close, that is a one year suspension with no limited permit and no interlock option," he said. "Not a restricted license. Not driving to work. Nothing for a year. In a county where half the people I meet commute up 85 toward the airport or into Atlanta, that is somebody's job, and it usually costs them the job before it costs them anything else."

The only way to defeat that suspension if you let the clock run out on your 30-day deadline is to defeat the DUI. Unfortunately for those who let the clock run out, even if they defeat the DUI, it may be months into their "hard" suspension.

"People hear the charge got knocked down and they assume the license comes back with it," Brown said. "It does not work that way. Two proceedings, two agencies, two sets of rules. The court handles one. DDS handles the other. Winning in front of a judge does not reach across and fix the other one."

He says that whether or not a driver should take advantage of an ALS hearing or an IIDP is case-dependent, but primarily depends on whether or not the driver consented to the chemical test of their blood or breath.

At an administrative hearing, the arresting officer testifies under oath months before any criminal trial. The defense has the opportunity to question the arresting officer on facts that are in their report, what video exists, and how the field sobriety tests were administered. What surfaces there often becomes the basis for a motion to suppress later.

"You get the officer on the record early, before the story has been smoothed out and before anyone has had months to prepare," Brown said. "Sometimes that hearing is where the criminal case actually turns."

Coweta County also runs a DUI Court through State Court, one of several accountability court programs. It is voluntary, built for people with repeat DUI offenses, and it requires county residency along with review by the court team. Brown said more people qualify than realize it is there. DUI Court, again, is typically for folks with multiple DUIs and can be an alternative to jail time.

His advice for the first days after an arrest is short. Find the paperwork the officer handed over, because the temporary permit and the notice are in it. Write down what happened while the night is still clear, including where the stop occurred and what was said. Do not explain yourself to anyone over the jail phone. And count 30 days forward from the arrest date.

"Nobody is thinking straight the week after a DUI arrest, and that is exactly when the clock moves fastest," he said. "If you take one number away from this, take thirty. Put it on the calendar before you do anything else."

About J. Ryan Brown Law, LLC

J. Ryan Brown Law, LLC is a Newnan-based criminal defense firm representing people charged in state and federal court across Georgia. The firm handles DUI cases, drug charges, traffic and serious traffic offenses, violent crimes, and sex offenses, and appears regularly in Coweta County State Court and the municipal courts across the county. Offices are in Newnan and Carrollton, serving Coweta, Carroll, Meriwether, Heard, Haralson, Douglas, and Spalding counties. Consultations are free.

To learn more, visit jryanbrownlaw.com.

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