DMV Administrative Hearing
If you receive a DUI in Los Angeles County, California, the police will take away your license and provide you with a pink piece of paper that will serve as a temporary license for 30 days.
You or your attorney will then have to call the DMV within ten days and ask for an administrative hearing about a potential suspension of your license. Assuming that the hearing is granted, you will have to request a stay on any suspension to drive during those 30 days.
If the DMV cannot hold the hearing before the 30 days are up, then they will provide you with another temporary license, and you will be allowed to continue to drive until the hearing.
Your attorney can conduct an in-person hearing for you or a hearing that takes place over the phone. This means that your presence at the DMV hearing in Los Angeles is not necessarily mandated; your attorney can go for you, but that will be up to the strategy your attorney wants to use.
The only negative aspect of appearing at the hearing is that the judge will ask you whether or not you were drinking and driving and several other questions that could incriminate you for the DMV and criminal case.
Strategically speaking, it might be best for you not to attend the DMV hearing.
Your attorney will call witnesses at the hearing to be like a mini-trial.
The DMV hearing officer will serve the role of both prosecutor and judge, which will make it a little bit difficult. It would help if you had an excellent angle to beat the DMV in a DMV hearing.
The administrative hearing is the first way your license can be suspended in a DUI case in Los Angeles.
Another way that your license can be suspended is by going to court and pleading guilty to DUI. If you were to do that, a notice would be automatically and electronically sent to the DMV, and your license would be suspended.
If you were to win the administrative hearing but found guilty in the criminal court case, then your license would still be suspended. It's essential to obtain a great DUI attorney who knows what they are doing and can guide you through the system.
How Long Do I Have To Request A DMV Hearing?
Once you receive notice from the police or DMV that your license will be suspended, you have ten days to request a DMV administrative hearing.
If you do not act within ten days, you will automatically lose your license without getting a hearing or staying on the suspension.
In some cases, additional days may be granted for holidays, but the general rule is that if you don't schedule it within ten days, you will have to battle it out with the DMV to get a hearing. I advise you to act immediately and let your attorney act as your guide.
Does My DMV Hearing Have Anything To Do With My DUI?
If you lose the DMV hearing and suspend your license, then any judge on a DUI case in Van Nuys will remind you that if you drive despite having had your license suspended by the DMV.
Then you will get arrested and charged with driving on a suspended license related to a DUI, which is a violation of Vehicle Code Section 14601.2. As a result, you will face the minimum mandatory jail time of 10 days and a potential probation violation. In other words, the court will enforce whatever the DMV decides.