As a Gloucester County resident, you may frequently cross over the bridge to Philadelphia County. Or vice versa. The bottom line is that you may be confused about what it means to be pulled over, arrested, and tried for a driving while intoxicated (DWI) offense anywhere other than your home state. If this is your current predicament and concern, please follow along to find out where you will serve your jail sentence as an out-of-state resident and how a proficient Gloucester County DWI lawyer at The Vigilante Law Firm, P.C., can help you navigate this complex legal procedure.
If I’m an out-of-state resident, will I have to go to a New Jersey jail?
Put simply, local courthouses have jurisdiction over criminal offenses committed in their area. For example, if you commit a DWI offense in Gloucester County, a Gloucester County courthouse may place charges against you. In turn, the court may order you to serve time at the Gloucester County Correctional Facility. This is regardless of your being an out-of-state resident.
However, it may be possible to coordinate a transfer to a correctional facility in your home state. This is in part due to the Interstate Corrections Compact, which holds that an inmate may be transferred between states for a closer proximity to family, a specialized treatment program, an adequate facility, or another valid reason. For this, please speak with your lawyer.
How long will I be sentenced to jail for my DWI offense in New Jersey?
To reiterate, since a New Jersey criminal court carries jurisdiction over your DWI case, it may observe the state’s standard for criminal punishment. This is to say that, as an out-of-state resident who commits a first-offense DWI in New Jersey, you may have to serve up to 30 days in jail.
Notably, you may still be charged with a second-offense DWI if your first one happened in your home state and the subsequent one in New Jersey. This means a mandatory minimum of 48 hours in jail, with a maximum of 90 days. And for a third-offense DWI, this may be a required 180 days.
It is also worth mentioning the Interstate Driver’s License Compact, which makes your home state’s authorities aware of your traffic criminal offense committed outside of state lines. So, once they get word of your DWI, they may inflict additional penalties on you.
That is, you may also face your state’s specific sentences for paying fines, having your driver’s license suspended, installing an ignition interlock device in your vehicle, attending a driver resource center, and more. In the end, these punishments may be more or less lenient than those of New Jersey.
The first step toward preparing yourself for this legal action is to retain the services of one of the experienced New Jersey & Pennsylvania criminal defense lawyers. Look no further than The Vigilante Law Firm, P.C.
