Only accountants and lawyers can tinker with things so much and get away with making a process so complicated that you need to hire their services. A shining example of that is Arizona’s SB1200. This is the biggest re-write of the Arizona DUI laws since the 1990s, and despite the overly simplistic analysis done by the local Arizona news programs on SB 1200, the law doesn’t just affect the required ignition interlock time.
In fact, the AZ legislature seems to have managed to make this law so complicated that the Arizona MVD has had difficulty implementing some of the changes, because even the lawyers over at MVD can’t seem to understand what the legislature meant.
I have heard this law described as the “lawyer employment act of 2012,” and frankly, I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, anyone accused of an alleged impaired driving (DUI) in Arizona will now need a lawyer who focuses their law practice on DUI defense in order to extricate themselves from the criminal justice system, or else face possible innumerable penalties that they otherwise might not have had to suffer (including, but not limited to, significantly more incarceration time for those accused of higher BAC DUIs, jail time for those with lower blood alcohol concentrations, higher fines, and potential ignition interlock waivers).
If you have been accused of alleged impaired driving or DUI in Arizona, you should contact an attorney who has dedicated his or her practice to the defense of the alleged accused driver, and an attorney who has educated him or herself thoroughly on the laws. Navigating these new Arizona laws to best serve clients is not for the inexperienced or part-time DUI lawyer.
