Iowa DUI Lawyer: Drunk Driving 101

A drunk driving arrest is a traumatic event. There is no warning that you will be the arrestee. There’s no way you’re reading this in advance to prevent such an arrest which means you’re here to learn what to expect. Let’s dig in to Operating While Intoxicated, or, Iowa DUI first offense for beginners.

Throughout this primer on first offense drunk driving, I will use DUI as a shorthand for Iowa’s drunk driving law, located Iowa Code Section 321J.2, called Operating While Intoxicated or Operating While Under the Influence.

While many states actually require driving on a public roadway to commit the offense, that is not the case in Iowa. That’s why instead of a “D” for driving in DUI, Iowa uses an “O” for operating. Driving on a public roadway does, indeed, require operation, but not all operation is driving.

For example, you can be parked on the side of the road or in a parking lot and get arrested for “operating.” The jury instruction on operation requires that you be in possession or control of a vehicle, generally speaking, at some point with the vehicle running, at the same time as you are intoxicated. Without getting too far into the weeds on whether you have to be “caught in the act” of actually operating the vehicle with the engine running, the answer is that you don’t—but it does make it slightly more difficult to prove that you were, at some point within the time period of your alleged intoxication, operating that motor vehicle.

But for now, suffice it to say that you can and will get through this. First offense drunk driving in Iowa, called Operating While Intoxicated, or, OWI, and DUI in other States, is a serious misdemeanor. It is not a felony and you will never go to prison on your first time. Simply put, serious misdemeanors are not imprisonable offenses. They are jailable offenses, though, so let’s talk about what the range of jail time and fines are in a first time DUI in Iowa.

The range of penalties is simple—sort of. Typically, someone convicted of first offense drunk driving in Iowa must serve somewhere between two and 365 days. While that’s a wide range, most otherwise law-abiding arrestees convicted of first offense OWI will skew toward the low end of that range. First time OWI in Iowa carries with it a $1250 fine + 15% surcharge + court costs taxed to the Defendant.

There are ways to avoid the jail, however—including deferred judgments and community college jail diversion programs that employ off-duty law enforcement security to enforce a kind of onsite “house arrest.”

There are also ways to reduce the fine. For example, Iowa’s drunk driving law gives the judge discretion to reduce the $1250 fine and surcharge by as much as one half upon the Defendant’s presentation of a temporary restricted license.

Contact us for an initial consultation on how you can qualify for such programs and put this event behind you. We don’t talk down to our clients. We share our legal knowledge with them. We’re empathetic in this process and we want to help.