If you’ve received a DUI in Lexington, South Carolina, you need to know how long it can take to fight the charge. The good news (or bad news depending on your perspective), is that area courts now generally moves DUI cases much quicker than they did in prior years. But it is still a complex process, that does take time to complete.
There is a different time-frame to fully challenge a DUI than there is to just go to court and plead guilty. The process includes making legal filings with the court to contest the charge, as well as to obtain evidence in advance of court (called discovery). This will include any video recordings or police reports about the charge.If your goal is to fight a DUI rather than just accept it, you don't do this at the first date written on the ticket. That date will actually be cancelled by the initial filings and a new date, usually a few months later, will be automatically scheduled by the court.
After these materials are reviewed the defendant can determine whether or not they wish to try to pursue or agree to a lesser charge (likereckless driving), or if they should instead seek a complete dismissal through trial. If a case is resolved through a plea bargain it may be possible to resolve it quicker than waiting on a trial date.
The exact time frame all of this takes in large part depends on the exact local court that would hear the case. In Lexington and Richland counties alone there are actually 16 separate courts that hear DUI cases, and some of these have reputations for being very fast (just a few months) to resolve the average contested DUI, and some have reputations for being slower (over a year), to resolve similar cases.