As readers of this Wisconsin drunk driving defense blog may be well aware, a drunk driving or DUI charge can impose significant burdens on an affected party's life. A DUI conviction can prevent a person from exercising certain rights and privileges. It can hold a person back in his career and prevent him from advancing in other areas of his life.
Although the results of a standard DUI charge can be severe, those consequences can be dwarfed by those experienced by people who are convicted of aggravated DUI charges. An aggravated DUI charge can be imposed when a driver exhibits extraordinarily poor judgment and is based on the factual circumstances of the driver's situation.
For example, a suspected drunk driver who chooses to operate a vehicle with children in the car could face an aggravated DUI charge. The heightened penalties associated with the charge are intended to provide a proportional penalty to the person who presumably puts the children in harm's way by operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.
Aggravated DUI charges can also result from other scenarios. When a driver's blood alcohol concentration is extremely high his charge may be elevated to the aggravated level. When a driver has multiple DUI convictions in his history and is suspected of committing yet another one, his charge may become an aggravated one.
The examples provided in this post are only a few of the ways that a driver's DUI charge may be changed into an aggravated DUI claim. Aggravated DUI charges are very serious and can result in affected parties spending time in jail if convictions are secured. To learn more about aggravated DUI charges and DUI charges in general, interested readers may choose to contact DUI defense attorneys in their areas