{"id":352,"date":"2018-04-25T14:48:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T18:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatercriminallawyer.net\/?p=352"},"modified":"2026-01-31T09:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:04:13","slug":"dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"DUI, Reckless Driving, and Double Jeopardy in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The rule against double jeopardy generally bans judges from convicting a person multiple times for the same crime. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.4dca.org\/content\/download\/186710\/1656214\/file\/163706_1708_04112018_08583394_i.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent case<\/a> out of Florida\u2019s Fourth District Court of Appeals provides some interesting insight into how the double jeopardy protection applies in Florida DUI and reckless driving cases. That includes cases in which the person charged with the crimes was involved in a car accident. As the court explains, a driver can be convicted of both DUI and reckless driving, but he or she can\u2019t be convicted of multiple counts of DUI or reckless driving if the crash involves only one victim.A defendant was charged with several crimes related to his involvement in a car accident that left one person severely injured, according to the court. He pleaded guilty to five offenses, including DUI with serious bodily injury, DUI with property damage, reckless driving with serious bodily injury, and reckless driving with property damage. At a later sentencing hearing, the trial judge rejected his argument that he couldn\u2019t be convicted separately on the various charges because of double jeopardy protections. The judge sentenced him to an unidentified period of time in jail, followed by probation.<\/p>\n<p>On appeal, the Fourth District agreed with the defendant that the trial judge violated the double jeopardy rule. The court began by explaining that multiple DUI convictions can stem from the same accident when there are multiple victims injured in the crash. But the court added that \u201cthere can be but one conviction for each victim, regardless of whether that victim sustains property damage, serious bodily injury, or both.\u201d That\u2019s because both charges are essentially varying degrees of the same offense. In other words, the court said the defendant could not be charged with both DUI with serious bodily injury and DUI with property damage when the same person is the victim of both the injury and the property damage.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/#more-352\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rule against double jeopardy generally bans judges from convicting a person multiple times for the same crime. A recent case out of Florida\u2019s Fourth District Court of Appeals provides some interesting insight into how the double jeopardy protection applies in Florida DUI and reckless driving cases. That includes cases in which the person charged [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dui"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Double Jeopardy Limits that Can Change a Case: DUI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Small details can matter in court. A DUI case can hinge on DUI reckless driving double. See how this ruling your defense. Learn what to ask your lawyer.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Double Jeopardy Limits that Can Change a Case: DUI\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Small details can matter in court. A DUI case can hinge on DUI reckless driving double. See how this ruling your defense. Learn what to ask your lawyer.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Double Jeopardy Limits that Can Change a Case: DUI","description":"Small details can matter in court. A DUI case can hinge on DUI reckless driving double. See how this ruling your defense. 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Learn what to ask your lawyer.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"DUI, Reckless Driving, and Double Jeopardy in Florida","datePublished":"2018-04-25T18:48:25+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T14:04:13+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/"},"wordCount":548,"articleSection":["DUI"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/dui-reckless-driving-and-double-jeopardy-in-florida\/","name":"Double Jeopardy Limits that Can Change a Case: DUI","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-04-25T18:48:25+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T14:04:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Small details can matter in court. 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