Am I Eligible For DUI Diversion?

As a DUI Lawyer, that’s a question I get a lot. A lot of people think that you automatically get diversion for your first DUI in Oregon. It’s not quite that simple.

First of all, you can’t have had a DUI for at least 15 years. And that means anywhere. If you got a DUI in another state, that will still count against and prohibit you from doing diversion. There are slight exceptions to this, but that’s for another post.

Next, you can’t have participated in a similar drug and alcohol court ordered treatment program in the last 15 years. So if you participated in a treatment program that was court ordered from some previous case, like a drug court program, that will likely exclude you. Now this only applies to court ordered treatment. It doesn’t mean that if you went to treatment on your own in the past that you’d be excluded from diversion.

Third, you can’t have been convicted or have any pending charges of murder, manslaughter, vehicular assault, and other serious crimes.

Fourth, you can’t have a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) or have gotten your DUI while driving a commercial motor vehicle. Sometimes people haven’t used their CDL in years and then they get a DUI only to find out that they’re excluded from diversion due to the CDL they still hold.

Finally, you can’t have injured or killed anyone as a result of your DUI. This is another common way for people to be excluded from diversion.

As I alluded to earlier, it is possible to litigate some of these issues and have a contested diversion hearing. It’s not uncommon for a prosecutor to object to diversion but to still get a client in to diversion. In fact, it happens all the time.