Q: If I go into my arraignment and plead "not guilty," or if I hire an Arizona DUI Lawyer to enter a plea of not guilty for me, will the judge or the prosecutor hold it against me?

A: A plea of not guilty will never be held against you. It is your constitutional right to plead not guilty. It is also expected that most people will plead not guilty at the first court appearance, which for Arizona misdemeanor DUI cases is the arraignment.

In a good percentage of Arizona DUI cases, you may not even know your blood alcohol level at your first hearing. Therefore, how could you be expected to know whether the charge(s) that you plead guilty to actually fit the facts of the case.

For example, you may blow a .230 on a preliminary breath test, which in Arizona is not admissible because it is not accurate. In that case, you may be charged with a super-extreme DUI. If you plead guilty to a super-extreme at your arraignment you will have to do a minimum of 45 days in jail. What if you blood later comes back at a .175 (which is not unheard of)? What if it comes back at a .110 (I've seen it happen)? If you pled guilty without knowing your blood test result, you may do 44 days of unnecessary jail time.

If you have a lawyer in a misdemeanor DUI case in Arizona, you will not even need to appear at  your arraignment. It is standard procedure for your lawyer to enter pleas of not-guilty for you. This is typically done by mail or fax, and requires about 10 minutes of paperwork.

Judges tend to like it when people plead not guilty at their arraignments. If they plead guilty, there is always a chance that they will realize that they made a mistake and come back and ask the judge to undo their guilty plea. Judges and prosecutors also worry about people pleading guilty at their DUI arraignments in order to avoid the state or the court learning of a prior conviction or other pending case. Because of this, some judges will either refuse to accept a plea of guilty at arraignment, or they will tenatively accept it, but put off sentencing for 30 days so that the prosecutor can do a background check to make sure there is no criminal history that would impact sentencing.