Interviewer: Is DUI and DWI more criminal or is it more traffic-oriented or is it both? Glen Malia: It's both. DWI and the lesser offense of driving while ability impaired, have both criminal and driving penalties. DWI is classified as either … Your first offense DWI is a misdemeanor, which the standard Class A Misdemeanor sentencing is applicable. You could get up to a year in jail or you could get three years' probation. Then there's also with DWIs there's also a requirement to install and maintain ignition interlock in the car, or the DWI could be a felony. A felony is more serious, and if you have a misdemeanor conviction within the last 10 years and you're charged with a DWI again, it becomes a felony. It becomes a Class E Felony, which is the lowest level felony, but it still opens the possibility of up to one and a third to four-year state prison sentence, or if it's probation, instead of being three years' probation it's five years' probation. Then you always have fines involved with those, the criminal sanctions. The Administrative DMV Imposed Sanctions Involve Having Your Driver’s License Revoked On a First Offense The administrative sanctions, the DMV sanctions, involve having your license revoked on a first offense, a misdemeanor, a minimum period of six months. On a first felony, a minimum period for one year, and now we've gone even further in New York State, depending upon how many DWI or drinking and driving convictions you have within a certain period of time, the Department of Motor Vehicles can permanently prohibit you from having a driver's license. There can be a permanent revocation of your driving privileges depending upon various factors, the number of prior cases you've had and the period of time in which it's been. Common Crimes That People Seek Legal Representation for In the State of New York Interviewer: What crimes do you represent people for that most people are commonly aware of? For instance, do you do any blue collar crimes or anything like that? Glen Malia: The crimes, as I said, what I'm doing mostly, to a large extent, that most people are aware of is obviously the DWIs, the drug possessions, the larcenies, thefts and the domestic violence type charges. I don't do any white collar crimes. I don’t represent the Bernie Madoffs of the world. That's a whole different ... To a large extent, most white collar crimes that we read about, that we hear about, the hedge fund managers who rip everybody off, the insurance companies; those are in the Federal system. There are actually two systems of crimes. There's the state system and the Federal system. Certain crimes are Federal, but then there are crimes that are state crimes. There are actually crimes that are both, can be prosecuted both. Crimes Like Possession of Child Pornography are Prosecuted at Both State and Federal Level For example, a crime that can be prosecuted both federally and state level is basically possession of child pornography. That's a Federal crime and a state crime. The interesting thing is the Federal system is generally much more heavier penalties for the same conduct than the state system has. I don't do any Federal criminal work. I really don't do any white collar work. Most of what I'm doing is the good person who gets themselves in a jam or their children get in a jam or the college kids you hear, a kid comes home from college during break time and goes out driving, gets drunk or the kid from college gets caught smoking a joint or something of that nature. That's most of what I do. Mostly misdemeanor. It's all state court work, mostly misdemeanor work, but I do handle felonies. I've had trials with felonies. |