DUI Manslaughter and Serious Bodily Injury Cases

If your DUI case results in an accident that causes death or serious bodily injury, there may be more severe penalties for your DUI case. Attorney Ben Stechschulte is available to help mitigate your risk at trial.

DUI Penalties

DUI With a Serious Bodily Injury (SBI)

If you are accused of causing someone to suffer serious injury as a result of an accident caused by driving intoxicated, the criminal charges you face are automatically upgraded to felony charges.

DUI Manslaughter/Vehicular Homicide

DUI manslaughter is defined as causing the death of a human being or of a viable human fetus while you are operating a vehicle under the influence. Vehicular homicide is defined as killing a person or viable fetus while operating a motor vehicle in a reckless way likely to lead to death or great bodily harm.

DUI manslaughter is a second-degree felony and carries a mandatory minimum penalty of four years of prison time, with up to a total of 15 years of prison time possible. If you are charged with DUI manslaughter, your attorney may hire an accident reconstruction expert to help demonstrate that the accident was not your fault.

Contact the seasoned criminal defense team at Stechschulte Nell Law firm in Tampa, FL. We offer a free case review and payment plans should you need them.

DUI Causation Defense

In DUI manslaughter and Serious Bodily Injury cases, one of the best defenses is an argument that you were not at fault in the accident. In the state of FL, even if you are impaired at the time of the death/accident, you cannot be held responsible for a death that you did not cause.

Unless the prosecutor can show that you were drunk AND that your intoxication was a direct cause of death, you cannot be guilty of DUI manslaughter. This means that if the other driver was behaving irresponsibly or if outside factors caused the death, the simple fact that you were driving drunk does not automatically mean you are guilty of anything.

If you are charged with DUI manslaughter, our Tampa criminal defense law firm can hire defense experts to challenge any evidence that you were at fault in the accident.

Call a DUI Defense Attorney

If you’ve been accused of DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, or serious bodily injury, you need an attorney with experience. Stechschulte Nell Law is a top-rated DUI defense firm; our goal as your attorney is to help you get the most favorable outcome for your case.

Our law firm conveniently accepts all forms of payment including cash, check, debit and credit cards and we can also provide a payment plan to clients.