If you were arrested for an “Enhanced DUI,” you might be wondering what that means – for yourself, your career and your family – and what to do next to proceed. If you are facing an Enhanced Driving Under the Influence charge in Fort Lauderdale, the first thing you need to do is hire an experienced DUI defense attorney. The sooner, the better.
A South Florida enhanced DUI lawyer will help you figure out what your next steps are and any good attorney will explain what’s going on and what’s going to happen in your case. Knowing an experienced lawyer is on your side and actively working to get a positive resolution in your case will help ease your mind.

What is an Enhanced DUI Crime?
DUI stands for Driving Under the Influence of alcohol or drugs. Under Florida Law, a DUI is proved by a person’s “normal faculties” being impaired or if a person has an unlawful blood alcohol or breath alcohol level.
An Enhanced DUI can be a large number of things: ranging from a DUI manslaughter, DUI with property damage, DUI with serious bodily injury, or even a second, third, or fourth DUI.
This means that an enhanced DUI is not technically on its own a charge, but that it is your basic DUI where some kind of unique scenario occurred, and it is now considered “enhanced”. So, for example, a DUI with property damage is an enhanced DUI because, at the minimum, it’s a DUI charge, but it’s enhanced, or aggravated, by the fact that property was damaged.
CONSEQUENCES OF AN ENHANCED DUI IN SOUTH FLORIDA
A basic DUI – where no one is injured, nothing is damaged, and it’s your first-time DUI – is a second-degree misdemeanor. This means that there’s a maximum of 6 months in jail. With an Enhanced DUI, however, there’s a range of penalties depending on the actual charge.
For example, for a DUI manslaughter, you’d be facing a second-degree felony. That means you’re looking at up to 15 years of imprisonment, probation, or a combination of the two with a minimum mandatory sentence of 4 years in prison.
As an expert attorney can explain, a DUI with damage to property or another person, however, is also technically an “Enhanced DUI” but an individual charged with that crime only faces a first-degree misdemeanor, with only up to a year in jail.
The Assistant State Attorney, judge, and jury have a lot of discretion in what you’re formally charged with when it comes to an Enhanced DUI, and therefore, the kind of penalties you may face. Prosecutors weigh a number of factors to decide what an appropriate plea offer is (if they decide to offer one), such as the severity of the offense, your prior criminal history, your blood alcohol level at the time of the incident, etc. 
ENHANCED DUI CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY IN FORT LAUDERDALE
In order to get the best possible outcome in your case, you need to hire a criminal defense attorney who, at bare minimum, has experience handling DUI charges in South Florida. Someone who knows the ins-and-outs of DUI law is your best bet.
An Enhanced DUI charge is not something to mess around with – depending on the charge, you could lose your voting privileges, driving privileges, ability to apply for food stamps, and much more. Facing any criminal charge threatens your personal liberties and freedoms, and we at Rossen Law Firm take that extremely seriously.
What does Rossen Law Firm do to make sure you aren’t impacted by your past mistakes for the rest of your life? To start with, we set up a free strategy meeting with you. During this meeting, we’ll discuss what happened during the incident, what’s going on in your case, what strategies we think will work for you, and what you want to see as a resolution for your case. That’s our goal for the first meeting.
After that, we’ll start working on your actual case – speaking with the prosecutor and judge about what we want to do next, conducting depositions of the police officers that responded or made the arrest or getting in contact with potential witnesses, filing motions to get your case resolved, and more. We keep open lines of communication with all parties involved – the prosecutor, our client (you), and anyone else who might be involved.
Enhanced DUI Defenses
- Valid explanations for your appearance or behavior: There are a number of reasons why your eyes could be red, or you may have been weaving in and out of lanes for a moment or two. Sometimes arrests for DUI are just a matter of bad timing and weird coincidences. When this happens, we are ready to make those arguments on your behalf.
- Causation: This is a sticky argument, but sometimes it can work for certain types of enhanced DUI cases. If we can show that your conduct did not lead to the end result that the State is alleging occurred, we could have a pretty good chance of getting your charges reduced.
- Illegal Stop: This argument works for most, but not all, types of enhanced DUI. For a second, third, fourth, etc. DUI, we can attempt to argue that the police officer who pulled you over lacked probable cause and had no reason to stop you. Thus, anything he discovered should be inadmissible in court – leading to your charges getting reduced or even completely dropped.
Enhanced DUI Criminal Defense Free Strategy Session in South Florida
The attorneys at Rossen Law Firm have worked thousands of DUI cases from start to finish. We have experience in all different kinds of enhanced DUIs.
From felony DUIs, to DUI with property damage, and even DUI manslaughter, Adam and Manny know what they’re doing. We know how to get the answers we want and how to get the plea offers that our clients may want.
To speak with our experienced Fort Lauderdale enhanced DUI lawyers, please call us today to schedule a FREE STRATEGY SESSION to see what we can do for you and your charges. The sooner you contact us, the sooner we can start working on your case.
HOW WE WIN ENHANCED DUI CASES