Orange County DUIs and Community Service
I often get asked, “can I do community service for my DUI?” If you are charged with a DUI with a prior, an accident, or other DUI sentencing enhancements in Orange County, you may find community service as part of your sentence.
Orange County Community Service
Community service for an Orange County DUI case is done at your discretion, based upon what days of the week you have available, and what your interests are. Community service from the courts is done through One OC (formerly known as The Volunteer Center), which is a non profit that coordinates charity needs in Orange County.
They have an exhaustive list of all the approved options in Orange County. You can work at a homeless shelter, a battered woman’s shelter, or a pet shelter. You can work at a food bank or a soup kitchen. There are options helping to clean Orange County beaches, parks, and roadways, or to work for the courts, or the sheriff’s department. There are options that focus on art, or education, or any of a number of other interests.
Not all are seven days a week, but there are options available for each day of the week. So you would choose whatever works with your schedule, and with your interests, and then help charities at your convenience.
Converting Your Fine to Community Service
Court fines you can do via community service, or payments, or any combination of the two. Community service is referred from the court, via order, and referred to the courthouse office of OneOC, which is the volunteer coordinator for the county. They charge a fee of approximately $100. You can visit them at any courthouse or at their main location in Santa Ana, and look through their list of options. Any of the approved programs are available, and they have a wide variety, including soup kitchens, beach clean up, battered women’s shelters, pet shelters, helping the Sheriff’s Department, working in OC Parks, etc.
For every six to eight hour shift, you get $200 off your fines, which comes out to $25 per hour or more. If you make payments, they allow you to pay as low as $50 per month, and as mentioned, you can do any combination of both community service and payments.
You wouldn’t be able to do community service in lieu of giving DNA in Orange County. The DNA is offered to have one or more of the counts dismissed.
Unfortunately, while you can convert a fine to community service, you can’t convert a jail sentence, or community service sentence to an increased fine and get out of doing the community service.
If you are interested in doing community service in lieu of jail time, you will usually find that the courts will be less likely to order any type of community service that is not physical labor, like Cal Trans.
Contact our Orange County DUI Law Firm. If you have any questions about community service in Orange County, or regarding Orange County DUI cases, please feel free to email the firm at info[at]expertlawfirm.com, or call us anytime, toll free, at (949) 682-5316.