The 60 day time limit in Atlanta Municipal Court

DUI Arrests in Atlanta Georgia

If you were arrested by the Georgia State Patrol within the city limits of Atlanta or the Atlanta Police Department, your arraignment will be in Atlanta Municipal Court. Once the case is docketed in municipal court, a 60 day period begins where the case must either be resolved in Atlanta City Court or sent to Fulton County State Court.

The 60 day period puts you and your Atlanta DUI Lawyer on the clock to review the evidence, investigate the case, engage in plea negotiations, and decide if a case should have a jury trial.  Any delay in hiring an Atlanta DUI Attorney can make it impossible to complete all that needs to be done in the case.

Why only 60 days?

The short answer is a short Atlanta Municipal Court history lesson.  For years, the Atlanta DUI Cases piled up.  There were build-in inefficiencies in the court system. There were difficulties getting police reports and videos.  Cases lingered for more than a year, and sometimes longer.  Around 2011, the court was so backed up, nothing was getting done.  Rightly or wrongly, the court decided to bind cases over to Fulton County just to get rid of some of the older cases.  These bind overs were sometimes against the will of Atlanta DUI Lawyers because in many of the cases the Atlanta DUI Attorneys did not not even have discovery in the cases.

Classic Over-Reaction:

So, today we are left with the classic over-reacton that all cases must be resolved in only 60 days. The result is that many decisions are being forced to be made without full information.  Sometimes we have to make decisions before receiving all the reports and the videos in the case.  However, if you hire your DUI Lawyer in Atlanta immediately after your arrest, there is far better chance that you will be fully informed about your case before having to make a decision.

So, if you are arrested for DUI in Atlanta Georgia, contact us today for immediate legal help.  You can reach us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, weekends, and nights.