McHenry County DUIs
If drivers understood the variance of results in McHenry DUI arrests, they would be upset. There are generally two schools of thought in McHenry County. The first is the "no rescissions" stance. This stance is held for DUI written by the Sheriff, Illinois State Police, Algonquin and Huntley. This belief comes from the "people should pay for their crimes" school of thought. The idea being that all drivers arrested for DUI should serve some form of suspension.
All too frequently, a driver will challenge this stance and not be punished at all (and receive no counseling, fines, jail or anything) by proceeding to trial and winning. Generally first offenders would rather receive no conviction for a promise to pay fines and attend school, but this stance encourages drivers to challenge their stops.
The second is the "rescind for higher fines". This stance has the advantage that all of the drivers will receive some counseling, however the entity may get in trouble if a driver later is involved in a fatal car accident while he would have been suspended. The part of the analysis that they don't want you to know is that many drivers will "drive anyway" and the suspension period that we are talking about is relatively short, 30 days long.
Drivers subjected to these two schools of thought in one county will feel they have been treated unfairly. "Why did the other guy not lose his license?" they will ask.
The answer is that different prosecutors see this offense in different ways, and that can lead to different results .... even in the same county.
Ray Flavin
