Jameson Stone Law defends drivers under 21 across Central Pennsylvania. Ethan Stone leads the DUI work. The limit for a minor is 0.02 rather than 0.08, and the penalty does not scale down to match the reading. That gap is where these cases are won or lost.
The Limit
Section 3802(e) of the Vehicle Code sets the threshold for anyone under 21 at 0.02, measured within two hours of driving. That is one drink for most people, and sometimes less than one. Below 0.02 but above zero, a separate summary offense under section 3718 applies and carries a $100 fine, which is a materially different position to be in.
The Penalty
A minor charged under 3802(e) is sentenced under the same provision as an adult at 0.10 or above. A first offense carries a mandatory minimum of 48 hours in jail, a fine of $500 to $5,000, twelve months without a license, and alcohol highway safety school. A reading of 0.03 and a reading of 0.12 land in the same band.
Which Court
A driver under 18 is usually handled in juvenile court, where the outcome is an adjudication rather than a conviction. The license consequence follows anyway, and an adjudication draws the same twelve months, though a consent decree draws six. Anyone 18 to 20 is in adult criminal court. Which court applies is the first thing a lawyer should establish.
What We Handle
The mandatory minimum, the twelve months, and whether diversion is open in your county before anything is entered.
Adjudication rather than conviction, consent decrees, and keeping the outcome off a record that follows them.
Whether the stop was lawful, how the sample was taken, and whether the number behind the charge holds up.
License restoration, school discipline, and the questions that appear on applications years later.
Our Process
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Whether the reading clears 0.02 at all, how it was produced, and whether a summary offense is the accurate charge instead.
Juvenile or adult court, diversion or a contested defense, decided against the record and the evidence rather than the calendar.
The license, the school, and the record, handled alongside the charge rather than after it is too late to affect them.
Parents call this office more often than the drivers do, usually wanting to know how serious it is and whether it can be kept quiet. The honest answer is that the reading matters less than what happens over the next few weeks.
Not on its own. The statute has no gradation above 0.02, so 0.021 and 0.19 are charged the same way and sentenced in the same band. What a low reading does affect is whether the number is defensible, because a result that close to the threshold sits inside the margin of error on the testing, and the paperwork behind it is worth examining rather than accepting. Below 0.02, the charge should be the summary offense under section 3718 instead, which is a fine rather than a criminal conviction.
That turns on how it resolves rather than on age. A conviction stays and behaves like any other misdemeanor, which matters a great deal when the person is nineteen and has decades of applications ahead of them. Diversion, where it is available, ends in dismissal with the record eligible for expungement afterward. Juvenile records are treated differently again, with their own routes to being cleared. Which of those is realistic depends on the county and on the file, and it gets decided early rather than late.
Not on the DUI suspension itself, and that is the consequence families feel most sharply. Twelve months is twelve months. Whether any limited license is available depends on the type of suspension and the record, so it is worth asking rather than assuming. One thing worth knowing immediately: the suspension does not begin until the license is actually surrendered to PennDOT, so the clock may not have started at all. Our license reinstatement page covers how that works.
A guilty plea at an early appearance closes off the routes that end without a conviction, and it cannot be taken back. The mandatory minimum and the twelve months arrive with it. Ethan Stone leads the firm’s DUI work, and the first conversation costs nothing.