Crossville woman faces eleventh DUI charge after crash

It shocks me that a Knoxville attorney would look at this case and make a completely incorrect statement about how we count prior offenses in Tennessee. Our law establishes a 10 year look back period to see if there is a prior arrest and conviction in the last ten years. If the answer to that is yes, we look back 10 more, but never more than 20.

Crossville woman faces eleventh DUI charge after crash

This does not come through in this article. Of course, the attorney may have had only part of her description included in the article. I hope that is what happened.



Here is the law at 55-10-405:

(a) For the sole purpose of enhancing the punishment for a violation a person who is convicted of a violation of § 55-10-401
shall not be considered a repeat or multiple offender and subject to
the penalties prescribed in this part if ten (10) or more years have
elapsed between the date of the present violation and the date of any
immediately preceding violation of § 55-10-401 that resulted in a conviction for such offense. If, however, the date of a person's violation of § 55-10-401
is within ten (10) years of the date of the present violation, then the
person shall be considered a multiple offender and is subject to the
penalties imposed upon multiple offenders by this part. If a person is
considered a multiple offender under this part, then every violation of § 55-10-401
that resulted in a conviction for such offense occurring within ten
(10) years of the date of the immediately preceding violation shall be
considered in determining the number of prior offenses. However, a
violation occurring more than twenty (20) years from the date of the
instant violation shall never be considered a prior offense for that
purpose.