San Jose DUI lawyer

Santa Clara County’s Superior Court adopted its 2026 Criminal Bail Schedule under Penal Code section 1269b(d) on January 27, 2026, and says it remains in effect until January 1, 2027 unless amended or repealed. The court calls it the presumptive bail for many, but not all, offenses, and says a judicial officer may set a different amount in any individual case after weighing public protection, the seriousness of the charge, the defendant’s record and the likelihood of appearing. For a DUI the schedule is specific, and that is what this page sets out first.

California’s penalties, DUI program lengths and interlock rules are on the California DUI law page, and the statute itself is on the Vehicle Code 23152 page.

Where a Santa Clara County DUI is heard

The court’s courthouse pages list criminal services at three courthouses: the Hall of Justice in downtown San Jose, the Palo Alto Courthouse, and the South County Morgan Hill Courthouse. Its criminal division page adds the Family Justice Center, where Drug Court sits. At the Hall of Justice, Department 23 in the east building is the master calendar. All three buildings are open Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm; the criminal information lines answer Monday to Thursday, 8:30am to 3pm, and Friday, 8:30am to noon, and share one email address, sscriminfo@scscourt.org. Mail for the court goes to 191 N. First Street, San Jose.

On the court’s description of a misdemeanor case, a defendant who posts bail or bond, or is released on own recognizance, is told by the authorities when to go to court for arraignment; one who stays in custody is taken there by law enforcement.

Arrest, arraignment and the trial clock

After the arrest. The court’s misdemeanor page describes three outcomes: the jail releases the person without charges; the person posts bail or bond, or is released on their own recognizance; or the person stays in custody and is taken to court for arraignment. The schedule states its own purpose: it fixes an amount on which a person arrested without a warrant may be released before appearing in court.

Arraignment. At the first appearance a judge tells the defendant the charges and their rights, and appoints a lawyer if they cannot afford one, and the defendant pleads guilty, not guilty or no contest. The judge may release the defendant on their own recognizance or set bail. From then on, the schedule says, bail lies within the judicial officer’s discretion and may be greater or less than the scheduled amount, subject to Penal Code section 1275 and In re Humphrey (2021) 11 Cal.5th 135.

The trial clock. The court summarises Penal Code section 1382 for misdemeanors: a defendant in custody at arraignment must be brought to trial within 30 days of arraignment or plea, whichever is later, and one not in custody within 45 days. A defendant who waives time still must be tried within 10 days of the date the trial is set or continued to.

The license. None of this is the DMV. After a failed or refused test you have 10 days to request a hearing from the DMV.

How the schedule prices a DUI

Paragraph M of the general instructions to the schedule’s felony section sets bail for violations of sections 23152 and 23153 by the number of separate convictions within 10 years, and splits each step below the felony line at a blood alcohol level of 0.15. The table below is that paragraph. The misdemeanor section of the schedule lists the same $5,000 and $10,000 for section 23152, and $10,000 or $15,000 for a section 23153 DUI causing injury filed as a misdemeanor, depending on the 0.15 line.

The felony section lists a section 23153 DUI causing injury with no priors at $25,000 and with one prior at $50,000, and a DUI with three or more priors within 10 years under section 23550, or after a prior felony conviction under section 23152, 23153, 191.5 or 192 within 10 years (section 23550.5), at $100,000.

More than one charge. Paragraph K says that charges from the same course of conduct take the highest single bail, while charges from separate courses of conduct are added together, taking the highest-bail charge from each. Its own example adds a section 23153 charge at $25,000 to a vehicle theft and a hit-and-run to reach $60,000.

Fines. The court says it has transitioned all payment and collection activities for criminal cases to a new agency, Alliance One; the papers the clerk gives you say whether to pay the court or the agency, and a fine owed to the court is paid by mailing a check, money order or cashier’s check, never cash.

Santa Clara County DUI bail, by record

Paragraph M of the 2026 schedule.

The same paragraph says that in any DUI case, including those alleging prior convictions, defendants shall be eligible for S.O.R.P. release, and that pretrial services is advised to consider release terms including alcohol monitoring or testing.

The misdemeanor section of the schedule also says that a misdemeanor it does not list is released on own recognizance, with exceptions; a DUI is listed, so that default does not apply to it, and paragraph M, though placed in the felony instructions, says its S.O.R.P. rule covers “any DUI case”. The schedule does not spell out the abbreviation; elsewhere it lists “Supervised OR” among the forms of release. Other Bay Area pages on this site are San Francisco, Alameda County, San Mateo County and Santa Cruz, and eleven other county schedules show how far the figures differ.

Common questions about San Jose DUI cases