I received a DUI in California in 2003. When I received the DUI there was a penalty of a fine completion of a DUI class and for it to stay o...

Question

I received a DUI in California in 2003. When I received the DUI there was a penalty of a fine completion of a DUI class and for it to stay on my record for 7 years. Later the law was changed to allow the DUI to stay on for 10 years and then changed again recently to 13 years. After doing some investigating of my own I found that this is illegal. Here is what makes me think soAn ex post facto law from the Latin for "from after the action" or retroactive law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences or status of actions committed or relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. In reference to criminal law it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed or it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in at the time it was committed or it may change or increase the punishment prescribed for a crime such as by adding new penalties or EXTENDING TERMS or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime more likely than it would have been at the time of the action for which a defendant is prosecuted. Conversely a form of ex post facto law commonly known as an amnesty law may decriminalize certain acts or alleviate possible punishments for example by replacing the death sentence with lifelong imprisonment retroactively. Such laws are also known by the Latin term In mitius. Does anyone have any legal advice for me to help remove this DUI off my record and or can I sue the state or DMV.

I have gotten responses about getting a second DUI but this is not what happened. Also some resonses only focus on the part of the law that retro actively convicts for a crime that was not a crime at the time it was comitted. But what about the part that I put in all uppercase ( Extending terms). This is exactly what happened to me. I am a commercial driver who has been affected now for 13 years instead of the 7 that where part of the punishment when the crime was commited. I am having a hard time getting employment and my insurance is affected for a longer period of time.

There is also a state civil code that applies here which is 1786.18 which only allows agencys to report criminal convictions for 7 years. This is in fact true cause i recently won a setllement for 20,000 dollars for a agency reporting a conviction that was 7yrs and 1 month old. The court awarded me a settlement on this case.

Who would I sue the state or the DMV?

Answer

The Supreme Court has ruled in cases similar to yours that using the longer deadline is not a violation of the ex post facto clause.

Also you should know that a conviction remains on your record indefinitely. The limit refers only to the period of time that it is considered a prior for a second or third DUI.