Two Beers and a Refusal
Andre is 20 and drives home from a friend's apartment at 1:15 a.m. He drank two beers between 10 p.m. and midnight and ate dinner, and he feels completely sober. On Eastern Avenue an officer stops him because his license-plate light is out. The officer smells alcohol, has Andre step out, and gives a portable breath test that reads 0.04. Andre is arrested. At the station, the officer reads the implied-consent advisory and asks for an evidentiary breath sample. Andre refuses, saying, 'Point-zero-four is under point-zero-eight, so I'm legal - and if I blow again you'll just have more evidence.' The officer books him into jail. Andre's roommate posts bail and tells him the refusal 'doesn't matter because the breath test was already under the limit.' Andre's court date is in three weeks, and he wants to know whether he will lose his license and for how long.
1. Is Andre correct that a 0.04 breath result makes him legal?
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No. Nevada's 0.08 limit applies to drivers 21 and older. For drivers under 21, the limit is 0.02 - a zero-tolerance standard. At 20, Andre's 0.04 reading is twice the legal limit for his age, so the result supports a DUI charge even though he felt sober and even though he was below 0.08.
Feeling sober is not the test. The statute is written in terms of BAC, and impairment evidence is an additional route to a DUI, not a substitute for the numeric limit. His argument gets the adult standard wrong, and repeating it to the officer does not help him.
The practical point for a 20-year-old: any drinking before driving is a license risk. Two beers over three hours can still leave a young, lighter driver above 0.02, especially late at night with little food. He should not assume his own estimate of his BAC is accurate.
2. What are the consequences of refusing the evidentiary test, and was the roommate right that it does not matter?
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The refusal is its own case, separate from the DUI. Nevada's implied-consent law says that by driving on Nevada roads you agree to submit to a breath, blood, or urine test when lawfully arrested for DUI. Refusing triggers an administrative revocation by DMV: one year for a first refusal, three years if there is a prior refusal. That revocation can happen even if the criminal charge is later reduced or dismissed, because it addresses the refusal rather than the driving.
The roommate is wrong. Refusal also tends to be used against a driver at trial and can affect plea negotiations, because it looks like an attempt to deny evidence rather than a legal argument.
Andre's immediate move is to read the DMV notice carefully and request the administrative hearing by the deadline printed on it. Missing that deadline usually forfeits the chance to challenge the revocation. He should talk to a lawyer before deciding how to handle both tracks.
3. What penalties should Andre expect from a first DUI conviction, and what should he do in the next three weeks?
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A first DUI conviction in Nevada generally brings a 90-day license revocation, a fine in the $400 to $1,000 range plus assessments, DUI school, a victim impact panel, and either two days in jail or 48 hours of community service, with up to six months in jail possible. The under-21 zero-tolerance violation is charged as a DUI, so the same structure applies. The refusal revocation runs on the administrative track alongside it, and the DMV, not the court, calculates how the periods are served.
In the next three weeks he should:
- Respond to the DMV notice and request the hearing in writing.
- Get counsel and bring the citation, the DMV notice, and any paperwork from the station.
- Arrange rides to work and school now, before any revocation begins.
Driving on a revoked license would add a misdemeanor and lengthen the revocation - the exact mistake that turns a bad month into a bad year.