A first DUI in Montana: what it can result in

Montana puts a floor under the first DUI that is short but genuinely consecutive: not less than twenty-four consecutive hours and not more than six months, with a fine of $600 to $1,000. One fact doubles both halves at once. If one or more passengers under sixteen were in the vehicle, the floor becomes forty-eight consecutive hours, the ceiling rises from six months to a year, and the fine becomes $1,200 to $2,000. The same doubling runs up the ladder: a second violation is seven days to a year at $1,200 to $2,000, or fourteen days and $2,400 to $4,000 with a child aboard; a third is thirty days to a year at $2,500 to $5,000, or sixty days with a child aboard. The felony sits above all of these at the fourth offence in a separate section.

Start from what the statute forces and what it leaves to the judge. The floor here is not less than 24 consecutive hours nor more than 6 months. Everything above that floor is argued, and the same conviction can end up served in custody, on work release or as a condition of probation depending on the county and the judge. What no one can promise you is a sentence below the statutory minimum — that is not a question of persuasion.

Misdemeanor: not less than 24 consecutive hours nor more than 6 months, and a fine of $600 to $1,000. The range is set by Mont. Code Ann. § 61-8-1007(1)(a); § 61-8-1002(1)(a), and the figures on this page come from the statute rather than from a summary of it.

Montana gives the court a choice rather than a mandate on a first offense: it can send you to the 24/7 sobriety and drug monitoring program, or issue a probationary license restricted to an interlock-equipped vehicle. Either way you pay for the monitoring yourself. The device requirement and the criminal penalty are separate tracks: one is handled by the court, the other by The sentencing court, with records held by the Montana Motor Vehicle Division.