The Eichelberger Law Firm, PLLC

08/27/2026

DUI non-adjudication in Mississippi involves more than just the license impact. The first thing to know about is MASEP, the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program. It's mandatory, everyone doing a non-adjudication has to complete it. When you're in court, you'll be given an order laying out exactly what day you're supposed to start.

08/26/2026

If your license gets suspended after a DUI stop in Mississippi, you do have the right to challenge it. You'll get what's called a 10 day letter, and it does two things: it tells you when the suspension starts, and it gives you a 10 day window, starting from the date of the letter itself, not the date you receive it, to file a challenge arguing the officer didn't have probable cause to ask for the breath test. That puts a judge directly in the position of reviewing the officer's probable cause.

08/20/2026

Almost everybody knows .08. It is the number people plan around, argue about, and assume is the line.

If the driver is under 21 in Mississippi, it is the wrong number.

A driver under 21 can be charged under Mississippi's Zero Tolerance for Minors law at a BAC well below .08. The same reading that sends an adult home from that traffic stop with no DUI at all can put a 20 year old into a charge. And the threshold is low enough that a single drink puts a lot of people past it.

That is the trap. Not that minors get treated more harshly on penalties, because in that window they actually get some grace. The trap is that the door to a charge opens much earlier for them, and most young drivers have no idea it exists.

If you have a kid who just went off to school, this is the conversation worth having this week.

08/19/2026

Parents hear that Mississippi's Zero Tolerance for Minors law carries a lighter penalty than a standard DUI and understandably exhale. That relief is real, and it is also narrower than it sounds.

Inside that window, the statute genuinely gives ground. There is a meaningful piece of exposure an adult faces at .08 or above that simply is not available against a driver under 21 in that range. The fine is fixed too, and I mean fixed. Not a range a judge works within, one number, no movement in either direction. That is unusual in criminal sentencing and worth understanding.

Here is the part that gets missed. Everything else that comes with a DUI still comes with this one. Court costs. License suspension, which gets worse with each subsequent offense. It goes on the criminal record and the driving record. Insurance rates move. And for a college student who is pre-med, headed to law school, or aiming at any licensed profession, this shows up later at exactly the moment it is least welcome.

On repeat offenses in that same window the statute keeps escalating the fine rather than escalating the way an adult DUI escalates, which is its own important distinction if a second one happens.

So yes, there is some grace built into the law for drivers under 21. Grace is not the same thing as no consequences. Full breakdown of both sides in the video.

08/18/2026

If your kid is under 21 and facing a DUI in Mississippi, the first thing to figure out is which DUI you are actually dealing with. They are not all the same, and the difference is not a matter of degree.

Mississippi's statute has tiers, and the most serious tier is not available against a driver under 21 whose BAC falls below a certain number. Below that line, the charge is a violation of Mississippi's Zero Tolerance for Minors law, which carries its own set of rules that look nothing like a standard DUI.

Worth saying plainly: an officer can allege whatever they are willing to swear to, and a judge who finds probable cause will sign the warrant. What ends up on the charging document is not the same as what the State can prove. But the statute itself sets real limits on where this can go, and knowing those limits early changes how you approach the whole case.

One minute, and it is the piece parents most often get wrong.

08/17/2026

Under 21 and facing a DUI in Mississippi? The rules aren't the same as they are for an adult. Mississippi's Zero Tolerance for Minors law covers a specific BAC range with its own penalties, no jail time, but a fixed fine and the same lasting record consequences. Here's what every parent and young driver should know.

Mississippi's Zero Tolerance for Minors law creates a separate BAC threshold and penalty structure for drivers under 21. No jail time, a fixed $250 fine, but the same license and record consequences. Here's how it actually works.

08/17/2026

Yesterday I explained how Mississippi's Zero Tolerance for Minors law works. Here's the wrinkle underneath it that matters most, and it's the piece that changes how serious the exposure actually is.

Mississippi's DUI statute has tiers, and one of them is far more serious than the rest. There is a hard limit on when that top tier can be brought against a driver under 21, and it turns entirely on one number.

Below that number, the charge is a Zero Tolerance for Minors violation, with its own set of special rules. And if there are no test results at all, that same statute can still apply.

Short one. Watch it before you assume your student is facing the worst version of this.

08/16/2026

Every August the phone starts ringing with a version of the same call. A parent, a kid two weeks into the semester, and a DUI charge nobody saw coming.

Here is the part that catches almost everyone off guard: Mississippi has a separate DUI statute for people the law calls minors, and in this corner of the code that word does not mean what most people assume. Mississippi uses "minor" to mean different things in different areas of the law, and getting the definition wrong changes your entire read on the case.

The statute is called Zero Tolerance for Minors. It comes with real catches. It only applies inside a specific window, there is a hard rule for what happens when that window gets exceeded, and a refusal creates a second, completely separate problem stacked on top of the first.

There is also one significant piece of good news buried in that statute that most parents have no idea exists. It is the difference between a rough semester and something a lot worse.

Full breakdown in the video. If your student is facing this in Mississippi, do not guess at it.

08/14/2026

Conspiracy charges in Mississippi don't require the crime to actually happen. Two or more people agreeing to commit one, or to accomplish something illegal through unlawful means, can be enough on its own. And the penalties ride on whatever the underlying crime would have been.

08/13/2026

If you refuse a breath test in Mississippi, you'll get a 10 day letter in the mail. It tells you when your license suspension starts and gives you a narrow window to challenge it in court. What happens in that hearing can matter more than most people realize, and the timeline is tighter than you'd think since the 10 days run from the date on the letter, not the day it lands in your mailbox.