Are there penalties in California for a DUI in another state?

If you are a California resident, you may wonder what will happen if you get in trouble outside of California. For example, you may be curious about whether there are California penalties for a DUI in another state. The answer to this is that it depends on what you mean by penalties. If you get a DUI in another state and then you come home to California, the California courts aren't going to issue a warrant for your arrest and make you go to court and impose fines or community service on you. The state where you had the DUI is the state whose laws you have broken and they are the state who is going to impose the penalties on you. 

However, this doesn't mean that the DUI isn't going to affect your life in California. If your license is suspended in the other state, then California will be notified of that since they are part of the Interstate Driver's License Compact. Under this Compact, 45 out of the 50 states in the US share information about DUI convictions and license suspensions. When California hears of the license suspension, your license and right to drive in California can be taken away. In addition, if you are charged with a subsequent DUI within the state of California, it is possible that the offenses from the previous state are going to make worse the penalties that you are facing for your subsequent DUI. 

Any time you are charged with a DUI, the consequences are serious- whether that DUI happens in your home state or not. As such, if you are charged with a DUI, you need to speak with a lawyer right away about your options and about what consequences you face.