Getting Into The Pennsylvania ARD Program

The state of Pennsylvania established a program called Accelarated Rehabilitative Disposition back in the 1980’s when law makers realized that the court system was being bogged down by a lot of first offense criminal cases like DUI that could be handled a different way to speed up the process and relieve some of the burden on the court system.

So they established the PA ARD program.  The ARD program was setup to handle a wide variety of first offense criminal cases including DUI offenses.  If you have been accused of a Pennsylvania first offense DUI charge, it will be up to the District Attorney in the County where your DUI occurred to decide whether or not you will be accepted into the ARD program.

Not everyone who has been arrested on a first offense DUI charge in Pennsylvania will automatically qualify for the ARD program.  And if you do qualify for the ARD program, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should accept admittance into the program.

It should be noted that the ARD program is a one chance program, meaning that you will only be accepted into the program one time during your life time.  When a person completes the requirements of the ARD program, their DUI arrest will be expunged from their criminal record.

Lets say that a few years down the road that persom gets arrested on another DUI charge, the court will unseal your criminal record and that first offense that had been expunged previously will be reinstated and you will be tried as a repeat offender.

It is very important that you speak with a PA DUI lawyer about your case and what your chances are of beating the charges against you versus just accepting admittance into the ARD program.  If your DUI attorney feels that you stand a good chance of beating the charges against you, you may want to fight the charge in court versus using your one and only chance with the PA ARD program.