Treatment tuition is separate
The two-year approved treatment program in a deferred prosecution is paid for by the defendant, not the court. It is a distinct bill from the attorney fee, the fines, and the interlock costs.
Amend, Defer, or Plead? What Each Washington DUI Ending Actually Costs You
The Ignition Interlock
Reckless counts as a prior
A reckless driving conviction amended down from a DUI still counts as a prior offense if another alcohol case is filed within the statutory lookback period. That raises the mandatory minimums the second time around.
Negligent driving first degree
This lesser offense is the most favorable common amendment and does not carry the DUI mandatory minimum structure. It usually still comes with an alcohol evaluation, treatment compliance, and a probation term.
Negligent driving, reckless driving, a five-year deferred prosecution, or a guilty plea: what each Washington DUI outcome carries in money, time, and conditions once the file closes.
Most Washington drunk driving cases end in one of four places, and the difference between them is rarely the headline anyone repeats at the courthouse. A charge reduced to negligent driving still leaves conditions. A deferred prosecution dismisses the case eventually, but only after five years of exposure. A guilty plea carries a statutory floor nobody can bargain under. The useful comparison is not which sounds mildest, but what each one costs in money, supervision, and time before the file is genuinely closed, and what happens if something goes wrong in year two.
1. Negligent driving in the first degree
This is the amendment most people are hoping for when they hire counsel, and it is a real one: a lesser offense under Washington law that is not a prior for future sentencing purposes in the way a DUI conviction is. What a careful reader checks is the sentencing conditions attached to it, because a negligent driving plea frequently arrives with an alcohol evaluation, compliance with recommended treatment, and a probation term running two years or more. Fines and court costs still apply. The license consequence usually comes from the separate administrative case, not this plea.
2. Reckless driving
Reckless driving is the other common amendment, and it is a heavier one than negligent driving in ways that show up later. It carries a mandatory license suspension of its own through the Department of Licensing, and Washington treats it as a prior offense if a new alcohol case appears within seven years. Insurers price it aggressively. Prosecutors sometimes offer reckless where the breath test reading or driving pattern is bad enough that negligent driving is off the table, so the question worth asking is which amendment was realistically available, not whether an amendment happened at all.
3. Deferred prosecution
A deferred prosecution is not a plea. It is a petition, available once in a lifetime, in which the defendant states that the offense arose from alcohol or drug dependency and agrees to a two-year treatment program at an approved agency, followed by three more years of court supervision. Complete all five years and the charge is dismissed. Fail, and the court revokes the deferral and finds guilt on stipulated facts, with no trial and no defense left. Ignition interlock is required during the deferral. The treatment itself is a paid course of intensive outpatient care, group sessions, and monitored abstinence, and that bill is separate from anything the attorney quoted.
4. The straight guilty plea
Pleading as charged puts the case into the mandatory minimum structure of Washington's DUI sentencing statute, where jail or electronic home monitoring, fines, license action, and an ignition interlock requirement all scale with the breath or blood test result and the number of prior offenses in the lookback window. Probation can run five years in district court. A high-risk insurance filing follows, and the conviction never leaves the driving record. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees impaired driving countermeasures nationally, and states build these floors deliberately so that the sentence cannot be negotiated below them.
5. Comparing them on the full number, not the headline
Line the four up and add every recurring cost: the attorney's fee, the fines and court assessments, the evaluation, the treatment tuition, monthly probation fees, interlock installation and monthly calibration, the insurance surcharge for the years it lasts, and the lost wages from every required appearance. A deferred prosecution often costs more in dollars than a reckless driving plea and more in time than anything else on the list, while ending in a dismissal. An amendment costs less and closes faster. A careful reader asks the attorney to price each path out loud, in years and dollars, before choosing.
6. The questions that separate the paths
Three facts usually decide which endings are actually on the table: the test result, the prior record, and whether the stop and the breath test survive a suppression motion. Ask which of the four your case qualifies for today, which becomes available if a motion succeeds, and what the local prosecutor's standing policy is on amendments at your reading. Ask what revocation of a deferral would produce in your case specifically. The answers are checkable, and an attorney who gives them in plain numbers is describing a plan rather than selling one.
The decision is easier once each path is written down as a total: dollars, months, and conditions, side by side, with the failure case for each spelled out. That comparison exists in every file. It just has to be asked for.