The 30-Day Clock: Your Temporary Permit After a Mississippi DUI Arrest

Quick answer: After a DUI arrest in Mississippi, the receipt for your license works as a temporary permit that is only valid for 30 days. When it expires, your license is administratively suspended for 90 days under Section 63-11-23. To stop that from happening, you must contact the court, request a trial date and request an extension of the permit before the 30 days are up. This applies to all DUI offenses, not only a first one, and it runs whether or not you have heard anything from the court.

What is the receipt the officer gave me?

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) says that at the time of the offense, your driver’s license should have been seized by a law enforcement officer, and you should then have been given a receipt for it. That receipt is the permit. It serves as a temporary permit to drive, and it has an end date whether you have a court date or not.

Keep it with you and keep it safe. Note the date of your arrest and count forward 30 days on a calendar. That date is the one to plan around, not your court date.

What happens if the 30 days run out?

When the permit expires, DPS says the license will be administratively suspended for 90 days. It is a separate sanction from anything the court decides later. In other words, you can face this suspension before your case is over, regardless of how the case ends.

DPS opens its DUI page with a warning that a driver charged with DUI “may have multiple sanctions against the driver’s license, possibly resulting in multiple suspensions.” This is the first of them, and it is the one with the shortest fuse.

How do I stop the 90-day suspension?

DPS lists three steps, all aimed at the court:

1. Contact the court. Your ticket names the court handling your charge.
2. Request a trial date.
3. Request an extension of your driving permit.

What keeps your license valid is a court order extending the temporary permit, so a phone call on its own is not the finish line. DPS says that if no contact is made with the court within 30 days “to obtain a court order extending the temporary permit,” driving privileges will be suspended for 90 days.

A lawyer can handle this contact for you. It is one of the first things to raise at a free consultation, and it is a good reason to call in the first week and not the fourth.

How is this different from the other suspensions?

Mississippi can suspend a license for several different reasons in the same case. They have different triggers and different lengths.

What triggers it	Regular license suspension	Who decides
Temporary permit lapses with no court order	90 days	Happens automatically when the permit expires
Refusing a chemical test	90 days, or 1 year with a prior conviction or non-adjudication	Administrative
First-offense conviction	120 days, absent an order for an interlock-restricted license	Follows the court’s order

A commercial license has different rules, including a one-year suspension for a refusal and a one-year disqualification on a first conviction. See refusing the breath test and the fine, jail exposure and the class.

What if my court date is more than 30 days away?

The permit does not wait for your court date. It expires 30 days after it was issued, even if the court has set your case for a later date or has not set a date at all. That is why DPS ties the fix to a court order extending the permit, not to the trial itself. If you already have a date, you still need the extension. If you do not have a date, requesting one is part of what DPS tells you to do. Either way, the step falls to you, and nobody is required to remind you of it.

Does extending the permit end the case?

No. The extension deals only with your ability to drive while the case is pending. You still have the charge to answer, and the trial date you requested is part of that. The outcome of the case decides whether the 120-day suspension, the MASEP class and the fine come into play.

Some people qualify for non-adjudication on a first DUI, and others keep driving on an ignition-interlock restricted license instead of serving a suspension. Both still run through the court.

What if I already missed the 30 days?

Call anyway. The suspension is one consequence, and the charge is still in front of you. A lawyer can look at where things stand with the court and DPS, and at when you can get back on the road. When a suspension tied to the implied consent law has been served, DPS lists a $175 fee to reinstate a regular license.

What should I bring to a consultation?

• The ticket or citation, so the office can see which court has your case.
• The receipt for your license.
• The date of the arrest, and any papers the court has sent you.
• Whether you took or refused a breath, blood or urine test.
• Whether you hold a commercial license or learning permit.

Attorney Mark A. Cliett has over 30 years of experience and has served as a prosecutor and judge. Read more about first-offense DUI defense, or see the local pages for Columbus and Starkville. The number is (662) 494-4999, and the consultation is free, by appointment.