An OWI arrest in Beaver Dam sets a short clock ticking, and it starts before you ever see a courtroom. Whether you refused the evidentiary chemical test after arrest or took it and came up over the limit, you may have only 10 days from your notice to protect your driving privileges. Mays Law Office defends OWI charges — the offense most people still search as DUI or DWI; Wisconsin’s statutory charge is OWI — along with drugged-driving allegations, for drivers across Beaver Dam and Dodge County. We work these cases statewide from our office in Middleton. Call 608-305-4518 for a free consultation before you say anything about your case to anyone else.

OWI Attorneys in Beaver Dam, WI

Attorney Stephen E. Mays has practiced law in Wisconsin since 1995 and was named a 2025 Wisconsin Super Lawyer in DUI/DWI defense. He belongs to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Dane County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, and the State Bar of Wisconsin. Dodge County runs its own courts, its own prosecutors, and its own docket, and a Beaver Dam OWI is decided inside that local system — so the outcome often depends on someone who understands how these charges are actually handled here, not just what the statute says.

An OWI lawyer earns the fee in the fine print of your case: whether the traffic stop was justified, whether the field sobriety tests show what the officer claims they show, whether a blood draw honored the Fourth Amendment, and whether every deadline that protects your license was met. Those are the questions we start asking on the first call.

When to Call Our Beaver Dam, WI OWI Lawyers

Reach out right away if any of these fits your situation:

• You were handed a “Notice of Intent to Revoke” after declining the post-arrest evidentiary chemical test. Under Wis. Stat. 343.305(9)(am), you have 10 days to file a written request for a refusal hearing. Let that window close and the revocation runs automatically 30 days after the notice — and you forfeit the statutory chance to fight it.
• You took the test and failed. A prohibited alcohol concentration triggers a Notice of Intent to Suspend, giving you 10 days to request administrative review; otherwise a 6-month administrative suspension begins 30 days after the notice.
• You already have an OWI on your record. A second offense is a criminal misdemeanor — 5 days to 6 months in jail — if the prior was within the last 10 years. A third brings 45 days to a year. A fourth is a Class H felony punishable by 60 days to 6 years of imprisonment.
• A child under 16 was riding with you. That fact alone turns even a first offense into a criminal misdemeanor: a $350 to $1,100 fine plus a mandatory 5 days to 6 months in jail.
• Someone was hurt. Causing bodily injury to another person while intoxicated criminalizes a first offense, and great bodily harm or death carries separate felony charges with substantially higher prison exposure.
• You hold a CDL. A single OWI conviction — even in your personal car — disqualifies your commercial privileges for a year. A second lifetime conviction ends them for life.
• Your BAC was 0.15 or higher. On a first offense, that reading triggers a mandatory ignition interlock order for one year.

Wisconsin OWI Penalties

Every one of the questions above traces back to the same statute, and that statute stiffens with every prior. Wisconsin prosecutes drunk driving as OWI — DUI and DWI are the search terms, not separate charges. (A single stop can also produce a companion PAC count for the alcohol concentration itself; a driver found guilty of both is sentenced on one conviction.) Penalties climb with each prior:

• First offense. Civil forfeiture, not a crime. $150–$300, plus the mandatory $435 surcharge. No jail. License revoked 6–9 months.
• Second offense. Criminal misdemeanor if the prior happened within 10 years. Jail: 5 days to 6 months.
• Third offense. Jail: 45 days to 1 year. From here on, priors count for life — earlier OWIs, refusal revocations, OWI-related injury convictions, and qualifying out-of-state convictions all come back into play.
• Fourth offense. Class H felony. 60 days to 6 years of imprisonment.
• Minor under 16 in the car. Even a first offense becomes a criminal misdemeanor: a $350–$1,100 fine and 5 days–6 months in jail.
• Ignition interlock. Required in three situations only: a test refusal, a first offense with a BAC of 0.15 or higher, or a repeat offense.
• Your license. Revocation accompanies every conviction. An occupational license can cover work, school, and treatment driving — but eligibility is not automatic. It depends on your suspension type, interlock status, the rest of your driving record, and DMV approval.
• Deadlines. Refused the evidentiary test? 10 days to request a refusal hearing. Failed it (the station breath or blood test, not the roadside PBT)? 10 days to request administrative review.

Whichever bracket you land in, the license consequences run on autopilot the moment a deadline slips past.

How We Defend OWI Charges

A conviction is not the default outcome — the State has to earn it, one layer at a time, and every layer is something we can test. Prosecutors must build an OWI case in layers. Defending one means testing every layer:

• The stop. Reasonable suspicion is required to stop you. Probable cause is required to arrest you. A defect in either may support a motion to suppress the resulting evidence.
• Field sobriety tests. The three standardized tests are error-prone. The validation research excluded people 65 and older and those 50 or more pounds overweight. Arthritis, inner-ear problems, leg injuries, cold, wind, wet pavement, footwear — each can produce false “clues.”
• The breath number. For most drivers 0.08 is the line — drivers behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle, under-21 drivers, drivers under an interlock order, and anyone with three or more priors face stricter limits — and close readings invite challenge. Chemical-test reliability is a core defense front, and after you take the agency’s primary test you can request its alternative test free of charge, or arrange your own testing at your own expense.
• The blood draw. Drawing blood is a Fourth Amendment search. In State v. Prado (2021), the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the presumption that an incapacitated driver consents. Exceptions like exigent circumstances can still justify a draw, but a warrantless draw without valid consent faces serious scrutiny.
• The operation element. The State must prove you operated the vehicle — physically manipulated or activated the controls needed to put it in motion. Parked-car and sleeping-driver cases often turn on this element.
• The license track. Refusal hearings and administrative reviews run parallel to the main case. Both carry 10-day request windows.

No two arrests break down the same way. The defense that fits yours comes out of the reports, the video, and your own account — and that is where our Wisconsin OWI defense practice begins. Call 608-305-4518 to start that review.

What an OWI Actually Costs

People fixate on the number printed on the citation, and it is almost never the number that matters. The citation shows one figure. The real bill has several:

• $435 — mandatory OWI surcharge on every conviction.
• $165–$500 — the required alcohol and drug assessment (varies by county).
• $50–$150 to install, $60–$100 per month — ignition interlock, if one is ordered.
• $200 — license reinstatement fee.
• Years of SR-22 high-risk insurance premiums stacked on top.

A typical first offense totals $4,000 to over $10,000 all-in. Every figure above is a typical range — your county, your vendor, and your insurer set the actual numbers, so treat these as planning estimates rather than a quote. Set the cost of a real defense against that full total before you decide to simply pay the ticket and move on. A free consultation costs nothing: 608-305-4518.

How OWI Cases Move Through Beaver Dam and Dodge County Courts

Where your case is heard depends on how it is charged. A standard first-offense OWI issued by Beaver Dam city police is a civil matter, and civil OWI citations here are handled by the Beaver Dam Joint Municipal Court — a consolidated court that serves Beaver Dam and several neighboring communities. Each member municipality is represented in that court by its own city attorney, and Wisconsin municipal OWI cases are decided under the “clear, satisfactory and convincing” standard of proof.

The moment an OWI becomes a criminal charge, the municipal court loses jurisdiction. Every criminal OWI — any repeat offense charged as a crime, plus any first offense involving a minor passenger or an injury — is routed to the Dodge County Circuit Court at 210 W. Center Street in Juneau, prosecuted by the Dodge County District Attorney’s Office. After a Beaver Dam OWI arrest, you are transported to the Dodge County jail for booking — identification, screening, property inventory, fingerprinting, and a booking photograph — and then either released on bond or held until your initial appearance.

The criminal case follows a set sequence: the arresting agency forwards its file to the DA, who issues a criminal complaint; you make an initial appearance (in felony cases, a preliminary hearing precedes arraignment unless it is waived); contested issues — an unlawful stop, a defective blood draw — are litigated at motion hearings; and if pretrial talks resolve nothing, the case goes to trial, where the State must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. OWI enforcement around Beaver Dam concentrates heavily on the US-151 corridor, and officers working that stretch increasingly carry advanced impairment-detection credentials, which shapes how a case has to be defended from the very first report.

Beaver Dam OWI Questions We Hear Most

I was asleep in a parked car. Can they really charge me?

Yes. Wisconsin law punishes “operating,” not just driving — the physical manipulation or activation of any control of the vehicle necessary to put it in motion. Depending on the facts, a driver found asleep behind the wheel with the engine running can be prosecuted for OWI even though the car never moved.

I refused the test. What happens now?

Refusal is its own separate violation with its own penalties: a first refusal means a 1-year license revocation, a mandatory alcohol assessment, and a 1-year ignition interlock requirement. You have 10 days from the Notice of Intent to Revoke to request a refusal hearing. Requesting one does two concrete things: it pauses the revocation until a judge rules, and it can put the arresting officer under oath early — sworn testimony your defense can measure the case against before the OWI charge itself is decided. The hearing’s scope is narrow, but those benefits make it one of the first things we evaluate in every refusal case.

I have a CDL. What does an OWI do to my commercial license?

A first OWI conviction disqualifies your commercial driving privileges for 1 year — even if you were driving your personal vehicle at the time — and for 3 years if you were hauling placarded hazardous materials. A second lifetime OWI conviction means lifetime CDL disqualification. Commercial drivers also operate under a stricter 0.04 limit in a commercial vehicle, and any detectable alcohol triggers an immediate 24-hour out-of-service order.

Is refusing the test better than failing it?

They are two different problems, not a loophole and a trap. Refusal is a stand-alone violation: a first refusal brings a 1-year license revocation, a mandatory alcohol assessment, and a mandatory 1-year ignition interlock — and the refusal itself can be used as evidence against you in the OWI case. Failing the evidentiary chemical test — the breath, blood, or urine test after arrest, not the roadside preliminary breath test — instead triggers a 6-month administrative suspension. Either way, the clock is the same: 10 days to request a refusal hearing or administrative review, or the license consequence takes effect on its own 30 days after the notice is issued. Which situation you are in changes the strategy — it does not change the urgency.

Will my Beaver Dam OWI be heard in Beaver Dam or in Juneau?

It depends on how the charge is filed. A standard first-offense civil OWI from Beaver Dam police stays local, in the Beaver Dam Joint Municipal Court. But any criminal OWI — a repeat offense, or a first offense involving a minor passenger or an injury — moves to the Dodge County Circuit Court in Juneau, where the Dodge County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes it. Which court hears your case shapes the process, the proof standard, and the stakes, so it is one of the first things we sort out.

Get a Free Consultation

Se Habla Español — Call 608-305-4518

Whether you are facing a civil first offense or a felony repeat charge, the days right after a Beaver Dam OWI arrest are the ones that count most. Call 608-305-4518 or contact Mays Law Office online for a free consultation. Mays Law Office, LLC — 6405 Century Ave STE 103, Middleton, WI 53562.