What Happens If Someone Dies in a DUI Accident in Florida?

If a person dies in a Florida crash and the driver was impaired, the charge is DUI manslaughter. It is a second-degree felony that carries a four-year mandatory minimum prison sentence, and as of October 2025, the consequences for a repeat offense are far worse. Here is what actually happens, and where a case like this is won or lost.

Most DUI manslaughter cases do not start with a bad person. They start with an ordinary night. A few drinks, a short drive, a decision that felt small at the time. And then someone is dead, a family is destroyed, and the person behind the wheel is facing a prison sentence measured in years. I have handled these cases. The weight of them does not lift, for anyone involved.

If you are reading this because it happened to you or to someone you love, here is the straight version of what Florida law does next.

What DUI Manslaughter Is

Under Florida Statute 316.193(3)(c)3, DUI manslaughter has three parts the State has to prove:

• You were driving or in actual physical control of a vehicle.
• You were under the influence to the point your normal faculties were impaired, or your blood or breath alcohol level was 0.08 or higher.
• And as a result, you caused or contributed to the death of another person.

That third element, causation, is the one people overlook. It is not enough that a driver was impaired and that someone died. The State has to connect the two. The impairment has to be a cause of the death. I will come back to why that matters so much. For the full statutory breakdown, see our explainer on Florida Statute 316.193.

The Penalties, and the Four-Year Floor

DUI manslaughter is a second-degree felony. On a first conviction, that means:

• Up to fifteen years in prison
• A four-year mandatory minimum
• A fine up to $10,000
• Permanent revocation of your driver's license

Pay attention to the mandatory minimum, because it changes everything about how these cases are handled. Four years is the floor. A judge who feels real sympathy for a defendant, who sees genuine remorse and a clean record, still cannot sentence below four years in prison. There is no probation-only outcome. There is no time-served deal. That is what "mandatory" means here, and it is why the defense work in these cases starts on day one.

What Trenton's Law Changed

On October 1, 2025, a law called Trenton's Law took effect and raised the stakes across the board. It is named for Trenton Stewart, an eighteen-year-old college freshman killed by a wrong-way driver who had already served time for a fatal crash years earlier. Under the old law, that driver faced the same fifteen-year maximum the second time that he faced the first. The Legislature closed that gap.

Here is what changed:

• A repeat offense is now a first-degree felony. If a driver has a prior conviction for DUI manslaughter or vehicular homicide, a new DUI manslaughter charge is a first-degree felony with a maximum of thirty years, up from fifteen.
• Refusing a breath or urine test is now a crime. It used to cost you your license. Now a first refusal is also a criminal charge on its own.
• Withholding of adjudication is gone for these offenses. Every conviction is now a formal, permanent adjudication of guilt.

Some of these provisions raise real constitutional questions, and defense lawyers, myself included, are going to be litigating them in the appellate courts for years. But for anyone facing one of these charges today, the short version is simple: the exposure is higher than it has ever been.

The Charges That Travel Alongside It

DUI manslaughter is not the only charge that can come out of a fatal crash.

Vehicular homicide. This one does not require any proof of alcohol or drugs. It applies when someone drives recklessly, in a way likely to cause death, and a death results. A prosecutor who cannot prove impairment may still pursue vehicular homicide.

Leaving the scene of a crash involving death. This is its own first-degree felony under Section 316.027, and it carries a four-year mandatory minimum under the Aaron Cohen Act. You can read the full breakdown in our explainer on leaving the scene of a crash involving death. Leaving the scene of a fatal crash is one of the worst decisions a person can make, for the human reasons and the legal ones. It can turn a defensible case into a much harder one and stack a thirty-year felony on top of everything else.

If you walked away from a crash, the instinct to run is something I understand. But the law treats it as one of the most serious things you can do, and the right move is always to stop, render aid, and call for help.

Where These Cases Are Won or Lost

Most people assume a DUI manslaughter case is open and shut: the driver was drunk, someone died, end of story. It is rarely that simple. The State has to prove the impairment caused or contributed to the death. That opens real ground for a defense.

Sometimes another driver caused the crash. Sometimes a pedestrian stepped into a lane no sober driver could have avoided. Sometimes the physical evidence, the speeds, the angles, the reconstruction, tells a different story than the arrest report. And the science the State leans on, the blood draw, the breath machine, the timing of the test, all of it has to be done correctly. Blood drawn the wrong way, stored the wrong way, or tested on an improperly maintained machine can be challenged and sometimes thrown out.

I am not going to tell you these cases are easy. They are not. But the difference between a four-year sentence and a fifteen-year sentence, or between a conviction and an acquittal, often lives in exactly these details. That is the work.

What to Do If You Are Facing This

If you or someone close to you has been charged with DUI manslaughter, a few things are true right now.

• The evidence is being gathered as we speak. Reconstruction, witness statements, the blood and breath results. The sooner a defense lawyer is involved, the more of it can be examined and preserved.
• Do not talk to investigators without a lawyer. Anything you say can make a hard case harder. We covered this in our post on what to do if you are arrested in Florida.
• The first decisions matter most. Bond, the handling of the blood evidence, the early motions. These are not things to face alone.

The Bottom Line

A death in a DUI crash is a tragedy first and a criminal case second. But it is a criminal case, and a serious one, with a four-year prison floor and, for a repeat offense, up to thirty years. The State still has to prove its case, and that is not automatic. If you are facing this, the lawyer you choose and how early you bring them in will shape everything that follows. To see how we approach these cases, visit our DUI manslaughter defense page.