The headlines this summer said Louisiana just cracked down on repeat drunk drivers. That's true, but not in the way most of the coverage suggested. Read the news reports and you'd think every second, third, and fourth DWI in the state now carries years of mandatory prison. That is not what House Bill 82 did.
HB 82 took effect August 1, 2026. It is a narrow enhancement. It does not touch the ordinary penalty ladder for repeat DWI. It reaches one specific group of people, and if you are not in that group, your exposure did not change.
Here is what the law actually does.
The trigger: a prior conviction for one of three crimes.
HB 82 only applies when the person facing a repeat DWI has already been convicted of one of these three offenses:
- Vehicular homicide, R.S. 14:32.1
- Third degree feticide, R.S. 14:32.8
- First degree vehicular negligent injuring, R.S. 14:39.2.
An equivalent conviction from another state counts too. If none of those is in your record, HB 82 does nothing to your case. Your penalty is governed by the same repeat-DWI statutes that were already on the books, and those were left alone.
That single fact is the whole ballgame, and it is the part the news coverage skipped.
What changed for people who do have that prior
Before HB 82, the enhanced penalty for a DWI with one of those serious priors existed only at the second-offense level. The Legislature took that idea and extended it up the ladder, and stiffened it along the way.
On a second offense with a qualifying prior, R.S. 14:98.2(D) now sets the sentence at two to five years, with at least one year served without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension. The old floor was one year, with six months without benefits. Both went up.
On a third or subsequent offense with a qualifying prior, R.S. 14:98.3 now carries a $2,000 fine and five to fifteen years, with at least five years without benefits. This is new. Before HB 82, there was no separate third-offense enhancement tied to those priors.
On a fourth or subsequent offense with a qualifying prior, R.S. 14:98.4 now carries a $5,000 fine and twelve to thirty years. None of that sentence can be served with benefit of parole, probation, or suspension, and none of it can run concurrently with any other sentence the person owes. Again, new.
Two features run through all of it. The mandatory minimums cannot be served on home incarceration. And on the fourth-offense provisions, the sentence stacks. It runs consecutively to whatever else the person is serving.
Why the distinction matters
If you drink and drive and pick up your third DWI, and your record is nothing but DWIs, HB 82 did not raise your ceiling. That is worth saying plainly, because a client who reads a scary headline and assumes the worst makes bad decisions. Fear pushes people into pleas they don't need to take.
The people HB 82 actually reaches are a small and specific group: repeat DWI offenders who have already put someone in the hospital or the ground behind the wheel. For that person, the numbers are real and the exposure is serious. Twelve years without parole, running consecutive to everything else, is a sentence that ends a life as the person knew it.
Where the fight is
An enhancement is only as good as the prior it rests on. To use HB 82 against someone, the State has to prove that qualifying prior conviction, and prove it is one of the three the statute names. Not a similar-sounding charge. Not a reduced plea to something else. The specific offense, or a genuine out-of-state equivalent.
That is real ground to litigate. What was the person actually convicted of, and does it match the statute? Is the out-of-state offense truly equivalent, element for element, or just similar in name? Is the predicate valid, or was it a plea taken without counsel? These are the questions that decide whether the enhancement applies at all. They get answered before trial, in writing, on the record.
This is what I mean by Fight SMART. The loudest response to a tough new law is panic. The useful response is precision. You read the statute, you find the element the State has to carry, and you make them carry it.
If you or someone in your family is facing a DWI in New Orleans, Jefferson, or the surrounding parishes, and there is a serious prior in the picture, the details of that prior are the case. Don't guess at where you stand from a news story. Get the record pulled and get it read by someone who knows what the State has to prove.
Stephen D. Hébert is a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor practicing in Orleans, Jefferson, and the surrounding parishes, and in federal court. (504) 250-6020.