Tiffany Haddish Pleads Guilty to DUI in Georgia
Actress Tiffany Haddish pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in a Georgia courtroom, closing a case four and a half years old. She received 12 months of probation and no jail time.
Tiffany Haddish pleaded guilty to driving under the influence at the Fayette County State Court in Georgia on Tuesday, August 11, closing a case that had been open for four and a half years. The trial had been set to start that same day.
Under the plea deal, she received 12 months of probation. The remaining traffic counts in the indictment were dropped. She faces no additional jail time, since the court credited the time she had already spent in custody after her arrest. She did not appear in person at the hearing, attending instead by video link.
What the court ordered
- 12 months of probation
- a mandatory course for drivers convicted of driving under the influence
- suspension of her Georgia driver’s license
- drug and alcohol testing, along with an order to abstain from both
A 911 call at half past two in the morning
It all began on January 14, 2022, in Peachtree City, a small town south of Atlanta. At around 2:30 a.m., someone called 911 to report that the driver of a white Ford Explorer appeared to be asleep at the wheel, with a foot still on the brake. That is how the incident is described in the court file. A police officer spotted a vehicle matching the description and pulled the actress over as she was turning into a residential area. She was arrested that night.
What did Tiffany Haddish actually plead guilty to?
She pleaded guilty to the charge Georgia law defines as driving under the influence to the extent that it is less safe to operate a vehicle. That charge does not require a specific blood alcohol reading. Prosecutors only need to show that the driver was not fit to operate a vehicle safely. That is why cases like this one are often settled before a jury is even seated.
The defense sought to have the case dismissed
In May, her attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the case. They argued that the more than four year wait had violated her right to a speedy trial and had caused her personal and professional harm.
Fayette County State Court Judge Jason Tompson denied the motion. In his ruling, he noted that some of the delays had been requested by the actress and her defense team themselves, including time off to travel to a fashion show in Morocco and an early departure from one hearing so she could catch a flight. He also noted that the defense had not produced any specific canceled booking or evidence of financial loss tied to the length of the proceedings.
After that ruling, the case was ready to go to trial. It never got there, because the plea deal was reached before proceedings began.
A second case, on the other side of the country
In November 2023, Tiffany Haddish was arrested in Beverly Hills after police received a call and, according to their report, found her slumped over the steering wheel with the engine still running. That case was closed with a plea deal in February 2024. She pleaded no contest to a traffic violation, and two misdemeanor DUI counts against her were dropped.
Her career kept moving while the case sat open
Audiences know her from the comedies “Girls Trip,” “Night School” and “Like a Boss,” as well as the film “The Kitchen.” Her book “The Last Black Unicorn” was a New York Times bestseller, and the audiobook, which she narrated herself, earned a Grammy nomination. She won an Emmy in 2018 for her “Saturday Night Live” hosting appearance and a Grammy in 2021 for her special “Black Mitzvah.”
The formal trial has been canceled and the Georgia case is now closed. Her probation runs for the next year, and for now, she has no driver’s license in the state.
