Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
My team and I spend most of our time handling driver’s license restoration and clearance appeal cases. In any week, we’ll screen loads people who call us about getting their driving privileges restored. If we could take the cases of all the people who contact us and are willing to pay, we’d be swimming in money. We can’t do that, however, and one of the most common reasons right now is because of recreational marijuana. Ever since it was legalized in Michigan, it has become a real problem in the driver’s license restoration world.
I explored this in a recent article entitled “Using Recreational Marijuana will kill a Michigan Driver’s License Restoration Case.” This topic is so important, however, that we need to look at it again. Recently, Ann, our senior assistant, expressed her frustration about recreational pot. She noted that a lot of people who manage to quit drinking suddenly take up smoking weed. It used to be that our biggest “problem” with potential clients was that some of them simply hadn’t completely quit drinking. Now, it’s that they use marijuana.
Within the more than 650 driver’s license restoration articles I have written and published, a lot focus on sobriety. In so many of them, I point out how some people misunderstand the meaning of sobriety. They think that they can win a license appeal by saying things like they had reduced how often or how much they drank. What is most often lacking is a firm and stated commitment to complete abstinence from alcohol. At least with booze, it’s simple: No means no, as in none.
Unfortunately, this happens more than the reader might imagine. In the criminal and DUI world, this is particularly true when people act out of fear. Too many will sign on with the first lawyer who calls them back after-hours, or over the weekend. In license appeal cases, this often happens when a person chooses a lawyer based primarily on price. Neither of those is the right way to secure quality representation. In fact, they reinforce the notions that a good hiring decision should be explainable by answering the questions posed above.
She found out, once she called our office. We asked her a series of questions to determine whether or not she really had quit drinking. At the end of the conversation, she offered her assessment of our firm, and even suggested we use it as a “jingle” of sorts: We’re not just truth speakers, we’re truth seekers. Specifically, she expressed a pleasant surprise that our questions over the phone mirrored what we had written about making sure that anyone we represent really has quit drinking, and doesn’t use any other substances, either.
To be clear, we don’t know who lawyer is (other than having been identified as “he”), but whatever else, if what his client told us is even remotely true, it is the worst DUI legal strategy we’ve ever encountered. There are countless legal reasons that would prevent a person who has already lost his or her license for multiple DUI convictions from winning a license restoration appeal while he or she is facing a new, 3rd offense DUI charge.
In order to win a license appeal, a person must not only be legally eligible, he or she must also be genuinely sober, as well. A hungry lawyer can accept anyone’s case, and take his or her money for it, as well, but precisely because our firm guarantees to win every restoration and clearance appeal case we accept, we can’t – and won’t – do that. Instead, we’ll only accept a case that we know we can make into a winner.
Even if the evidence in the evidence is strong in a High BAC (super drunk) case, my team and I can often negotiate a plea bargain down to a lesser offense for our client. This will allow a him or her to avoid a conviction and potential penalties for the more serious offense by taking a deal and pleading guilty to something less severe. Of course, the first order of business in every DUI case is to try and find a way out of the matter completely, but when that can’t happen (and to be fair, such outcomes are far more the exception, rather than the rule), a plea bargain that avoids a super drunk conviction is always a good thing.
There is more to winning a license appeal, though, than just having quit drinking. A person not only has to prove he or she has quit drinking, they must also prove themselves to be a safe bet to never drink again. Under the rules governing license appeals, these proofs must be “clear and convincing evidence.” A person just can’t file a case and merely claim to have quit drinking; he or she must convince the Secretary of State that it’s true, and that he or she is also genuinely committed to never drinking again. This is where the “story” part comes in, since nobody ever quits drinking because it’s working out so well.
Everyone begins their lawyer search looking to find the “best” representation possible. Some people, understandably, have only a limited financial ability, but as I often point out, while a person will never get top quality legal help at bargain prices, it is also true that many lawyers charge way too much for nothing more than just average services. In reality, there’s a far greater risk of overpaying for mediocre legal help, rather than anything else. As with many other things in life, cost (meaning price), does NOT equal value. In DUI cases, only results equal value.
A driver’s license clearance appeal is, in almost every way, the same thing as a regular driver’s license restoration appeal. The primary difference is in the final result: When you win a driver’s license restoration case, you back a Michigan driver’s license. When you win a clearance appeal, which requires proving your residency in another state, the Secretary of State will simply clear the Michigan hold off of your driving record. This will allow the state where you now resides to issue a license. A state can only issue a driver’s license to someone who legally resides within it.
Michigan launched its sobriety court program as part of a 2011 initiative. At the time, the program was authorized for 3 years, in a handful of courts, but it worked so well that it has since been been made permanent and expanded all over the state. Although they are all authorized under one law, each program is unique to the court that runs it, meaning there are differences from one place to another. Some are of longer duration than others, and even though they are all “intense,” each has its own set of requirements, with some being more demanding than others.