Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
You must be genuinely sober – and then prove it – to win a Michigan license appeal case. That sounds simple enough, but what does it really mean to be sober? Everyone knows the difference between being intoxicated as opposed to being “stone-cold sober.” Here, though, we’re talking about sobriety, meaning when a person decides to quit drinking for good. As we’ll see, there is more to sobriety than merely not drinking, although that’s certainly the starting point for it.
In a Michigan license appeal case, it is, of course, the hearing officer’s understanding of sobriety that matters most. As we just noted, to win a license appeal, a person has to prove his or her sobriety. The Michigan Secretary of State hearing officer presiding over the case is the one who decides whether that’s been done satisfactorily or not. Although different people can have varied understandings of it, there are certain foundational characteristics that are always present in real sobriety. That’s what we’ll be looking at in this piece.
To be sure, there are some people whose sobriety is just plain obvious, like a neon sign in the dark of night. Often, they follow the old-school model of attending AA and are very “public” about their recovery. That’s fine for them. As an old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” However, that kind of recovery process is NOT for everyone. In fact, it’s probably not the right fit for most people. More important, it doesn’t really matter what anyone “thinks” of someone else’s recovery. Instead, the only thing that matters is that the person manages to become and then stay sober.
From the very beginning, every part of every driver’s license restoration appeal case we handled has been a team effort. This is not merely a division of labor among my team and I, but rather a quality control check and re-check way of doing things. To be sure, we do divide some of the tasks in such a way that someone will primarily handle one instead of another. However even then, each of us still winds up checking the other’s work. No matter how you cut it, having more sets of eyes reviewing a case is always better having than fewer.
Let’s look at an obvious example. It’s contained in the all-important question, “When was the last time you consumed any alcohol?” It’s probably fair to say that most people know they’re going to be asked that question, or at least some version of it, as part of their license appeal case. Most will (correctly) assume that their answer needs to indicate that, depending on their drinking and DUI history, it’s been long enough since they last imbibed. While that’s correct, it’s only part of the story. The other part is that, as we just noted, whatever the answer, it must also be true.
The big problem is that many people overlook how fundamentally important sobriety is to driver’s license restoration cases. Instead, they’ll focus on how much they need a license. Many will point out how long it’s been since they’ve had one, or how long they’ve stayed out of trouble. Those are, of course, important personal considerations. However, in the context of a Michigan license appeal, unless a person is genuinely sober, they don’t matter at all. As one hearing officer states, everybody “needs” a license. Getting it back, though, is a whole different ballgame.
To begin, the reader should understand that, in Michigan, if a person is convicted of a 2nd DUI within 7 years, or a 3rd DUI within 10 years , he or she is categorized as a “habitual alcohol offender.” There are 2 important consequences that follow from a conviction for either a 2nd offense DUI within 7 years, or 3rd offense DUI within 10 years: First, the person’s driver’s license gets revoked. Second, he or she is legally presumed to have an alcohol problem.
The Michigan driver’s license appeal process is governed by law. It can get complicated. We’re going to skip over all that and examine this in simple terms. The first thing the reader should understand arises out of the DUI law itself. In Michigan, anyone convicted of 2 DUI’s within 7 years, or 3 DUI’s within 10 years, is classified as a “habitual alcohol offender.” There are 2 important consequences of that are especially significant here:
Our license restoration guarantee is simple and straightforward. There is no “fine print.” If we take your license restoration or clearance appeal case, we guarantee to win it. If not, we will continue to represent you before the Michigan Secretary of State, without further charge, until we do. The only exception happens if a person lies, or otherwise withholds relevant information from us that results in his or her denial. My team and I question every client and potential client thoroughly, so voiding our guarantee would require a lot more than just an innocent oversight on anyone’s part.
Our firm is in the midst of readying our new website to go live. My team and I very excited for its upcoming debut. While everything on our current site is legally accurate, the way people consume information has changed over the years. When it first went online, we were in a minority of lawyers to even have a website. Nowadays, people want to be able to find what they’re looking for quickly. Launching our new and improved site will make it easier for people to do just that.
A person must also be sober, and be able to prove it, in order to have any chance of winning. Our firm generally requires someone to have at least 18 months of clean time before we’ll consider filing a case. “Clean time” means complete abstinence from alcohol and all other substances. In essence, a person must show that he or she is alcohol and drug-free, and has both the ability and commitment to never drink or use anything anything again – including recreational marijuana.
The most important element of this whole discussion is value. Value means what you get for your money. In a license appeal case, it means winning back the ability to drive again, legally. Let’s be very clear on this point – NOTHING else matters besides winning. There is no value in a free lawyer who loses, any more than there is any value in the most expensive lawyer who doesn’t win, either. In other kinds of cases, a person pays legal fees for the lawyer’s best efforts. The hope is that the attorney’s experience and skill will produce the desired result. That doesn’t apply to license appeal cases.