Articles Posted in Driver’s License Restoration

You do not need to be in AA to win a Michigan driver’s license restoration or clearance case. My goal in this article is to make clear that AA is NOT required to win a license appeal because we are regularly contacted by people who are clearly under this misconception. They’ll express interest in getting their license back, but then say, in a kind of “aw, shucks” way, that they really are sober, but they don’t go to AA, and wonder if we can still help. Most of them are shocked when we reply that as long as they’ve quit drinking, that’s good enough, and that being in AA (or not) couldn’t matter less.

I certainly know what I’m talking about, and I put my money where my mouth is because I guarantee to win every license appeal case I take. The majority of my clients are not in AA. In fact, I’d estimate that around 4 out of 5 of my clients do not go to AA meetings. That said, most of my clients have gone to AA in the past, at least for a little while. Even having attended a few meetings can be very helpful in the context of a license appeal.

Often, when I write about AA, I feel like I’m either attacking it or promoting it. My intention is to do neither here, but instead, make clear that while AA is a great program it’s simply not for everyone. That said, I think it’s also true that many people can learn a lot from AA even if they only spend a short amount of time in it. Most of my clients who did some AA will agree that by the time they stopped going, they had learned some important things, and had picked up what they needed from the program. The reality is that while AA is and should be a long-term or lifetime commitment for some folks, most people manage to stay sober without the need to keep attending support group meetings.

In my role as a Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyer, I have tried very hard to explain the legal process within the hundreds of articles on this blog. I think I’ve done that rather thoroughly within the 430-plus license restoration pieces I’ve written and published. In this article, I want to try to do a very brief summary of how things are done in my office. My previous attempts to outline the driver’s license restoration or clearance process have always traded brevity for completeness, and have almost always wound up being published as multi-part installments. Here, we’re going to exchange details for economy of words and get through everything in one reasonably short write-up.

First things first: the ENTIRE driver’s license restoration and clearance process is based upon the idea that you are sober, meaning you have quit drinking, and also have the ability and commitment to remain alcohol-free for life. Getting your license back is intended to be difficult as the rules governing Michigan Secretary of State (SOS) license appeals are written in order to deny a license to anyone who cannot prove they are a low to minimal risk to ever drink again. Practically speaking, you must have been alcohol-free for the better part of 18 months before filing, and need to make clear that you harbor no idea that you can ever take another sip of alcohol, for any reason, at any time for the rest of your life.

Beyond being sober, you must be legally eligible to file a license restoration or clearance appeal, and that time frame is set by law. It does not matter how much you need a license; you must wait until your minimum period of revocation is over, including any additional time that has been added-on because you got caught driving. And no matter what your circumstances, there is no legal way to shorten your period of revocation by going to court.

As the number of sobriety court programs has grown in Michigan, and as more people graduate from them, I am seeing a proportional increase in the number of sobriety court graduates appealing for a full license from the Michigan Secretary of State (SOS). Sobriety court Judges are legally authorized to override the SOS revocation that comes from either a 2nd or 3rd offense DUI and issue a restricted license. In this article, we’ll examine how the only way to go from a restricted license (with an interlock) issued by sobriety court to full driving privileges (without the interlock) is to file a formal driver’s license restoration appeal, and what’s involved in that.

The lifting of restrictions and the interlock requirement by the SOS is technically called a “change and removal of restrictions.” The “step up“ from a restricted to a full license is NOT automatic. In the real world, a license appeal for someone with a sobriety court issued restricted license is kind of like a hybrid combination of a first time license appeal for someone who didn’t do sobriety court and who had to get his or her restricted license through the regular restoration process, and a “full” license appeal for those people when they later become eligible.

Every person who wins a restricted license through the SOS does so by documenting and explaining both their addiction and their recovery. This requires showing 2 things within those documents and then later, through testimony at a hearing: first, that their alcohol and/or substance abuse problems are under control (meaning that they have remained abstinent for at least the last 12 months, and really more like 18 months, minimum, in practice) and second, that their alcohol and/or substance abuse problems are likely to remain under control (meaning that the person is a safe bet to never drink or use drugs again).

One of the most important things I do in every driver’s license restoration and clearance case is to thoroughly “prep” my clients for their hearings. The whole preparation process is really a 2-way street, because prior to speaking with my client, I have to carefully read and review the entire file myself, to the point of actually memorizing it. For the client, this is about a lot more than just going over the questions likely to be asked of the client at the live hearing. And to be clear, I NEVER settle for a video hearing, and always schedule my cases to be heard live, even though there is video location less than 5 minutes from my office, while the drive to the actual office of hearings and appeals takes about an hour (much longer than that now, with I-696 partially closed). We’ll examine the shortcomings of video hearings in an upcoming article; in this piece, I want to concentrate on the importance of getting ready for a live hearing.

As I sit here writing this, I have 2 hearings the next day, and I’ve already prepped 1 of the clients, who is coming from Pennsylvania. Getting ready for a hearing really does require that I memorize the file, and not just do some quickie “review” of it. Before I ever read anything, however, I confirm which hearing officer will be deciding the case. Every hearing officer is unique, and they each have their own areas of particular interest, and that not only directs my focus, but what I emphasize to my client. To be sure, all the hearing officers share the same core group of concerns and ask some of the same questions, but there are also areas that, while important to some, are of little or no interest to others, and vice-versa. Knowing this is key to making sure I concentrate on the more important aspects of any particular file, and, in turn, preparing the client for the questions that will be asked regarding that. For example, if someone attends AA (although most of my clients do NOT), one hearing officer may want him or her to repeat a few steps of the program, while another will skip any specific questions like that and ask, instead, how often the person goes, and if he or she intends to keep going.

This isn’t nearly as complicated as it sounds, and the hearing itself should not be feared. If there’s one misconception I’d like to clear up in this piece, it’s the idea that the hearing is some dramatic, “it all comes down to this!” moment. It’s not. In fact, license appeal cases are mostly won or lost through the documents we file, and that takes place long before you ever walk through the door for your hearing. If the substance use evaluation isn’t legally adequate and appropriately favorable, there’s nothing you can say or do at a hearing to fix that, and your appeal will be denied. Ditto if the letters of support aren’t good enough. The hearing is really nothing more than an opportunity to go in and confirm that the person described in those letters and depicted in that evaluation is, in fact, the person sitting in the hearing room. Doing everything right is the recipe for winning, and that’s exactly what will happen when I take a case, guaranteed.

In order to win a Michigan driver’s license restoration or clearance appeal, you must prove that you have quit drinking for good. This requires more than just saying so. In this very short article, I want to make clear that the first and main requirement to win your license back is that you no longer drink alcohol. Although I frequently publish articles about recovery and sobriety, my staff has suggested that I put up something brief and more straightforward, because we still get lots of calls from people who seem to misunderstand the concept of sobriety and mistakenly think that being sober means something other than that you don’t drink anymore. Thus, we’ll begin with this very simple declaration: you cannot win your license back if you still drink, however “occasionally,” or even if you think you can still drink at any point in the future.

We often hear from folks who think that they somehow “deserve” to be able to drink because they haven’t had a license or otherwise been in trouble for a long time. This kind of thinking misses the target by about a million miles, because the whole point of the license appeal process is to ensure that the only people who get back on the road are people who have quit drinking for good. The Michigan Secretary of State, through it’s Administrative Hearing Section (AHS), the body that decides driver’s license appeals, has a duty to protect the public by making sure that some risky drinker doesn’t get his or her license back, drive drunk again, and then kill someone.

You have to understand that, from the state’s point of view, once a person has his or her license revoked for racking up multiple DUI’s, he or she is considered too risky to be allowed to drive again unless and until he or she quits drinking for good. The state will never – and this is key – NEVER give a license back to someone with multiple DUI convictions who still drinks alcohol, or even thinks he or she can. The bottom line is that such a person has proven that, at least some of the times he or she drinks, bad and dangerous decisions can follow. That, in and of itself, is considered too much of a risk. The interests of public safety are much greater than the transportation inconvenience of someone who, by law, has been categorized as a “habitual alcohol offender.” On the other hand, the state also knows that people who don’t drink are exactly zero risk to drink and drive.

I seem to return to the subject of ignition interlock violations more frequently than ever, probably because they are on the increase and they are a growing part of my caseload. In some of my previous articles, I have examined many of the reasons that an interlock violation can be brought. In this installment, I want to examine 2 different things about violation cases – what you’re supposed to do after a violation like a missed or positive test, and how the Michigan Secretary of State Administrative Hearing Section (AHS) hearing officers, who hear these matters, can be at risk for what I call “violation fatigue.”

To keep this article short, let’s skip all the background analysis about the why and how of violations and begin with the proposition that when you win your license back, the order granting it also contains some very specific instructions about proper ignition interlock use. Unfortunately, many people, in the excitement of being able to drive again, stop reading at the point that tells them where to go to get the interlock installed, and don’t read all the way through to the section about proper interlock use. Others may read it, but either “skim” that section too quickly or otherwise forget most, if not all of it, because things seem to be working just fine and they’re not having any problems with the machine. At least for the time being.

And then something goes wrong. Most of the time, at least among my clients, whatever happens is NOT a result of consuming alcohol, and that can lead to a false sense of security. In other words, when a person knows that he or she has not been drinking, it can lead to them assuming that this situation will resolve favorably because they honestly did not consume any alcohol. That’s not enough. One of the main points of the proper use instructions is to make sure a person has independent, objective proof that he or she hadn’t been drinking when there is a problem. This applies when an errant positive test is quickly followed by clean retests, and even when there is no positive alcohol reading whatsoever, like when a person misses a rolling retest.