Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
It’s a simple fact that just about everyone who has lost his or her driver’s license needs it back. As full-time Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyers, it often falls to us to explain to someone whose driving privileges have been revoked as the result of multiple DUI’s that needing a license has absolutely nothing to do with actually being able to win it back. The Michigan Secretary of State has established very specific criteria that must be met in order to grant a license appeal, but a person’s need to drive, no matter how pressing, is NOT one of them.
It would be difficult for me to make clear how many times per day our office is contacted by people looking to get their license back. After all, that’s what we do, right? Understandably (but also unfortunately), a lot of people skip right over asking about the legal requirements to win a license restoration or clearance appeal, and instead start telling us how much they need to drive, and try to “make their case” by pointing out that their DUI’s happened many years ago, and/or that they haven’t been in trouble for a long time. Although those things are emotionally compelling, within the context of a license appeal case, they don’t matter one single bit.
Precisely because our firm concentrates in driver’s license restoration and clearance cases, we have to keep our focus on what it takes to actually win. In that sense, it can sometimes be easy to lose sight of the fact that people who DON’T work in our field do not understand, and, really, don’t have any reason to understand, that needing to drive is completely irrelevant to being able to win a Michigan driver’s license reinstatement case. Indeed, if a person meets the state’s established criteria, then he or she can win his or her license back even though he or she may have no actual need to drive at all.
If you are dealing with a pending Michigan DUI case, and depending on the circumstances surrounding your arrest and the charge that followed, there are only 3 potential avenues to get back on the road. It’s important to begin by pointing out that a person will usually not have any real choice in the matter, or “options” to consider, because DUI driver’s license penalties are specified by law, and imposed by the Michigan Secretary of State. As we’ll see, what can and can’t be done depends entirely on the facts of the case.
To make this easy, we’e going to have to break things down into a few categories. For example, it’s quite likely nobody facing a current 1st offense Michigan DUI charge that may result in the temporary suspension of his or her driver’s license wants to read through all of the far more involved legal issues confronting someone who has already had his or her license revoked as the result of multiple DUI convictions. Similarly, I doubt anyone who has already had his or her license revoked for 2 or more DUI’s really cares about much more than when and how he or she can win back at least some driving privileges.
The inspiration for this article came from our senior assistant, who, after a long day on the phones, observed that no matter how clearly things are explained to some people about court procedures in DUI cases, they always have a “yeah, but…” excuse for why something that’s standard for everybody else shouldn’t apply to them. We laughed for a moment as we boiled down the phrase “yeah, but” to “yabut,”and then noted how it’s exactly that kind of thinking gets people into trouble, or in the case of someone already facing a Michigan DUI charge, even more trouble.
This is especially unfortunate if an interlock violation occurs after the time when it could have been avoided had the person gotten his or her full license back already. An ignition interlock violation begins when the Michigan Secretary of State sends a formal notice advising a person of the alleged violation. That notice also informs the person that his or her license will be re-revoked (this is called a “reinstatement of original action”) on a certain date unless he or she files a request for a hearing to contest the violation within 14 days, and then wins.
One of the more important things we tell our clients during that post-victory conversation is to make sure they follow through with getting their full license back as soon as possible. This article will focus on why doing that is so important, and will look at some of the problems that often occur when a person waits longer than necessary to get his or her full license. To be clear, this only applies to Michigan residents who win a restoration of their Michigan driver’s license. Non-residents are only eligible to win a clearance of the Michigan hold on their driving record so that they can get a license in their new state.
To really get a grasp on this, a person must first understand the way the law works. This part of things is actually not as complicated as it might seem, and is really quite easy to follow. In Michigan, if a person winds up having been convicted of 2 DUI’s within 7 years, or 3 DUI’s within 10 years, he or she will be legally categorized as a “habitual alcohol offender.” One of the consequences of this categorization is that the person’s driver’s license will be revoked because he or she is considered too risky to be allowed on the road.
For everything that any lawyer can say about his or her skills, the presence (or lack of) a win guarantee says everything you need to know about whether you should risk your money with him or her. If I was a potential license appeal client and stumbled across some lawyer who couldn’t put their money where their mouth is, I would think, “No guarantee – no way!” Having a guarantee obligates us to stick with every restoration and clearance appeal case until it does win. The simple truth is that we make our money winning all of them the first time, not having to come back and do the whole thing all over again – for free – as “warranty work.”
The inspiration for this article came the other day, as I was doing research for another article, and stumbled across one of these “McLicense” websites. I got to that site trying to look something up, and as luck would have it, nothing on it came close to answering my question. Once again, Google had failed me. Even though the site upon which I landed didn’t provide the information I was looking for, it did direct the reader to check out its companion blog for more information, so I decided to poke around there a bit. When I did, I was disappointed to find that less than 10 articles about Michigan driver’s license restoration had been put up over the several years of its existence.
Sobriety is an important topic in its own right, but our discussion here will focus on the fact that it is THE critical thing needed to win a Michigan driver’s license restoration case. Unfortunately, while most people are familiar with what the terms “sober” and “sobriety” mean, their understanding is often incomplete. Of course, a person is “sober,” in one sense, if he or she is not intoxicated at a given time, but in the larger recovery world, “sober” means a lot more than just that. The importance of this goes beyond mere language, because the key difference between being abstinent from alcohol and truly sober is really the difference between being able to win a license appeal case – or not.