Articles Posted in Revoked and Suspended Driver’s License

Suspended and Revoked license cases account for the most common charges handled in all the district courthouses of the Metro-Detroit area. These cases seldom carry any real threat of jail (except for those who just don’t stop racking them up), but they do carry consequences to a person’s driving record that can not only result in remaining unable to drive legally (as in additional suspensions or revocations), but also cost a person a lot of money and headache that may otherwise be avoidable. Because driving offenses and driver’s licenses are at the center of everything I do in my role as a Michigan driver’s license restoration and DUI lawyer, and to borrow (and modify) a line from the Farmer’s Insurance Company TV ad campaign, “I know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two.”

I’ve written a lot about suspended and revoked licenses, but it always gets hard, once I start, to keep things brief, because as simple as these cases may seem, there are a million things that go into them or that can affect how they turn out, making this rather meaty subject hard to keep short and simple. DWLS and DWLR charges arise from and are part of the very same law. At various points in this article, however, I might just make reference to a “revoked” license in one place, and a “suspended” license in another because a person’s license is either suspended or revoked for very different reasons, even though the specific law being violated is the same in either case. I think it is important for anyone facing a DWLS or DWLR charge who’s looking for a lawyer to ask, “what can you do for me?” Also, a person should be wondering if there’s any benefit to hiring one lawyer over another, and if paying more for a lawyer means getting better results, or is just a waste of good money.

There are seemingly 2 nearly parallel, but very distinct considerations in every DWLS/DWLR case: the prosecutor and the court. In other words, plea deals are negotiated with the prosecutor, and then the legal penalties are imposed by the court. Both of those things have to work out favorably for you. On top of that (quite literally) one must understand the overriding role of the Michigan Secretary of State (SOS) and its administrative rules, because what might seem like favorable plea deal treated super leniently by the Judge can still cause the SOS to further suspend or revoke your driving privileges. In the real world, where these things happen, there are basically 2 kinds of people who wind up facing DWLS and DWLR charges: those who can’t drive because of a prior DUI (or multiple DUI’s), and everybody else. This generally (but not always) means that if your license is suspended for anything other than a drunk driving offense, you are in much better shape. Look, I’m in business to make money, but I’m also unfailingly honest, and any lawyer who doesn’t to tell you this up front, or says differently, is either frighteningly inexperienced or just plain lying. I point this because why you don’t have a license is THE starting point of any suspended license case. Another critical factor is where your charge is pending, because just like DUI cases, location really does matter in suspended and revoked license cases, as well. There are some courts where one of these charges can land a person on probation for a year, while the next court over may be more inclined to wrap the whole thing up with just a fine.

In part 1 of this article, we began our examination of DWLS (driving while license suspended) and DWLR (driving while license revoked) charges in Michigan. I pointed out that there are 2 key considerations for anyone facing such a charge whose driving record isn’t so good: minimizing the consequences to that record, and also protecting your ability to drive. The criminal penalties for a DWLS/DWLR charge apply both in conjunction with and also separately from the administrative sanctions imposed by the Secretary of State. I noted that, as the lawyer, I am always on guard for situations like where getting a suspended or revoked license charge dismissed entirely still doesn’t avoid the further loss of the person’s ability to drive. Indeed, what may be a great plea bargain in one case can create a nightmare on another person’s driving record. I also explained that your prior record follows you, like it or not, and the less you have on it, the better. We acknowledged that, in the real world, people sometimes just have to drive, and, unfortunately, they sometimes get caught, as well. Exactly where that happens can be the biggest factor in how any case turns out. Just like a prior record, though, it is what it is. Here, in part 2, we’ll look at some examples of how the criminal consequences and administrative sanctions interact, and how it’s easy for even a lawyer to miss some of these finer points.

The the old saying that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is very relevant here. Many people, including lawyers, don’t understand that, when it comes to driver’s license issues, there are 2 separate tracks: what the court does (often, as required by statutory law), and what the Secretary of State does, separate from that, as required by administrative rule. This is a finer point that has HUGE implications for your ability to drive. Let’s look at a few variations of a hypothetical example that happens all the time in the real world.

Assume that Sober Sam had his driver’s license revoked about 3 years ago for 2 DUI’s. He hasn’t won it back yet, for whatever reason, so it is still revoked. One day, while driving home from work, Sam gets pulled over for speeding and is also charged with DWLR (driving while license revoked). Sam hires Lazy Lisa the Lawyer, and she manages to negotiate the dismissal of his speeding ticket and gets his DWLR charge dropped down to failure to display a valid license (often called “no ops”). Whereas the DWLR charge carries points, the further suspension of the driver’s license, and a driver’s responsibility fee assessment, the “no ops” carries none of those. Both the prosecutor and Lisa figure this will be good and safe for Sam because there is no further license suspension as a statutory penalty for this offense, and to him, it sounds like a good deal, so he gladly takes it, winds up paying a fine to the court and goes home happy.

Because of my work handling driver’s license restoration, DUI and suspended license cases, you could accurately call me a Michigan driver’s license lawyer. Quite literally, almost everything I do, every single day, involves driving, in some way, shape or form. I handle over 200 license restoration and probably at least another 150-plus DUI and suspended/revoked license cases each year. In the course of my practice, I have seen just about every situation you can imagine, and have had to resolve some license issues so complicated and tied in legal knots that you couldn’t make them up if you tried. Yet for all of that, everyone who finds themselves in trouble for driving on a suspended (DWLS) or revoked (DWLR) license does so for the same, simple reason – they got caught driving without a legal license to do so. When this happens, my job, as the lawyer, is aimed at minimizing the consequences. This involves a lot more than just keeping someone out of jail. In fact, jail is almost never a concern for me in these cases for 2 main reasons; first, for most people, going to jail simply is NOT on the menu, and for those whose circumstances (think: really bad record) make the possibility of jail something of a reality, I’m still usually able to keep them out, anyway. The real concerns in these cases are always the longer term consequences to your driving record and how this will affect your ability to drive in the future. We’ll split this article into 2 parts to explore them.

These 2 things – the consequences to your driving record and how your ability to drive in the future will be affected – are always connected, but also separate and distinct. We’ll examine this further, but to make my point, understand that, on the one hand, there are many situations where a driving offense can have a huge and expensive impact to a person’s record, but not interfere with his or her ability to drive, whatsoever. On the other hand, there are circumstances where a suspended or revoked license charge can be worked out in court to stay off of or otherwise have no impact upon a person’s record, but the incident itself can still result in him or her not being able to drive again legally for up to 5 more years. Fortunately, in the real world, most of the cases I see fall between these two extremes.

If and when you find yourself facing any kind of criminal charge, including DWLS or DWLR issues, the very first thing everybody looks at is your prior record. This can be a good thing, a bad thing, or not much of a thing. It doesn’t take a legal scholar to figure out that the less of a record you have, the better. Usually, though, a person’s license is suspended or revoked precisely because of some prior issues that show up on the driving (and even criminal) record, like previous DUI’s or suspended license convictions. Sprinkled in amongst them are the kind of “never been in trouble before” people who merely forgot to pay a ticket, only to find that out when they get pulled over and cited for DWLS. The main point here is that, within the context of a suspended or revoked license charge, it’s your traffic record that matters most, and the better it is, the better for you.

Driving While License Suspended (DWLS) is one of the most common criminal charges you’ll find in the courts, particularly in the Metro-Detroit area of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties.  In a very real way, these cases are also the easiest money-makers for the court system.  Because DWLS and DWLR (Driving While License Revoked) charges are misdemeanor criminal matters, they deserve to be taken seriously; certainly, the possibility of forever having a criminal conviction stuck on your record is worth the effort to avoid that in the first place.  From my perspective (I’m in court for up to 20 cases in a typical week, so I wind up handling a lot of suspended license cases), these matters are sometimes over-hyped by lawyers who use “fear based” marketing techniques, while other times overlooked by both lawyers and the public alike because actually going to jail is highly unlikely except for multiple, repeat offenders.  To that last point, there is one local court, however, where the chance going to jail for a DWLS is disproportionately higher than anywhere else.  What good is a rule, after all, without an exception?  At any rate, the main point I want to make in this article looks beyond jail, and has to do with the impact of a misdemeanor conviction upon a person’s record, and how a DWLS in particular can turn out to be a real pain.

This really hits home when someone finds out he or she could likely have avoided a DWLS or DWLR conviction with a little good lawyering.  To be perfectly honest, a misdemeanor conviction for a suspended license charge is not likely to derail anyone’s career path, unless the person had ambitions to be an ambulance, limousine or school bus driver.  Even so, it seems foolish to allow one’s self to be put in the position to answer “yes” to a question on a job application or background investigation form that asks something like, “Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense?”  This could also delay an application for a professional license, even though it would certainly not stand as an obstacle to ultimately obtaining it.  Because there’s any significant cost to hiring a good lawyer to keep your record clean, there really is no reason to not handle a DWLS case properly.

In many of my other suspended and revoked license articles on this blog, I note that there are really 2 kinds of people who wind up facing these charges: 1., Those whose license is suspended or revoked because a DUI conviction, and 2., everybody else.  Make no mistake, it’s always better to be part of the “everybody else” crowd.  When a person has his or her license suspended for failure to pay a ticket, it’s usually due to an oversight, or maybe the budget was tight for a while.  A DUI, however, carries certain consequences, including suspension or restriction of a person’s ability to drive, and when a person gets caught driving despite a suspension or revocation, it can be perceived as if he or she is giving the middle finger to the law.  For my part, I certainly know how to navigate around this perception and spare my client’s record, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that, as a starting point, driving on a license that has been suspended or revoked for drunk driving doesn’t look very good.