Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
While the Coronavirus crisis unfolds, our office is open (remotely) and handling cases, while both following the law and observing best practices. Although some court functions have been limited, in our roles as criminal, DUI and driver’s license restoration lawyers with active and pending cases, we must and will remain available to both our clients and the courts, as well as the Michigan Secretary of State.
No matter what, some things are time-critical. For example, in a DUI case, it is very important to at least make a request to preserve the video evidence case right away, because many police department recycle (meaning erase) these recordings every 30 days. This is true right now – today – even though any new DUI case itself might not be heard in court for many months, long past the point where the police car dash-cam video has been erased, and therefore unavailable.
As I write this installment, pretty much everything is in-flux, and they will likely continue to change as the situation evolves. This means that any procedure we put in place or promise we make today may go out the window tomorrow. Nevertheless, because we are an established law firm with many ongoing cases, we simply cannot be unavailable to our clients, much less the courts or Secretary of State. This means we’re here for new clients, as well.
For as much power as they have to approve or deny license appeals, hearing officers are constrained to exercise it within very strict rules. This is important, because even many lawyers don’t know the ins and outs of these rules, and fewer still work with them enough to really understand how they are interpreted and applied by each hearing officer. People who lose a “do-it-yourself” license appeal (or who lose with some lawyer who does not concentrate in this field) often become frustrated at their lack of success, and wrongly blame the hearing officer, without understanding how the application of the rules controlled the outcome of their case.
This is significant because people often make the mistake of rushing to some lawyer they think can save them, and thus buying into what they want to hear at the moment, when they’re scared. A person will hop online and get just enough information to start freaking out, and then fall prey to the kind of fear-based marketing that I deplore. To be clear, if you have a professional license, you are certainly going to have to report your DUI, but that’s often all there is to it. In the healthcare world, for example, a DUI will almost certainly result in some kind of discipline, but any kind of license suspension is highly unlikely in a 1st offense case if things are handled properly. That said, a suspension is all but certain if it is discovered (and it will be discovered, so you can’t hide it) that a person failed to report a drinking and driving conviction. Within my DUI practice, I represent a lot of people with medical and nursing licenses. To this day, I have NEVER had any client of mine have his or her license revoked, and, as a DUI lawyer, I’ve handled countless 1st offense cases and plenty of 2nd offense cases for medical professionals.