Everyone knows that a 3rd offense DUI case is a felony, and is serious. The last thing anyone needs is some lawyer going on and on about it, only to ramp up his or her anxiety even more. The good news is that, if you’re facing a 3rd offense, things probably aren’t nearly as bad as you fear. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that you can get through this relatively painlessly. This article is going to focus on the big picture, and how you can get relief from the stress of a 3rd offense DUI charge. That starts by handing the whole thing over to a good lawyer.

Drunker-3-300x265Specifically, this means putting the case, your worries, and all strategy concerns into your attorney’s care. This article is not going to be some thinly disguised promotional piece for our firm. Of course, we’re Michigan criminal and DUI lawyers, and in we’re in business to earn our incomes. However, what we’ll cover here applies to everyone, including people who live outside of our geographic practice area. Our criminal and DUI practice is concentrated in and limited to the Metro-Detroit area, meaning Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and the surrounding counties.

It’s a great relief to hand over a 3rd offense DUI case – and all the stress that goes with it – to a good and honest lawyer. However, a person is still going to have to put in a little work to find that person. As much as my team and I are open for business, we also realize we’re not the right lawyers for everyone. By the same token, not everyone with a 3rd offense DUI case in our local are is the right kind of client for us, either. We’ll come back to this later, because it’s an important part of how someone should approach his or her quest for the best representation.

Not too long ago, I published an article about how our firm works on our DUI cases as a team. That’s actually true for all of our cases, including (and especially) every driver’s license restoration appeal case we take. Our firm is the ORIGINAL driver’s license restoration practice. We were publishing articles about license appeal cases and our unsurpassed win rate well over a decade ago. This was long before any of the current wave of “McLicense” operations came online, trying to use every variation of “license restoration” in their website names for attention.

Win your Michigan driver's license restoration appeal case through teamworkFrom 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.

Our legal assistants know as much about the workings of a driver’s license restoration appeal case as anyone, and far more than most. This makes us different – but in a good way. Although few other law firms have copied it, ours was the first practice, to the best of my knowledge, to provide a guarantee to win every driver’s license restoration and clearance appeal case we take. We started doing that because we do such good work.

A Michigan DUI case is a scary thing. After being arrested and released from jail, it’s normal for a person to start gathering information. People want to know what they’re facing, and what can be done about it. Everyone hopes their case can be dismissed. Sometimes, however, a person can get lost in his or her “research.” There are so many DUI websites that a person can almost drown in them. For many, there comes a point when they just want to hand everything over to a lawyer who they know will produce the best outcome possible. That’s what we’ll examine here.

How to get the best result in your Michigan DUI case Pretty much everything about a Michigan DUI case is complicated. That’s not meant to intimidate the reader, but rather set the foundation for our discussion. There is a lot to even the most “garden variety” DUI case. So much, in fact, that there is a whole subset of attorneys, like my team and I, that can honestly call themselves “DUI lawyers.” This goes beyond knowing the nuances of the law, and includes things like understanding how a specific strategy, including techniques like timing, can play a role in producing a more favorable outcome.

When all is said and done, nothing matters more in a Michigan DUI case than results. An attorney becomes a “DUI lawyer” by regularly handling DUI cases, and having a practice that concentrates upon them, like our firm. Even a brilliant legal scholar is going to have to spend years to become a real “DUI lawyer.” This is true for any practice area, really. It’s the actual experience of having dealt with real life cases thousands of times over that gives a lawyer the well of knowledge to draw from in order to know how to best handle a particular case.

An indecent exposure charge is scary. Fortunately, things are never usually as bad as anyone facing such an offense probably fears. Thoughts of having to register as a sex offender and going to jail can keep a person up at night. The good news is that we can almost always avoid those things. In many cases, those consequences aren’t likely (or even possible) in the first place. In this article, we’re going to look at how you can de-stress and get relief from both indecent exposure and aggravated indecent exposure charges.

An indecent exposure charge is very stressfulTo keep things simple, we’ll refer to both offenses as “indecent exposure,” unless we need to differentiate one from the other. Our firm handles a lot of these cases. In fact, I doubt there is any firm that handles more indecent exposure charges than we do. My team and I are exceptionally good at them. I can say that without reservation that, of the hundreds and hundreds of clients we’ve represented for just indecent or aggravated indecent exposure charges, NOT ONE has ever gone to jail. We can boast a 100% success rate in that regard.

There is a lot of work required to properly defend an indecent exposure charge. Ultimately, though, if you’re facing one, you want to hand it off to someone who can take the burden off your shoulders and make it better. It takes years upon years, and a whole lot of experience, to really know how to best handle either an indecent exposure or aggravated indecent exposure case. A lawyer may have an incredible record of winning murder trials, but that doesn’t mean he or she knows enough about indecent exposure charges to get the best possible results.

A 2nd offense DUI charge is serious. The reader undoubtedly knows that, and fear-based marketing scare tactics aren’t going to help anyone’s situation. In this article, we’ll look at 2 key aspects of 2nd offense DUI cases that can be positively influenced by competent Michigan DUI representation. We’ll begin by examining a major concern – losing the ability to drive. Then, we’ll get to the good news – that in many 2nd offense cases, jail can often be avoided altogether.

2nd offense DUI and the 2 key things you should knowLet’s start with an important but often overlooked facet of Michigan law. Anyone arrested for (and convicted of) a 2nd offense DUI within 7 years of the date of his or her 1st DUI conviction is legally categorized as a “habitual alcohol offender.” There are several key consequences to this, 2 of which will significantly impact anyone convicted for his or her second DUI. The first is that, upon conviction for his or her 2nd offense, the person’s driver’s license will automatically be revoked.

This is done by the Michigan Secretary of State, and not the court. Understand that “revoked” means taken away for life. This is very different than the mere suspension of a driver’s license following a 1st DUI conviction. There, a person simply has to wait a specified period of time (either 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year) and then he or she can regain full driving privileges upon payment of the mandatory reinstatement fee.

It sucks to be facing a violation of probation. It may be  crass to put it that way, but dressing the situation up with nicer words doesn’t make it any better. If you’ve been violated, you need to protect yourself. As Michigan criminal and DUI lawyers, we avoid using scare tactics, but the simple truth is that a violation of probation IS serious, and requires the best legal help you can find. Being on probation means you’ve already gotten a break and avoided jail once. Now, you’ve got to do it again.

Probation violation - you need to be kept out of jail.There are 2 ways to do that: Either you go back and prove to the Judge that the violation is wrong, or, despite a screw-up on your part, you manage to get yet another break. That really sums up the whole situation. Ultimately, the alleged violation is either correct, or it’s not. Consider the most common kind of probation violation – drinking alcohol. There are times when a positive test result is wrong. That doesn’t happen often, but it does, sometimes. If the result is wrong, then that must be proven to the Judge. Merely saying so is not evidence, nor is it enough to win.

If a person did drink in violation of his order probation order, then the Judge must be convinced that he or she deserves another chance to prove themselves. That’s a tall order, and getting that break requires a special kind of lawyer. Knowing the law and understanding the evidence is always important, especially when your case turns on proving it wrong. If the alleged violation is not “wrong,” however, then the thing you need most is a lawyer who can talk the Judge out of sending you to jail.

As Michigan DUI lawyers, my team and I deal with every aspect of DUI cases. Often enough, to do something like get a charge dismissed, this takes us deep into the finest points of the law. Lawyers are notoriously obsessed with details because cases stand or fall based upon them. Sometimes, though, it’s important to take a step back and look at the big picture. In DUI cases, we can break this “big picture” down into 3 distinct areas: The investigative phase, the court phase, and the “after” phase. In this article, we’ll look at each of them in turn.

DUI cases in Michigan - the 3 phases of an OWI chargeThe investigative phase comprises the stop (and/or initial police contact), as well as the interactions that lead to the arrest, including the field sobriety tests. It also encompasses the arrest itself, any and all chemical test(s) that follow, the booking and, ultimately, the person’s release from jail. The court phase covers everything from a person’s first notice to appear all the way through the sentencing and probation. The “after” phase is about life after the case is over, meaning the consequence of a DUI conviction, or the relief of having avoided it altogether.

DUI cases begin at the investigative phase. Most initial police contact begins with a traffic stop, or something like a response to the scene of an accident. Exactly how that leads to a person being arrested is very important. Every step taken here must be carefully examined by the lawyer. Almost every DUI case that get dismissed is tossed out of court because of some problem that occurred in the investigative phase. This includes things the failure to follow proper police procedure, lack of probable cause, or problems with the breath or blood evidence.

To win a Michigan driver’s license restoration case, you have to say the right things. A key purpose of every license appeal hearing is to make sure a person does just that. As busy Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyers, people frequently contact us and ask what they should say in order to win their cases. Unfortunately, this reflects a deep misunderstanding about the whole purpose of the process. It’s not just that a person has to say the right things; they must also be true.

Your testimony in a license appeal caseLet’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.

This is a good a time to remind the reader of the old adage that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Merely saying that one has been alcohol-free long enough won’t win a license appeal. As we’ve noted twice already, it must also be true. However, even being true is not, by itself, enough to win a license appeal case. A person must prove his or her sobriety by what the law defines as “clear and convincing evidence.” This means that he or she basically has to step up and hit a home run.

In a recent conversation I had with someone about our law firm, I pointed out that we are more than just a collection of Michigan DUI lawyers. I explained that we’re really a “DUI team.” Beyond the 3 lawyers in our office, both of our legal assistants are heavily involved in the handling of all our cases. In fact, we call on of them our “sobriety court guru” because she manages all the logistics to get some of our 2nd and 3rd offense DUI clients into these programs. This requires all of us to work together. It also requires each of us to have specific knowledge about how all the local courts handle DUI cases.

A DUI team can protect you betterSometimes, we have to transfer a 2nd or even 3rd offense DUI case from one court that doesn’t have a sobriety court program to another court that does. We’ve even transferred cases across county lines. The work required for this can be complicated. Thus, experience with how different courts do things is critically important. Being a DUI “team,” though, involves a lot more than just dealing with sobriety court issues, which are only a small component of the whole DUI universe. Indeed, that term, “DUI universe,” is both accurate and instructive here. DUI cases really can be a whole world unto themselves.

This is in no small part due to the fact that every court is unique. Each has its own way of doing things. As a group, everyone in our office knows all of these idiosyncrasies. We are familiar with the different procedures required to obtain police reports and videos from the local cities. This degree of knowledge is the direct result of working together specifically on DUI cases everyday. Even though we often have different roles in that work, my team and I ultimately all pitch in and work as a team on our DUI cases.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about why a person must be genuinely sober to win a Michigan driver’s license restoration or clearance appeal. Sobriety is FIRST thing a person must have, and it’s the key requirement to have any chance of getting back on the road. This is beyond important, because proving that one has quit drinking and has the ability and commitment to remain alcohol and drug-free (including from recreational marijuana) for life is the very foundation upon which every Michigan license appeal case is built. That’s what we’ll examine in this article.

Sobriety is required to win a Michigan license appeal caseThe 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.

There are very specific rules for wining a Michigan license appeal after a driver’s license has been revoked for multiple DUI’s. Nothing in them references a person’s need to drive, or the hardship caused by not being able to do so. It is understood that it’s hard to get by without a license. That’s intentional. As we just noted, it has nothing to do with being able to win a Michigan license appeal. Instead, the Michigan Secretary of State is directed, by law, to make sure, as best it can, that anyone it puts back on the road isn’t a risk to ever drive drunk again.

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