Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
As a Michigan DUI lawyer, I put a lot of effort into explaining the DUI process in my various blog articles. My intention is to pull the curtain back a bit and let the reader see more of the actual workings of a DUI case. As such, I have shed away from writing the kind of chest-thumping, “look at what I did!” type of installment that doesn’t really demonstrate or explain anything beyond my own professional accomplishments. Recently, however, it has been made plain to me that in order to keep up, I at least need to write a little about my DUI successes. Since the point here is precisely to brag, then I’ll begin by pointing out that this won’t be very hard, because all my DUI results are successful. I’m just going to look at my calendar from the end of last year (2014) and summarize the last 12 DUI and DUI-related cases I handled in December. These include 2 probation violation charges.
Each of these cases has a story. I have to skip them in order to summarize results, but that’s part of what I don’t like about this kind of article in the first place. I have written a lot about the importance of “who you are as a person” in a DUI case as well as the need for me, as the lawyer, to really get to know you, as the client. It is precisely because I know about my client’s educational, career and personal background that I can negotiate with the prosecutor, in a case where the evidence is clear-cut, to reduce a serious charge to something far less severe. It is that same intimate knowledge that enables me to persuade the Judge to NOT impose a sentence that will have a serious negative impact on my client’s life, such adversely affect the ability to keep or perform his or her job. This is why my first meeting with any new client takes at least 2 hours, and why an article like this is kind of like summarizing a Batman movie by saying “He wins.”
What follows is an overview of the last 12 DUI cases I handled at the end of 2014. These are not 12 handpicked cases out of a larger group, but rather the very last dozen I handled before the year was over. Each one of these was legally sound, meaning not subject to a winning challenge to the evidence. I have any number of cases where I fight and get the case “knocked out” or otherwise manage an outcome that looks like taking lead and making it gold. Statistically, however, “merit dismissals” constitute about 11% of all cases (in 2013, the last year for which exact numbers are available, that number was 11.19%). The outcomes in these cases are simple, because the case gets thrown out of court and nothing more happens. For the other 90% or so, what happens isn’t so clear-cut; there are consequences you’ll have to live with.
The results I’m about to laundry list are really the result of 25 years experience. Great results require knowing, and using, in the most advantageous way possible, the facts of the case, the relevant law, as well as the precise combination of perception, science and time. To fast-forward to the result more or less overlooks all the strategy and work employed in getting there. Even so, I will oblige; here are the results:
Charge: 2nd offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI 2nd) with an accident; client had a previous conviction for OWI causing serious injury
Plea: Reduced to Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI or “impaired driving”).Sentence: Probation with no jail.
Charge: High BAC
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI or “impaired driving”).
Sentence: Probation with no jail.
Probation violation: Positive test for alcohol while on probation for 2nd offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI 2nd) (originally a 3rd offense felony OWI charge that I reduced to a misdemeanor 2nd offense).
Sentence: Probation continued (not extended) and no jail.
Charge: High BAC
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI).
Sentence: Short probation term and no jail.
Charge: 1st offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI)
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI or “impaired driving”).
Sentence: Fines and costs only – no probation and no jail.
Charge: High BAC
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI or “impaired driving”).
Sentence: Short term of probation and no jail.
Probation violation: Positive (alcohol) breath test and failure to retest as required while on probation for 1st offense Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI or “impaired driving”) after having been reduced from 1st offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) charge.
Sentence: Probation continued (not extended) and no jail.
Charge: High BAC with an accident.
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI or “impaired driving”).
Sentence: Probation and no jail.
Charge: 2nd offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI 2nd)
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI).
Sentence: Probation and no jail.
Charge: High BAC
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI).
Sentence: Probation and no jail.
Charge: 3rd offense (felony) Operating While Intoxicated (OWI 3rd)
Plea: Reduced to 2nd offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI 2nd).
Sentence: Probation and no jail.
Charge: 2nd offense Operating While Intoxicated (OWI 2nd)
Plea: Reduced to 1st offense Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI or “impaired driving”).
Sentence: Probation with no jail.
In some of these cases, the result took a lot of work; sometimes, the result drew a raised eyebrow from the Judge and an admonishment to the client (and a compliment to me) to the effect that Mr. Randa has done a very good job here, and you ought to appreciate the break he’s earned for you; don’t screw it up. I put my heart and soul into my work. I cringe when a client with a past case will say something like, “My last lawyer didn’t do too much for me; he just basically stood there.” I can never be accused of that. My job is to make things better, and I am exceptionally good at it.
This is about as brief a summary as I can provide of the results I achieve. If you want to learn more about the DUI process in general, and how I achieve results like this in particular, scroll around in the DUI section of this blog, and in the DUI section of my website.