To one of the attorneys at ALLLEGALMATTERS.COM who knows drunk driving owi law and driver’s license law, please help!
I have just recently been sentenced on my second offense owi drunk driving in 41-B Court Clinton Township. My attorney from [attorney’s name deleted by Adminstrator] office in Clinton Township didn’t do a goddamn thing for me, even though they said they had a ton of “connections” in that court, but that’s a different story.
My last offense was on July 30, 2002 and I was just recently sentenced. One of the attorneys who represented me at the sentencing said my Michigan Driver’s license will be suspended for a year and then I can get it back, but my friend told me I don’t automatically get it back because he went through the same thing.
Can you please tell me how this works? I feel like I am getting screwed!
Thanks!
Hi Larry!
Thank you for visiting ALLLEGALMATTERS.COM. This website is new and has a lot of bugs to be worked out still, but one of our clients has done a great job setting this whole thing up for FREE as a way of saying thanks for our past legal representation. Thank you Scott for this new Canu Torrice Law Blog!
Fortunately the driver’s license attorneys at ALLLEGALMATTERS.COM and Canu Torrice Law are experts in this field, and have handled literally thousands of drunk driving cases over the years in Macomb County, Wayne County, Oakland County, St. Clair County, and throughout the State of Michigan. I can honestly say that we are all expert defense attorneys in the area of Michigan drunk driver and driver’s license defense.
Your question is a very common one, and it is an issue that the attorneys at Canu Torrice Law deal with every day. I would usually allow my partner Andrew Canu respond to driver’s licence questions, since I consider him the foremost expert attorney in Michigan driver’s license law, but I just happened to be online so I will help you with this relatively simply question (which will be answered with a very long explaination . . . sorry, I can’t help it, I am an attorney).
Without getting into specific citations to legal authority, let me just say that you were terribly mis-informed on Michigan drunk driving and driver’s license law by someone. Because you have been convicted of a second drunk driving offense, or “OWI” as it is now commonly called in Michigan (formerly known as “OUIL”) within a period of 7 years from the date of your last conviction, your Michigan Driver’s License is not suspensed for a year, but rather it is REVOKED compeltely. You should have already been contacted by Secretary of State about your suspended license through the mail.
Now, after one (1) year from the date of your suspension, you are eligible to apply to the Michigan Secretary of State for an appeal to request that your driving priviledges be re-instated, but you do NOT automatically get your driver’s license back. The Michigan driver’s license appeal division (DLAD), not the Court, handles these appeals, but the process is not automatic, nor is it easy. The DLAD appeals process required to reinstate your driver’s license is so complicated and involved that most every person who appears without an experiened driver’s licence attorney gets DENIED! That’s a fact. Do not make that mistake because if you are denied, you have to wait another full year before you can apply again.
What is even more tragic in your situation is that an experienced attorney would have known that just by delaying your case a few more months, your driver’s license could have been saved! Many attorneys don’t know this, but for the purposes of your Michigan driver’s license being suspended due to having 2 drunk driving/OWI convictions within a 7 year period, the Secretary of State only looks to the date of your LAST CONVICTION through the date of your CURRENT CONVICTON, not the date that you were charged with this 2nd drunk driving or OWI offense.
If your attorney would have delayed or adjourned your case until after July 30, 2009 (which the attorneys at Canu Torrice Law could have easily done), then your Michigan driver’s license would NOT have been revoked at all! It may seem strange, but even though for prosecution purposes you would still be charged with a 2nd offense drunk driving/OWI under Michigan law, the Secretary of State would have merely treated it as your FIRST drunk driving/OWI convicition for the purposes of driver’s license santions. If that happened, then the worst thing that would have occurred is that you would have lost your driving privileges for 1 month, with the following 5 months on a restricted driver’s license that would have allowed you to drive to, from, and during work and school, probation, etc. After that, payment of a reinstatement fee to the Secretary of State would have bought you your full driver’s license back, assuming there are no other problems or suspensions with your license. That’s probably not the news you wanted to hear, but it’s the truth.
I hope you were at least told by the court, or hopefully your attorney, that the there will be a substantial Michigan Driver’s Responsibility Fee imposed on you of $1,000.00 per year for the next 2 years in a row, that must be paid or your driver’s license will be further suspended. The Michigan Driver’s Responsibility Fee is a tough law (see the link to other penalties for the Michigan Driver’s Responsibility Fee on our Criminal and Traffic Law section of the main website), but if you cannot pay that fee all at once, make sure you contact the Secretary of State immediately and petition for a re-payment plan.
This is a fact . . . at Canu Torrice Law we have NEVER lost a driver’s license appeals case, whether the license suspension was from a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th offense drink driving conviction. We will prepare you so that you will win!
YOU NEED TO CONTACT ALLLEGALMATTERS.COM and the expert driver’s license restoration attorneys at Canu Torrice Law at (586) 285-1700 IMMEDIATELY so that we can at least start preparing you for the driver’s license appeal process, and help get you back on the road as soon as possible! We have legal assistants answering our phones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Your driver’s license is a privledge, not a right, and since there is no public transportion here in Michigan, having a vaild Michigan driver’s license is of the utmost importance. Do not make the same mistake twice, contact a Michigan driver’s license attorney who knows what he is doing.
Good luck!
PETER A. TORRICE
Canu Torrice Law
ALLLEGALMATTERS.COM
(586) 285-1700
Thanks Peter! It was great talking to you on the phone. Can’t wait to meet with you guys next week and get ready to deal with this situation. You guys really know your stuff over there, I am so happy to have a real attorney helping me now.
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting. I’ll definitely be coming back to your site.