Kevin Kohlert
Welcome to the Kelly & Kelly Law podcast. I’m your host, Kevin, and today I’m joined again by Attorney Mike Kelly, head of our Criminal Defense Department. How you doing, Mike?
Mike Kelly
Good, Kevin. Good to see everybody.
Kevin
Good. Good to see you too. Thanks for joining us, Mike. Today’s episode was going to be all about getting your driver’s license back, topics related to losing your driver’s license, how that differs from your criminal record versus your driving record, and so on and so forth. So let’s start this off, Mike. What causes a license revocation in Michigan?
Mike
Yeah, Kevin, there can be a couple things when we’re talking about a revocation. Usually, it’s the accumulation of a certain number, in this case, two or more alcohol or controlled substance related convictions. Those can be something like a DUI, they can be a reckless driving when alcohol or drugs were involved in that offense, but something that is typically seen as a misdemeanor in the court size, or a felony that involved alcohol or drugs, would be the type of thing if you accumulated two or more of those within seven years, it could trigger a mandatory revocation. There’s also the possibility of the accumulation of points. If you get 12 or more points within a set number of years, two years or so, it could trigger a request for reexamination, and the result of that reexamination could trigger a revocation. There’s other things that can result in revocation and suspension being kind of different things. Suspension would be a temporary stay of driving privileges, a temporary removal of driving privileges, as opposed to a revocation being a permanent removal of revocation. Suspensions can stem from things like a single conviction for an alcohol or drug related offense. For example, a first offense operating while intoxicated charge results in a suspension of 30 days followed by restricted driving privileges for a period of 150 days. Now, at the end of the suspension period, you don’t have to petition to the Department of State to get that license back. You may have to pay a reinstatement fee, but there’s nothing additional you have to do at the end of the suspension as compared to a revocation that requires you to formally petition and appeal that revocation through the administrative hearing sections of the Department of State.
Kevin
Okay, that’s good information. That’s a good distinction. A revocation is much more serious than a suspension. What is the process like to get your license back, let’s say, after a revocation?
Mike
Well, you know, license restoration is not an automatic process. As I said before, you have to request a hearing. There is a process set up. You must exhaust your administrative remedies, meaning you must go through the Department of State administrative hearings and appeal sections to request relief on a revoked or a no license status. That process requires filing of certain documents. If this was a revocation, the result of an alcohol or drug related conviction or series of alcohol or drug related convictions, you would have to attend and participate in a substance use evaluation and assessment by a third party clinician who would use certain diagnostic instruments, certain tests and assessment tools to gauge what your issues are or what they are not and what your needs as well as treatment level is. They would also gather background information that you would submit on a form known as the “257 Form”. On that form, it would include relapse history, offense history, treatment history, as well as proofs of abstinence and what your current living arrangement would be. Again, these are not necessarily claims of hardship as much as they are claims of sobriety that you must submit if you’re coming from a DUI type of scenario where your license has been revoked.
So that process is not automatic. It requires paperwork to be filed on your behalf. This is done electronically through the SOS Secretary of State website. With that paperwork, they allow you to provide supplemental proofs like letters of support that should be notarized, signed, dated, as well as additional proofs about prior treatment history, court participation, program history, and other additional proofs that you’ll need an attorney to help you navigate.
Kevin
Okay, yeah, that’s good information. So when like if someone gets a DUI and they get their license revoked, they get a DUI in like Ann Arbor, and they get their license revoked, is this all centralized through the state of Michigan, this DA, I believe it’s DAAD, or is it localized?
Mike
Right, so this is a function of the state of Michigan. The state of Michigan is the governing body that regulates your ability to drive freely on the roads in this state. They don’t control, Michigan doesn’t control what Ohio does or what Florida does, but they do control what you do in terms of driving in Ann Arbor, or Detroit, or Ypsilanti, or anywhere else in the state. You must go through the Department Hearings section to get driving privileges back to driving on the roads in the state of Michigan.
Kevin
Okay, and what if somebody is, they have their license taken away, revocated, and they move out of state from Michigan, like to Florida?
Mike
So this is a common scenario. So a lot of states now have a reciprocal relationship with other states. Like for example, Michigan has a very close relationship with the state of Ohio, meaning that they have a unique interest in sharing licensing information about drivers in both states. So what happens in Michigan likely would be reported and shared to an agency in another state, meaning that you can’t just simply move to avoid the revocation that you’ve encountered in one state. Now there are some limited exceptions to that. Some states don’t participate in what’s called the ‘Uniform Licensing Compact’, which would require states to report and share information. Very few states don’t participate in that. Most states do. And what would happen, let’s say if you move to Florida, but you were still revoked in Michigan, you would have to still petition the Department of State in Michigan to lift the hold that they have in Michigan in order for you to proceed with gaining privileges in your new state of Florida.
Kevin
Yeah, so they can’t just go to the Florida Secretary of State and apply. They’ll be denied.
Mike
No, and what I run into too is maybe people have been able to do that in the past. I’ve had clients that they finally come up for renewal in that new state where they’ve already been there for maybe 10 years and they got license privileges right away and they had no issues and maybe, hey, I’m Scott Free and nothing came up from Michigan, but then they go to renew and it seems all of a sudden have come up. That’s that new sharing, that fluidity of information where now that information is available, whereas maybe 10 years ago it wasn’t. That’s the running that people are having with a lot of these out of state situations. “Hey, I’ve been out of here for so long. It hasn’t been an issue. Why is it all of a sudden coming up now?” Well, because of that sharing of information under those interstate compacts.
Kevin
Okay. Yeah, I can see that. And at what point should somebody get an attorney when it comes to getting the driving license back, or restoring their driving privileges?
Mike
I mean, some people say, you know, “this is something you can do on your own”. And I’ve heard the secretary of state tell people, why did you wait so long? Because I need to get a lawyer. Oh, no, you didn’t need a lawyer. That’s not true at all. You don’t understand the process. And quite frankly, it is very difficult to navigate this, the system of what you need to file, how it needs to be filed, what proofs to submit, how they should be submitted, what questions you can expect from a hearing officer. You need to get an attorney in right away. Somebody who knows exactly what you’re going to be going through, what each particular hearing officer might be looking for and how to present your case the best way. What you don’t want to have happen is you go in saying, “Hey, it’s been 15 years. I live in Florida now. I haven’t had any issues”. They’ll know it’s been 15 years. I don’t drink. I don’t drink. You send everything in and the question and answering phase, the scrutinization from the hearing officer couldn’t go over any worse and they don’t believe you. Your proofs aren’t everything they want them to be. And they deny you.
And then you’re calling me and saying, “man, I wish I would have called you the first time”. And I wish you would have too, because then you’re working against a narrative that says this person doesn’t have X, Y, or Z lined up. This person wasn’t consistent. This person wasn’t credible. They were foggy on details, X, Y, or Z. They didn’t present with strong enough proofs. You don’t want to put yourself already in the deficit trying to work back just to establish some credibility, thinking that naively, Hey, simply the passage of time should be enough to show that I don’t have any issues anymore. That’s not the case.
Kevin
Yeah. It’s important to have someone advocating with you throughout the process. How can a lawyer at Kelly & Kelly help with this process?
Mike
Well, I’ve leveraged my experience, my reputation, and my relationships. I’ve had hearings with every single hearing officer in the state of Michigan. I know the particular quirks and cues, and I know what they’re looking for. Now you won’t know exactly which hearing officer going to get until, you know, a month or so before the hearing, but I tried to have a plan that contemplates, Hey, if we get this guy or the worst one of these couple ones or the toughest hearing officer, what might they be looking for? Having a plan that contemplates what, what roadblocks and barriers you may encounter. And also understanding what we’re looking for in these proofs and what the standard is here to make sure you have the best chances possible. And in those really hard scenarios, I want to make the most solid record that if the person for some reason is denied, we can then take this case to a higher level with a circuit court appeal and show that the hearing officer simply got this decision wrong by being biased, prejudice, or not considering the evidence on the whole record. So you need somebody that’s experienced. You need somebody that understands who you’re going to be going up against in terms of each particular hearing officer. And you need somebody that understands the significance of presenting a full and complete case. So you’re preserved should you need to take this case to a higher level of appeal in the circuit court.
Kevin
That’s about, that’s valuable information. Appreciate your insights, Mike. That’s Mike Kelly, helping drivers throughout Michigan restore their bright driving privileges, advocating on your behalf. So that’s about all the time we have today. Thank you very much, Mike.
Mike
All right. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate it.
Kevin
Thanks and drive safe, everyone.
