Driving Without a License (A True Story From 2 Michigan Courts)

By Jeffrey Randa

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Revoked & Suspended Driver's License

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Published on Apr 05, 2024

As practicing criminal defense lawyers who concentrate in DUI and driver’s license restoration cases, my team and I spend all our time in the Greater-Detroit area courts of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and the surrounding counties. A key part of that is handling loads of DWLR (Driving With License Revoked) and DWLS (Driving With License Suspended) cases.

As we’ll see, this area of the law is very much related to the larger driver’s license restoration process. To begin our review here, note that a suspended license charge and a revoked license charge are essentially identical, and covered under the very same law (operating vehicle if license, registration certificate or vehicle group designation suspended, revoked, or denied). We’ll examine the penalties in the next section below.

To help explain, we’re going to look at an interesting and somewhat recent pair of DWLR cases our law firm handled for a client, one local, and the other in a city outside the Greater-Detroit (hereafter referred to as the “distant court”). Our experience there reinforces the reason our law firm generally restricts the criminal and DUI part of our practice to the Metro-Detroit area.

In the interests of diplomacy, I won’t say where this “distant court” is located, other than to point out that it was NOT in the Greater-Detroit area outlined above.

Our Client’s History as an Unlicensed Driver

Our client hired us to handle two Driving While License Suspended, Revoked or Denied (DWLR) second-offense cases: one here, in Metro-Detroit, and the other in that “distant court” mentioned above. His last DWLS/DWLR conviction occurred more than 10 years before he hired us. In total, he had four prior DWLS/DWLR convictions.

Those occurred because his Michigan driver’s license had been revoked due to several prior DUI convictions, the last of which occurred about ten years before the arrest in this case. Before these DWLR cases, our client was actually eligible, time-wise, to file a formal driver’s license restoration appeal.

About nine years earlier, after his last DUI, our client left Michigan and obtained a license from his new state. To be clear, that could not happen currently because all 50 states and the District of Columbia now use the National Driving Register.

We Never Give Up

This prosecutor in the “distant court” was tough. Right from the beginning, he didn’t want to offer our client any kind of deal. He was very reluctant to even go as far as we got him to go (dropping a 2nd offense to a 1st offense), because our client had numerous criminal convictions and traffic offenses on his record, including multiple DUI’s.

While we knew this to be true, it has also been our experience (at least in the Greater-Detroit area) that very old convictions, like the kind our client had, are usually NOT used so strongly against someone who has remained trouble-free for such a long time.

To make matters worse, the prosecutor pointed out (and we later confirmed) that the judge to which our client’s case had been assigned was known as being VERY tough in DWLS/DWLR cases, especially those where the original suspension or revocation arose from DUI convictions. He further noted that this judge would often sentence people to the maximum jail term the law allows in such cases.

This was a very different situation than what we see in the local Greater Detroit area courts. Here, keeping the client out of jail in a DWLS/DWLR case is something we do, quite literally, all the time.

Indeed, in most cases of driving without a license, that’s so easy to accomplish that we focus most of our effort on keeping any kind of conviction from going on his or her driving record so that he or she can get back on the road legally sooner, rather than later.

Never willing to just give up, we continued to beg and argue with the “distant court” prosecutor. We simply refused to cave in until he relented even more. We wore him down until he became a little more helpful. He said that the best thing he could do in addition to reducing the charge from a 2nd offense to a 1st offense was to recommend a “cap” of 30 days in jail as the maximum for the client.

Why We Always Fight For Our Clients

It’s important, for context, to understand that a Judge is never bound to follow a prosecutor’s recommended jail cap. However, at least, here, in the local, Greater-Detroit area, most will at least seriously consider and are quite likely to follow it.

Normally, in a local case like this, one shouldn’t expect much trouble in getting the prosecutor to agree to a recommendation of “no jail” or “no objection to probation only” and having the court go along, if that was even necessary.

Remember, our client lived out of state. He had a job, and getting locked up in jail, even for 30 days, would have caused a major disruption in his life. Thus, we set out to convince the Judge that even the 30-day jail cap was simply too much punishment, especially in this case.

Because of our determination, we were ultimately able to persuade the Judge to agree, and our client didn’t have to do any jail time.

Instead, he went home on a term of non-reporting probation.

Somewhat ironically, yet not surprisingly, we were able to negotiate a non-reportable offense and get a short, probationary sentence in the local court, even though the arrest and charge in that case came after the one in the “distant court,” and marked our client’s 6th DWLS/DWLR case overall.

That was a great result, especially when we remember that having a DUI record always makes things more complicated.

The Two Ways Michigan Courts Treat Suspended and Revoked Licenses

All DWLS/DWLR cases fall into one of two categories:

• Those wherein the suspension or revocation is the result of a DUI conviction or multiple DUI convictions, and
• EVERYTHING ELSE, meaning those wherein the suspension or revocation is the result of something else not related to drunk driving.

It’s always better to be in the “everything else” category. The simple fact is that anyone who lost their license because of a DUI (or multiple DUIs) and has been charged with a DWLS/DWLR can expect to be perceived differently than a person whose license suspension is the result of something like an unpaid traffic ticket.

Although being suspended or revoked for drunk driving doesn’t make a DWLS or DWLR charge a more serious offense, it can, sometimes, be treated that way.

We must ensure that doesn’t happen.

Unfortunately, in the case discussed above, our client’s license charges were the result of several prior driving under the influence (DUI) convictions, and several prior DWLR convictions, as well.

Even so, it’s only reasonable to expect that when those convictions are quite old and the person has remained out of trouble for a long time, he or she will be treated leniently.

In the “distant court,” not only didn’t it seem to matter how long our client had been trouble-free, but the prosecutor still held firm to the fact that this all started because he lost his license for multiple DUIs.

Sure, he got a break, and apparently a pretty good break by the local standards in that “distant court.” However, in the Greater-Detroit area, it would all but be expected that the charge could be reduced to something like “allowing an unlicensed driver to drive” (a non-reportable offense), or at least “no operator’s license on person” (“no ops).

And in pretty much every local, Metro Detroit-area court, our client would have almost certainly been treated more leniently than he was in the “distant court.”

How a DWLS or DWLR Charge Can Keep You From Getting Your License Back

Under Michigan law, if a person whose license has been suspended or revoked is convicted of ANY driving infraction or traffic violation (or even if the Michigan Secretary of State otherwise determines that he or she operated a motor vehicle), then it must add on what’s called a “mandatory additional” suspension or revocation.

Here’s the language of the written law, explained in plain English afterward:

• On receiving a record of a person’s conviction or civil infraction determination for the unlawful operation of a motor vehicle or a moving violation reportable under section 732 while the person’s operator’s or chauffeur’s license is suspended or revoked, the secretary of state immediately shall impose an additional like period of suspension or revocation. This subsection applies only if the violation occurs during a suspension of definite length or if the violation occurs before the person is approved for a license following a revocation.
• On receiving a record of a person’s conviction or civil infraction determination for the unlawful operation of a motor vehicle or a moving violation reportable under section 732 while the person’s operator’s or chauffeur’s license is indefinitely suspended or whose application for a license has been denied, the secretary of state immediately shall impose a 30-day period of suspension or denial.

The upshot of all this is serious. If someone whose license has been revoked (revocations are for either 1 or 5 years) gets caught driving, he or she will be revoked all over again for ANOTHER 1 or 5 years. This is the “additional like period” reference in the law.

That will totally prevent a person whose driving privileges have been revoked from even filing a driver’s license restoration appeal for at least another 1 or 5 years.

It will also sideline anyone whose license has been suspended from getting his or her license back sooner, rather than later. These penalties must be avoided at all costs, and my team and I do it all the time.

The workaround is for us to prevent ANYTHING from going on your driving record. By doing that, we avoid all the “mandatory additional” penalties.

Not surprisingly, we have found that this is much easier to do in the Greater Detroit area than in less populated areas. That’s another reason we limit our criminal and DUI practice to Metropolitan Detroit.

Remember, we are a genuine driver’s license restoration law firm. We handle about 200 license appeal matters every year and GUARANTEE to win every driver’s license restoration and out-of-state clearance appeal case we take.

A key difference between our license reinstatement practice is that it’s state-wide. Every part of these cases can be handled remotely. In fact, all Secretary of State license appeal hearings held before the OHAO (Office of Hearings and Administrative Oversight, the division that handles all restoration and clearance appeal cases) are done remotely, using the Microsoft Teams platform.

By contrast, we generally limit our criminal (DUI and DWLS/DWLR) practice to the Greater Detroit area because we regularly attend the same local courts and know how to get things done. We also know that such matters tend to be treated more leniently in the larger metropolitan areas. Like it or not, that’s just the way things work.

Between these complimentary practice areas, my team and I have an unsurpassed working knowledge of the traffic and driver’s license laws.

Learn From the Mistakes of Others

If you are facing a DWLS (suspended) or DWLR (revoked) license charge, don’t wait to take the right steps to protect yourself. You need to be able to drive legally as soon as possible.

Our firm concentrates in driving offenses and license restorations. If you have been charged with DWLS or DWLR anywhere in the Greater-Detroit area (Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, or one of the surrounding counties), make sure you give our office a ring.

Remember, our driver’s license restoration practice is state-wide, so we can help with that no matter where you live.

We offer free consultations, done over the phone, right when you call. Everything is confidential. My team and I are very friendly people who will be glad to answer all your questions and explain things. We always suggest you call around, compare firms, and invite you to call us back, even if to compare notes with anything some other lawyer has said.

In all cases, we offer both in-person or virtual appointments, so you can choose whichever is most convenient.

We can be reached directly, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. at either 248-949-1356 or 586-371-6571.

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