Common Defenses in Michigan OWI Cases

What are the most common defenses that you raise in your cases in behalf of clients?

When we look at a drunk driving case we’re really looking primarily at the beginning  for what are called legal defenses.  We’re looking to see if there's been a constitutional, statutory, or administrator rule violation.  If there has been a violation, in our opinion, then of course the next question is what remedy do we think the court should impose? Often for a constitutional violation that can result in the dismissal of the case.  If it's a statutory violation where the police did not follow the law that they have to follow, then usually the remedy would be something like the suppression of the evidence, some part of the case gets thrown out. 

If there’s an administrative rule violation it may be that the court will impose no remedy whatsoever.  We’ll look at those issues and there are legal issues, as I said we’ll bring those before the court and have the court make a ruling.  Once we’ve resolved that group of issues with a certain type of  legal defense, then we start to look at the factual defenses.  Are there issues that we can bring in front of a jury that would persuade a jury that perhaps the case is one where the person has not actually violated the law and the appropriate verdict would be not guilty.

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