A Revocation of Equal Justice Under Law

[XLFD]

On June 1, 2024, off-duty LPD Officer Austin Mendez was driving home after the bar closed and had fellow officer Noah Noble trailing behind him for about half a mile, half the time while his overhead lights were on.  Mendez's driving was caught on Noble's in-car camera, the footage shows Mendez making a dangerous unlawful pass, swerving, disobeying a traffic light, speeding 25+ over the 30 mph limit while being pursued by a police vehicle.  Noble's body cam would show a clearly inebriated driver who-- had he not been a fellow officer-- would have been facing serious crimes that could have included DWI, reckless driving, and fleeing and eluding.  

But that night, he would not even see a field sobriety test or any kind of citation.  His fellow officer and his superior officer would make sure he got home safe and without any of those annoying penalties that Mendez gives away quite freely, being recognized by his chief at the end of that very same year as the recipient of two awards (criminal enforcement and meritorious service), and a promotion to sergeant the next year.  

Three months after this occurred, this reporter received a summons for an arraignment for a criminal violation of the motor vehicle code said to have occurred back in March 2024 indicating that at some point I was driving around on a revoked or suspended license.  The prosecutor was treating it as a misdemeanor, and I was arraigned for it in short order.  This charge is still pending while the other charge of trespassing has been tried and found wanting.  The only breakthrough with this part has been for Prosecutor Beth Hand to change the charge away from DWLS and reclaiming it as a separate crime.

Recently, this reporter was approached by a fellow citizen who apparently read about the local prosecutor charging me with a crime for driving while license suspended or revoked (DWLS) and related their own experiences in Oceana and Mason County where they had the same experience of being given a DWLS after being stopped while driving with an expired license.  Just like me, they had never had a suspended or revoked license. 

They provided a great resource that I've used enroute to figure out that driving with an expired Michigan driver's license is not a crime, just a civil infraction.  This contradicts several authoritative on-line resources and (of course) our own prosecutor's sensibilities, but it's the only conclusion that makes sense with interpreting the existing statutes in the vehicle and criminal code and is supported by superior court precedent in state courts. 

We will develop this in detail as it appears to be a common practice in Michigan to either treat driving with an expired license the same as DWLS or similarly as a crime with equivalent penalties to DWLS.  What you won't find in resources that claim otherwise is a legal basis for making this anything other than a civil infraction.

1. Driving with an expired license is not the same as DWLS:

A look at the relevant statute dealing with DWLS (MCL 257.904) never suggests that it includes expired driver's licenses.  The appeals court reviewed that exclusion in 2012, as related in the current Traffic Benchbook published by the state:

“The plain language of [MCL 257.904(1)] applies to persons who never apply for a license or who obtain one but subsequently have the license suspended or revoked because of improper driving.” People v Acosta-Baustista, 296 Mich App 404, 408 (2012). “In the first instance, the person has never been adjudged fit to drive.” Id. “In the second instance, the person has specifically been adjudged unfit to drive.” Id. MCL 257.904(1) does not apply to “a person driving on a valid but recently expired license[.]” Acosta-Bautista, 296 Mich App at 409. “[A] person with a valid license who has simply let it lapse is a person adjudged fit to drive who has merely failed to keep up the related paperwork.” Id. at 408.

Statute and this law shows that just failing to keep up with the paperwork is not the same as driving when you knowingly never had a license or had it revoked or suspended.

2.  Distinguishing between civil infractions and crimes in the vehicle code is well defined

The Michigan Motor Vehicle Code (MMVC) does not define what a crime is, nor what is a misdemeanor or felony.  What it does define is what is a civil infraction in MCL 257.6a: 

"an act or omission prohibited by law which is not a crime as defined in section 5 of Act No. 328 of the Public Acts of 1931, as amended, being section 750.5 of the Michigan Compiled Laws"

Thus, any act or omission in violation of the MMVC is a civil infraction if it is specifically called one, naturally.  But an act or omission in violation of the MMVC is a crime only if it is specifically punishable by incarceration, fines (not including civil fines), or the other three similar penalties.

Alternatively, an act or omission in violation of the MMVC that has none of the five penalties listed will necessarily be a civil infraction.  This brings us to reviewing what the MMVC says about expired licenses.

3.  The MMVC does not establish criminal penalties for driving with an expired license

When Prosecutor Hand was told the news that one cannot credibly charge me for DWLS over the last 15 months in this case, she finally decided to move to a different section of the MVC, MCL 257.301.  Sadly, this does nothing for her case because this section talks about invalid licenses, not expired licenses, and it never mentions any of the five 'crime' penalties for having an invalid license.  Having an invalid license is consequently a civil infraction, and as we can see through reading the chapter of law, expired licenses are at best a small subset of what is considered invalid licenses.  

A more applicable law for expired licenses is found in MCL 257.314 which covers that topic and shows once again how it differs from suspended, revoked, or never-issued licenses.  Once again, none of the five criminal penalties apply for failing to keep your license up to date, so that by default, it's a civil infraction.

The reason why a vengeful prosecutor may try to prosecute an expired license as a misdemeanor may be because she sees MCL 257.901 and sees the wording:  "Unless that violation is by this act or other law of this state declared to be a felony or a civil infraction... it is a misdemeanor for a person to violate this act."  Unfortunately for her, and others who may try to criminalize expired license holders and several other minor violations of the MMVC, the definition of "civil infraction" is a structural part of the MMVC which must be applied before this catch-all section tries to make minor violations of the vehicle code into criminal acts when a 'crime' has not been committed.

The Expired Driving Case Against Me

Prosecutor Hand has provided me through the mechanism of discovery the proof that she has in her possession that she thinks will show that I was driving with an expired license back in March 2024.  I must confess that I did have a valid, non-expired driver's license back in March 2024, but her confidence that she has proof to the contrary comes out of hearsay from the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) by two sources:  Captain Mike "My Caveman" Haveman and Mike Gilmurray. 

The latter had recorded a video, it doesn't show a lot other than he was using binoculars at first and not wearing a uniform that day or using a vehicle with a dash cam.  The video he did make was a lot like one of those showing Bigfoot, you only have a brief glance of a vehicle hundreds of feet away from his camera:

The footage shows that the closest Gilmurray had got to the vehicle considered mine was at closest 300 feet when one looks at landmarks and where he and the car were originally positioned.  When he had his binoculars active, the car would have beenLEIN  traveling where the license plate would not be visible.  Can one read license plate characters at that distance?  In the original picture in this article can you even make out where the car is?  The answer is no, not even with perfect vision:

We have to remember that Michael Gilmurray has a history with me and a history of dishonestly plying his craft; he allegedly has lost his sergeant rank for maliciously handling evidence in order to get his charges to stick on otherwise innocent people.  With me, he stole my car back in 2022, unlawfully impounding it for a civil infraction, a civil infraction that was eventually dismissed by the court along with two others when the in-car camera showed that his testimony was false in each regard.  The LPD paid my impound bill under direction of the court, unfortunately, they did not offer further sanctions against the car theft syndicate known as the LPD, stealing cars contrary to their own policy.

In this case, he claims he saw me enter my car at the cemetery and drive away.  He lacks any pictures of me at the cemetery outside of my car, or going into my car, or of anybody else who may have been in my car that day, if that was my car.  But here is his statement on the report wrote by Captain My Caveman using Gilmurray's account of things:

The video evidence is not conclusive as to whether this was my car or whether I was driving it, it shows that during the course of his video, he was never closer than 300 feet to the car and wouldn't be able to catch a license plate.  Captain My Caveman never indicates when the LEIN check was made and any reason why it would have been made.  What we see is a police report that is dated April 5, 2024 by a police captain containing LEIN hearsay from another officer with a grudge against me and who would have been unable to physically read a license, claiming that my license was expired (as per the LEIN) and I was driving in a cemetery, all without any sort of reasonable suspicion articulated of having committed a crime or making plans to do so.   

This might be a tad more believable if they kept a record of the LEIN report showing when it was made and what it actually showed.  The LEIN isn't infallible, and misuse of the LEIN is its own crime.

The prosecutor should take note that my birthday is at the end of March, meaning it is very possible that when the LEIN check was made (late March or early April) that I had renewed an expiring license, but it had yet to be reflected in the SOS records.  I will not do the prosecutor's work for her, however, so I will look with interest on her proofs which appears from discovery to only be the above video and the hearsay of a police report that reports on hearsay, written and researched by two LPD officers with axes to grind against a common enemy of the sitting prosecutor.

Summarizing, it is quite educational seeing the depths of corruption the LPD went through in order to keep their own officer from going to court to face DWI, fleeing and eluding, and reckless driving charges.  Charges that seem to adequately be earned when one looks through the evidence that night.  An alleged MSP investigation days after the fact with evidence that showed the latter two charges may have been appropriate to pursue, were not taken up by the prosecutor.

Yet it is equally educational to see how zestfully the LPD went after this critical reporter for a vehicle code crime when they cannot readily establish that it was my car at the cemetery, whether it was me driving that car, whether I had a valid or an expired license on that day regardless, and they assuredly never stopped the car or even claimed it was a crime until six months later, when a newly elected county prosecutor took up their lame case.  And then she pursued a charge (DWLS) that had no bearing on reality, as whether it was me, my car, or some other car or driver, there is no indication in the record that someone was driving with a suspended or revoked license.

This is purely gang behavior on part of the LPD, and the gangsters have no fear that Prosecutor Hand will ever pursue charges against them, no matter how hard the evidence is against them.  Prosecutor Hand, married to retired MSP Sergeant David Wiegand, has some experience in getting DWI charges dropped against those closest to her.  The LPD does know that she will pursue charges against those who dare challenge the system for the breadth of its corruption, because she knows that she is at the very heart of that tainted corporate cesspool we call the Mason County justice system in 2026.

[Freedom Seeker]

Well explained, X. I hope you can pursue the "malicious" prosecution. This is crazy that LPD and Hand would waste taxpayer money with such lacking and wrong evidence. I hope you have a few layers of Kevlar under that bullseye on your back, the best critical reporter of Mason County. What was that connection with Hand and/or her husband and a DUI at the Rendevous or was it in a different county? I really hope this breaks the LPD thinking they can prosecute others and live above the law themselves. Like whatever happened to Henderson's wife in the end? At least she was put in a patrol car but tried to kick her way out.

[XLFD]

You recall the incident back at the Rendezvous Bar recounted in this Sleight of Hand article, where Ms. Hand tried to be both prosecutor and prosecutor's main witness, crookedly passing herself off as bar patron Beth Wiegand to the MSP and talking to them over the phone without revealing that she would be the one to decide whether the state would prosecute what seemed a weak assault case against the Rendezvous owner.

That's corruption chump change in relation to another incident I'm researching that was successfully covered up since 2022 involving the Wiegand couple and some other inebriated troopers near the Lake County line.  Oddly enough, Deputy Austin Mendez was involved with that too.  How's that for a teaser of what's yet to come, and explain why more Kevlar would be a good investment.

[Freedom Seeker]

Thanks for the refresher, X. Your memory is brilliant. Looking forward to the continuing story and further exposure of corruption of Hand-Wiegand involving Mendez. If our taxes are blown in malicious prosecution, at least we should get some juicy entertainment from their exposure. More Kevlar please.