McGirt May Be Grounds for You To Get Your Driver’s License Back
Video Transcribed: Will McGirt restore my driver’s license after a DUI? I’m McGirt attorney James Wirth and that’s the question that came in. With McGirt, if you’re native American and you’re on land that’s now considered to be tribal territory, that means that the state of Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to prosecute you. So if you were prosecuted for DUI and you lost your license, can you file, get your conviction vacated and thereby restore your license?
That’s the question that came in and the answer is maybe. It depends on the circumstances because when you get a DUI, there are two possible ways that you can lose your license. You can lose your license, essentially at the scene by blowing a 0.08 or more once you’re taken to the station, or at the scene if you refuse a breathalyzer test. Under Oklahoma statute, that’s an automatic loss of your license. You can do an appeal on that or request an IDET program.
If you’ve got questions about that, let me know. That’s a separate issue though, but for today’s purposes, if you do, either of those two things: refuse to blow or below a 0.08 or above then that is an automatic suspension of your license and it will not do anything about that one.
However, if you don’t get the suspension based on that, and you’re charged with DUI and get a conviction, that conviction also is an automatic loss of your driver’s license, but you don’t get both. If you got the loss in the first one, you don’t get the additional loss of extra time when you get the DUI conviction.
So if you didn’t get the loss of driving privileges based on blowing a 0.08 or above, or based on a refusal to blow, but then you’ve got a conviction that then causes the loss of your driving privileges, if you can get that conviction vacated under McGirt, that information needs to go to the Department of Public Safety so that they can update your record to reflect that you were never convicted and essentially restore your driving privileges.
So the answer is McGirt may be grounds for you to get your driver’s license back, but it depends on how your driver’s license was lost. This is a complicated issue, so you’re going to want to talk to an attorney about your specific circumstances. To get that scheduled, go online, to makelaweasy.com.
