Articles Posted in Criminal Penalties

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A man charged with second degree Criminal Sexual Conduct (CSC) in Ann Arbor successfully avoided jail time and conviction on the charge as filed. The accused was originally arraigned on the CSC 2nd degree charge on July 29, 2020. The charge was a result of an investigation into a complaint from a 10-year-old girl who was under the care of the accused. The allegation was that the victim was touched in a sexual way by the accused while being cared for by the accused in the home of the accused.

What are the penalties for 2nd degree Criminal Sexual Conduct in Michigan?

The potential consequences for second degree Criminal Sexual Conduct in Michigan are severe. CSC 2 is a felony that cannot be expunged. If convicted, you could be sent to state prison for up to 15 years. A conviction also requires that the defendant registers as a sex offender under Michigan’s Sex Offender Registry Act (SORA). If the victim was less than 13 years old and the defendant was at least 17 years old, as in the case above, then the convicted defendant will be required to wear an electronic monitoring device for a lifetime. The convicted defendant must also pay for the cost of that monitoring device.

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If you have been charged with and convicted of a felony in Michigan, then you are probably wondering if you will go to jail, and for how long. One of the most important factors in Michigan Criminal Procedure, are the Michigan Sentencing Guidelines. All parties involved with your case will utilize the sentencing guidelines in determining an appropriate sentence for you. Because of this, it is important for you to know and understand the sentencing guidelines.

If you have been charged with a federal crime, then see our companion article: What Are the Federal Sentencing Guidelines? For information on jail time on DUI cases see this article: DUI Jail Penalties.

The History of the Michigan Sentencing Guidelines

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If you have been charged with a crime in Michigan, you will have to decide if you should plead guilty or go to trial. You should make this decision only with the assistance of your Michigan criminal lawyer near me, who can explain to you the advantages of the plea offer and contrast them with the advantages or disadvantages of trial. Once you’ve made your decision to plead guilty, your case will be set for a plea hearing. This is when the court will take your plea, and after which your case will be set for sentencing.

Prior to your court hearing you may be asked to review and sign a plea form. In federal court this is referred to as a Rule 11 agreement. Most, but not all, state courts also use written plea forms. When used, plea forms set forth the terms of the plea and usually include a recitation of any possible sentence. If yours is a state case, and there is a Cobbs agreement, then this sentencing agreement will also appear on the plea form. Your signed plea agreement will be provided to the court and the judge will confirm that your signature appears on this document.

As it relates to the plea hearing itself, there are two parts to any plea; the first is the advice of rights, and the second is the factual basis. With the advice of rights, the court’s primary interest is to confirm, through question and answer, that you understand all the constitutional rights you give up by pleading guilty. Most state district courts will use standard form 213, which you are often asked to sign at your arraignment. These constitutional rights include all your trial rights and include the following:

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After a Michigan drunk driving arrest, the first thing on many people’s minds is: will I lose my job?  A recent story in the Detroit Free Press details how for many, the unfortunate answer is yes.

As the article explains, a public safety director for a city in Michigan was placed on leave because of an Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) charge. Even though the case hasn’t concluded, the officer is already facing consequences for the OWI charge. The final “verdict” on this officer’s job status could depend not just on the result of the case but also how the officer handles himself before the case is finalized.

The Michigan DUI lawyers are the Barone Defense Firm always discuss this issue with clients immediately after they have retained the Firm. It is important to address this issue at the beginning rather than at the end of a case because getting ahead of the issue can help our client’s save their jobs. There are several things to consider including:

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Open Container Law Michigan | Open Intoxicants Motor Vehicle

A person in Michigan is guilty of a misdemeanor if they transport or possess alcoholic liquor in a container that is open or uncapped or upon which the seal is broken within the passenger area of a motor vehicles. However, the law passed by Whitmer during Covid may call this into question, and might provide a defense to your case.

Really? Are to-go Cocktails Legal?

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George Tompkins , a Texas pharmacist from Houston, was recently given a 10-year prison term after a jury convicted him of multiple felony counts, including health care fraud, money laundering and wire fraud.  Known as the “compound king”, the 75-year-old was also convicted of conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks.  Mr. Tomkins was first arraigned on the 17-count indictment back in February 2018.

The evidence received by the court during the 6-day jury trial suggested that Mr. Tompkins, working with others, devised a health care prescription fraud scheme whereby they unlawfully received almost twenty-two million dollars in government payments for prescriptions that were medically unnecessary. The money was paid to Tomkins by the Department of Labor, and most of the prescriptions were given to patients referred to them by and through their contract to provide such services to state and federal employees. The payments were contracted through the Federal Employees Compensation Act program (FECA).  Many hundreds of patients were involved in this prescription fraud scheme.

To assist in their criminal enterprise, Mr. Tompkins and his cohorts created a couple different shell companies through which much of the fraud was run.  They used these companies to launder their ill-gotten proceeds. Part of the fraud involved continuing to ship prescriptions to their “patients” even after they had repeatedly been told to stop sending them.

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The short answer is yes. There is no Michigan law specifically on this topic and the existing laws in Michigan do not otherwise preclude the wearing of a Covid-19 facemask while otherwise carrying a firearm in Michigan.

In Michigan, the Covid-19 Pandemic has brought significant changes and restrictions to Michiganders.  One of the often-debated pandemic guidelines is the requirement to wear a facemask. Currently, there is no absolute rule on the facemask requirement, and the guidelines on this topic vary between counties, municipalities, stores, and restaurants to wear facemasks.  While the actual scientific merits of the facemask requirements may remain up for debate, it also leads to significant questions of legality.

One of the questions frequently asked of the Michigan Gun Lawyers at the Barone Defense Firm is whether a person carrying a firearm can do so legally while wearing a facemask.  Obviously, wearing a facemask while carrying a pistol into the local Kroger feels like you are going to rob the place, but is it illegal?

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One of the many unintended consequences of the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic may well be a significant increase in financial fraud. This is due in part to the central banks lowering of the prime interest rate to zero percent. With money this “cheap” companies and individuals are encouraged to borrow money, which is all well and good until the money must be repaid. And when money is cheap, individuals may use the money they have borrowed recklessly, taking greater risks of loss.

Financial fraud occurs when an individual or corporation offers to provide goods, services, or financial benefits knowing that that these things do not and may never exist. In these situations, the victims of financial fraud trade money for these benefits, but never receive what’s been promised to them.  This is because the perpetrators of the financial fraud know that the benefits  do not exist, were never intended to be provided, or were misrepresented. Typically, victims give money but never receive what they paid for.

Possibly the most famous historical example of financial fraud occurred in the 1870s and is referred to as a “Ponzi scheme.”  Charles Ponzi was a businessman and financier who created the Securities and Exchange Company.  Using this as a front to defraud, Mr. Ponzi took money from investors, and then, after a mere 45 days, promised to return to them a 50% profit.  Trouble was that the money was never “invested.” Ponzi simply took the new money he was being paid today to pay off the older investors.  Also called a “pyramid scheme” a Ponzi scheme can only last so long, and like all Ponzi schemes, it eventually collapsed.

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If you are convicted of DUI in Michigan, then your driver’s license will either be restricted, suspended, or revoked. The exact driver license sanction will depend on the nature of your DUI conviction and your prior record. Driver license sanctions for DUI range anywhere from a 90-day restricted license to a 5-year hard revocation. These sanctions are not imposed until after you are convicted. A conviction occurs when you either plead guilty to an intoxicated or impaired driving or are found guilty by a judge or jury.

The specific driver license sanction depends on the nature of your conviction, the number of prior offenses you have, and when those prior offenses occurred.  The following is a brief explanation of these driver license sanctions:

First Offense Operating While Visibly Impaired (OWVI)

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Recent Mlive news reports that a Michigan CPL (Concealed Pistol License) holder shot and killed a gunman who was “seen firing gunshots into the air and pointing a handgun at motorists.”  Will the CPL holder literally get away with murder, or will he go to prison?  The question depends on how Michigan’s Stand Your Ground Law is interpreted.

According to Michigan’s Stand Your Ground Law, a person may use deadly force against another if, but only if, he or she honestly and reasonably believe that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death or imminent great bodily harm or imminent sexual assault to himself or herself or to another individual. This is a simplified paraphrase of Michigan Compiled Laws section 780.972.

On a plain reading of the law therefore, it would appear that the CPL shooter has a viable self-defense claim. This assumes that three things are also true, because if they’re not, then no self-defense.  First, the CPL shooter must not have been himself engaged in a crime. This seems like a reasonable assumption based on what little has been reported about this incident so far. Second, he must have been somewhere he was legally allowed to be. Again, we do not know the answer from the reports, but it seems likely the CPL shooter was not trespassing or otherwise someplace he wasn’t lawfully allowed to be. Finally, the CPL shooter must have believed that deadly force was the only way to defend himself or another person. This seems self-evident.

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