Michigan OWI defense

Should I Refuse the Field Sobriety Tests in Michigan?

Published on: March 31, 2026 | by Patrick Barone

You have the right to refuse field sobriety tests in Michigan, and the refusal carries no license sanctions and no criminal penalties. But the decision involves tradeoffs that most people facing this choice do not fully understand. A 2016 Michigan statute changed the admissibility framework for these tests, Michigan case law has established that refusal can be used to support probable cause for your arrest, and prosecutors may argue your refusal as evidence of consciousness of guilt at trial. The right question to ask is not simply whether you can refuse. The question is whether you should, given the specific facts of your stop and the legal landscape that now surrounds that choice.

What Are Field Sobriety Tests and Why Do They Matter in a Michigan OWI Case?

Field sobriety tests are roadside assessments an officer uses to observe your physical and cognitive performance before making an arrest decision. In an alcohol-impaired driving investigation, Michigan recognizes three standardized field sobriety tests endorsed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, the walk and turn, and the one leg stand. These are the tests an officer will administer during a typical roadside alcohol investigation and the ones at issue in the vast majority of OWI arrests.

What Happens at a Michigan Implied Consent Hearing?

Published on: March 30, 2026 | by Patrick Barone

A Michigan implied consent hearing is an administrative proceeding before a Secretary of State administrative law judge, entirely separate from and independent of the criminal OWI case. The officer who made the arrest must appear and prove four specific elements under the civil preponderance standard, not the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard that applies in criminal court. If the officer fails to appear, or establish any one of those four elements, the license suspension is dismissed entirely, as if the refusal never happened.

What Is a Michigan Implied Consent Hearing and Why Does It Exist?

Michigan implied consent hearing at the Secretary of State administrative office Michigan’s implied consent law rests on a legal fiction: by accepting a Michigan driver’s license, a person is deemed to have consented in advance to a chemical test if lawfully arrested for OWI. But that fictional consent cannot operate as a legitimate exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement until it comes into actual existence. It does so only when the officer reads the prescribed chemical test rights advisement following a lawful arrest, and the driver is given a genuine opportunity to either reaffirm that consent by submitting to the test or withdraw it by refusing. Until that advisement is given, there is no actual consent, only the legal fiction of it, and a fiction alone cannot satisfy the Fourth Amendment.

Should I Refuse the Breath Test If Stopped for DUI in Michigan?

Published on: March 29, 2026 | by Patrick Barone

A Michigan breath test refusal is not a single decision. It is two separate questions with two separate answers, because Michigan law treats the roadside preliminary breath test and the evidentiary breath test at the police station as fundamentally different instruments governed by different statutes with different consequences for refusal. Understanding that distinction is the most important thing a Michigan driver can know before they are ever put in the position of having to decide.

What Is the Difference Between the PBT and the Evidentiary Breath Test in a Michigan DUI?

Michigan law recognizes two categories of breath test in a DUI investigation. The first is the preliminary breath test, or PBT, a small handheld device an officer asks you to blow into at the roadside before any arrest has been made. The second is the evidentiary breath test, administered on the Intoxilyzer 9000 at the police station after you have been placed under arrest.