The Michigan Driver Whose Online Court Case Went Viral Never Had a License, According to the Judge the Case Was Heard
A Michigan judge said at a hearing Wednesday that the guy who went viral after driving during a virtual court case because his license was suspended had never had a license from any state to begin with.
Corey Harris went back to court in Washtenaw County on Wednesday. He wore a yellow shirt with the words “trust me” across the front. This was after a video of his hearing on May 15 went viral on social media. Harris joined a Zoom court for his case of driving without a license while driving, as seen in the video.
A local news station in Detroit, WXYZ, asked if Harris should have been charged with a misdemeanor for a traffic stop in October 2023. The station said that Harris’ license to drive in the state was reinstated in 2022, which means that Harris shouldn’t have been charged with a misdemeanor.
But that’s not exactly what happened, as Judge Cedric Simpson said in court and as Angela Benander, who is in charge of marketing and media relations for the Michigan Department of State, told me over the phone.
The lawyer for Harris, Dionne Webster-Cox, did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Simpson talked about comments made by Harris and others that the court moved “on some type of defective or faulty information.” This caused the court to look into Simpson’s earlier ruling at the start of Harris’ hearing on Wednesday.
Benander said Harris’s license to drive in Michigan was taken away for the first time in 2021 because he didn’t pay child support. Simpson said Harris would have been able to drive in the rest of the country if he had a license from a different U.S. state but not in Michigan.
Simpson said that Harris had never had a license, though. And it’s not true in any other U.S. state either.
Benander said that later in 2021, Michigan’s new “clean slate laws” would lift the license suspensions for cases like child support. Since the new rules made it possible, for Harris could get his driving privileges back.
In Michigan, someone who doesn’t have a driver’s license can still have a record that shows they have been suspended, which is what happened with Harris. In his explanation, Benander said that Harris would not have been able to get a license while the ban was still on his record.
But in Michigan, getting your license back doesn’t just happen, Benander said, pointing out that Harris didn’t do what he needed to do with the Friend of the Court in Saginaw County in 2022 to get that ban taken off his record.
Simpson said that Mr. Harris “had to do something.” “It wasn’t him.”
Benander explained that the offender should have been told that their suspension was about to end and that they needed to go see the Friend of the Court, an office that helps the court handle child support cases. Most of the time, they would have to pay a fine and get a release form. They would then have to bring this form to the office of the secretary of state within 10 days to get the ban taken off their record.
Benander said that the state of Michigan does not have any records of Harris doing this. He also said that it is not and has never been the Friend of the Court’s job to send those records to the secretary of state.
Simpson said that in Harris’ case, the Friend of the Court “did nothing wrong.” Simpson added that the Friend of the Court did not have to send anything to the Secretary of State on Harris’s behalf because he did not do what he was meant to do.
Simpson also said that to blame the secretary of state would be wrong because that office “did what they were supposed to do.”
“Everything was right.” There was no mistake. By anyone. Simpson said, “Mr. Harris failed to do some things.”
Simpson said that Harris paid the fee to be reinstated last week and that the forms were sent “immediately” by the office. It was also said that Harris’s driving record was cleared by the secretary of state.
Benander stated on Wednesday that Harris was let back into the company on Monday and that his suspension has been lifted.
While the judge agreed that the process can be difficult, he also said that it “wasn’t anybody’s fault” because Harris didn’t pay the fee or follow the necessary steps.
Simpson also said Harris lied when asked if he had tried to make things right between the traffic stop in October and the court date on May 15.
When asked a question outside of court, Harris told the judge that he was stuck in bed because of an accident and couldn’t get to the secretary of state’s office at that time.
Simpson told Harris, “That’s not true,” and then asked him where he was on December 28.
Harris said he was “laid up” to the judge.
The other person replied, “You were at the secretary of state’s office.” Simpson said that Harris was updating his statewide ID from Michigan.
He told the judge that Harris has never had a driver’s license because records show that he updated his state ID at the secretary of state’s office “religiously, every year.” In Michigan, a resident can’t have both a license and an ID.
He told Harris that he wished he had been honest from the start because the court would have helped him make things right and get a license.
Harris would have been charged with driving without a license even if he had gotten his license back before the traffic stop in October, which led to the misdemeanor that got him in court last month and on Wednesday. He never had a license.
In court on Wednesday, prosecutors said that Harris told the police twice that he didn’t have a license during the traffic stop, which was caught on tape.
Webster-Cox told the judge on Wednesday that Harris is almost done getting a real driver’s license and that his permit test is coming up soon.
Information Source: NBC News
