My daughter resides in Illinois but attends school in Michigan.

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My daughter resides in Illinois but attends school in Michigan.

She received a minor in possession ticket in her dorm room. The fine was around $175 and she will be on probation for a year. That was the only penalty the judge discussed so she pleaded guilty.About 2 months after the fact she received a notice that her Illinois drivers license was suspended for a year. Illinois has a database sharing agreement with Michigan so they found out about her guilty plea which resulted in an automatic 1 year suspension. How can they piggy back another penalty on top of the one already given by the Michigan judge. If she knew this was going to be the penalty she would have never pleaded guilty. Shouldn’t all of the potential penalties be discussed

Asked on May 5, 2015 under Criminal Law, Illinois

Answers:

B.H.F., Member, Texas State Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 9 years ago | Contributor

Most states have these type of agreements where they will share data and honor suspensions that originate from another state's system.  An offense could result in a suspension in her home state as long as the offense that could result in a suspension are substantially similar in the other state.  Usually, when the states are working out intercompact type agreements, then they will identify which offenses are comparable.  So--- state and federal law permits the plea in one state to trigger a DL suspension in another state.

As far as your daughter's plea, however, you are correct that she should have been advised of all the consequences of her plea.  Several years ago, immigrants were never told that a felony probation could result in their deportation.  As a result, a slew of cases were overturned because they were not properly advised on the consequences of their pleas.  This was probably one of the largest chunk of plea bargain cases that actually resulted in reversals on appeal.  Using the same concept, your daughter could potentially seek to over turn her guilty plea.  However, keep in mind that the this does not mean the case will be dismissed.  What it does is puts the case back to where the case was immediately before the plea.  Before she makes a decision to try to undo the plea, she needs to see if it would be worth her while.  If it's a slam dunk case against her and she received a good plea bargain for that jurisdiction, then she may want to leave it alone.  If the case was not that strong, then she may want to consider contesting the charges or bargaining for something better.  To decide which way to go, she needs to visit with an appellate attorney and criminal defense attorney.  The appellate attorney will review her paperwork to see what her chances are to reverse the plea bargain.  The criminal attorney will review her case to see what defenses, if any, she has and whether or not the offer she received was a good deal.

While she is having her case reviewed, she also needs to investigate what affect, if any, it will have on her college goals, scholarship opportunities, and licenses for any eventual career options.  She also needs to explore options for getting this off her record-- either via a dismissal or expunction.

I know this is a long, laundry list of questions for your daughter to review with a criminal defense attorney, but they are questions she really needs to ask before she gets any farther along in this process so that she can make the best decision possible.


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