The Michigan Supreme Court this week reversed two lower court rulings that a man couldn't be prosecuted for driving drunk in his own driveway.
Gino Rea of Northville was arrested in 2014 after a police officer watched him back his vehicle out of, and then back into his garage. His blood-alcohol level was later determined to be three times the legal limit for driving, according to court documents.
But an Oakland County Circuit judge dismissed the case, and the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal in 2016, finding that he "was not operating his vehicle in an area generally accessible to motor vehicles."
Michigan's law against drunken driving states:
"A person, whether licensed or not, shall not operate a vehicle upon a highway or other place open to the general public or generally accessible to motor vehicles, including an area designated for the parking of vehicles, within this state if the person is operating while intoxicated."
The Supreme Court disagreed with the appeals court's definition of "generally accessible."
"In light of the dictionary definitions of these words, 'generally accessible' means usually or ordinarily capable of being reached," wrote Justice Richard Bernstein in the majority opinion issued Monday.
"In contrast to the phrase "open to the general public," which concerns who may access the location, the phrase 'generally accessible to motor vehicles' concerns what can access the location ... In this case, defendant's driveway was designed for vehicular travel and there was nothing on his driveway that would have prevented motor vehicles on the public street from turning into it."
Police went to the man's home in response to complaints from neighbors about loud music.
Rea, according to court documents, had been drinking and was inside his vehicle listening to music.
When an officer walked up the driveway during a third visit to the home, Rea backed out of his garage, onto the driveway, then pulled it forward and bumped into some items inside the garage, according to court documents.
Rea, who smelled of alcohol and whose speech was slurred, according to police, was arrested for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. In court, police acknowledged that the the car never traveled beyond the front of the house.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to Oakland County for prosecution.
Justices Stephen Markman Brian Zahra and Kurtis Wilder joined Bernstein in the majority opinion.
Justices Bridget Mary McCormack and David Viviano dissented, finding that "a place is 'generally accessible' ... if it is a place 'where vehicles are routinely permitted to enter.'"
Poster Comment:
Comment from the site:
Ah, yes. Some more of that good, old, down-home conservative "freedom" and "liberty".
Now your driveway and its immediate surroundings - extending no farther than the front of your house - are considered "generally accessible to the public", as opposed to the much more sensible definition of a place where vehicles are not "routinely permitted to enter."
I mean.................I have strange vehicles pulling in and out of and up and down my driveway on a daily basis!
I agree - this is just another bullshit revenue extortion scheme.
Arrested on YOUR OWN PROPERTY for "drunk driving"?
How utterly fascist.
