Questions about a case involving a driver’s license suspension and a viral video

The irony was too great for the video not to go viral: A Michigan man accused of driving without a license appears at a court hearing via video… while driving a car.

But the story behind Corey Harris’ court date – and the many memes, jokes, fan art and commentary it has spawned since the May 15 video made the rounds last week – is more complicated than it seems.

Two years ago, a judge in another Michigan county lifted the suspension of Mr. Harris’ driver’s license, which he had lost because of a child support dispute.

That revelation, first reported by WXYZ Detroit, provided context to the comical exchange between Corey Harris and Washtenaw County Judge J. Cedric Simpson and drew attention to the different and potentially confusing bureaucratic processes for regaining a driver’s license in Michigan.

According to WXYZ, Mr. Harris’ driver’s license was suspended in 2010 in connection with a child support case in Saginaw County, Michigan. In January 2022, Saginaw County Judge James T. Borchard ordered the suspension of his license to be lifted, court records show.

But the ban was never lifted – the reason for this is disputed – and in October, 44-year-old Harris was charged with driving without a license in Pittsfield Township.

At a pretrial hearing in the case on May 15 in Anne Arbor, Mr. Harris appeared before Judge Simpson via Zoom while driving to a doctor’s office. The stunned judge revoked his bail and ordered Mr. Harris to check himself into jail, where, Mr. Harris told Detroit television station WXYZ, he was held for two days.

Mr Harris told the news channel that he drove his wife to the doctor.

“I thought about getting my wife medical attention,” Harris said in a phone interview with the station last week. “That’s what I thought. I didn’t think about the fact that my license was suspended. I don’t care about any of that.”

Now back to the question of why the driving licence suspension was not lifted.

On Tuesday, Saginaw County Chief Judge Julie A. Gafkay said in a statement that a judge’s order revoking a driver’s license suspension “will not take effect until the driver’s license release fee is paid to the Saginaw County Clerk’s office and the reinstatement fee is paid to the Secretary of State.”

Judge Gafkay’s office said court records show that Mr Harris did not pay the transfer fee until May 22 of last month.

The Michigan Department of State’s Office said Tuesday that it had not been notified of the Saginaw County judge’s order lifting Mr. Harris’s suspension.

In an on-camera interview with WXYZ Detroit on Tuesday, Mr. Harris blamed the Saginaw District Court for his misfortune, saying he was never informed about paying a fee or what the next steps in the case would be.

When he appeared for an interview with his new attorney, Dionne Webster-Cox, he added that he was shocked when the police officer who cited him in Washtenaw County in October told him his license was still suspended.

“I looked at him as if to say, ‘You can’t be serious, because this should have been done by now,'” Harris said.

The often complicated process of regaining a driver’s license in Michigan came to the attention of the Michigan Department of State after a new law went into effect in late 2021 that lifted license suspensions for thousands of drivers in certain cases, including child support.

In response, the agency set up a free clinic called Road to Restoration to help people whose driving bans have been lifted by law through the process.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr Harris’ suspension was lifted under the new law.

Mr. Harris’s court appearance took on a life of its own after the video surfaced last week and became the subject of news stories (including in the New York Times) and a topic of conversation among hosts such as Stephen A. Smith, who spent several minutes on his podcast mocking Mr. Harris.

Mr. Harris described the reaction to the video to a WXYZ reporter on Tuesday.

“I was persecuted, I was laughed at, I was ridiculed,” he said.

“I don’t even go on the internet anymore,” Harris added, noting that he had deleted his social media accounts. Attempts to reach him Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Another pretrial hearing on the charge of driving while prohibited in Washtenaw County is scheduled for Wednesday.