TLDR: Most Michigan OWI charges are misdemeanors. A first offense, including a high-BAC "super drunk" charge, is a misdemeanor. A second offense within seven years is a misdemeanor with mandatory jail. An OWI becomes a felony in three situations: a third conviction at any point in your lifetime (Heidi's Law removed the old ten-year window in 2007), an OWI that causes serious impairment of a body function (up to 5 years in prison), or an OWI that causes a death (up to 15 years). A second child-endangerment OWI within seven years is also charged as a felony. Felony OWI cases start with an arraignment in the local district court and, if bound over, move to the Wayne County Circuit Court's Criminal Division. What counts as a prior, and whether each prior was valid, is the question that decides many third-offense cases.
People search this question at two very different moments. Some have just been arrested and want to know how bad it is. Others have a prior from years ago, sometimes decades ago, and have a feeling it is about to matter. The answer is the same for both: most OWI charges in Michigan are misdemeanors, and the ones that are not are decided by your record and by whether anyone was hurt.
Here is the line, tier by tier, what counts as a prior, and what changes once a case crosses into felony territory.
The Short Version
Michigan does not treat drunk driving as a felony by default. A first offense is a misdemeanor, even at a high blood alcohol level. A second offense within seven years is a misdemeanor with mandatory jail. An OWI becomes a felony in three situations:
- A third conviction at any point in your life. Michigan uses a lifetime lookback for the third offense.
- An OWI that causes serious impairment of a body function to another person.
- An OWI that causes a death.
A second OWI with a child under 16 in the car, within seven years of the first, is also charged as a felony.
Everything below is the detail behind those four sentences.
Michigan’s OWI Tiers, Side by Side
All of these sit in one statute, MCL 257.625. The tier is set by your record and by the consequences of the drive, not by how the night felt.
| Charge | Classification | Jail or prison | Fine | License | Where it is heard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First OWI (BAC 0.08 or more) | Misdemeanor | Up to 93 days | $100 to $500 | 30-day suspension, then 150 days restricted | District court |
| First OWI, high BAC (0.17 or more) | Misdemeanor | Up to 180 days | $200 to $700 | One year, restricted after 45 days with ignition interlock | District court |
| Second OWI within 7 years | Misdemeanor | 5 days to 1 year | $200 to $1,000 | Revoked at least 1 year; vehicle immobilized | District court |
| Third OWI, lifetime | Felony | 1 to 5 years prison, or probation with 30 days to 1 year jail | $500 to $5,000 | Revoked at least 1 year; vehicle immobilized or forfeited | District court, then Circuit Court |
| OWI causing serious impairment of a body function | Felony | Up to 5 years | $1,000 to $5,000 | Revoked | District court, then Circuit Court |
| OWI causing death | Felony | Up to 15 years | $2,500 to $10,000 | Revoked | District court, then Circuit Court |
Community service, probation, substance abuse evaluation and treatment, six points on your driving record, and court costs come with every tier. The table shows the statutory ranges; what a particular judge in a particular court does inside those ranges is a different question, and it is the one your attorney is working on.
First Offense: A Misdemeanor, Even at High BAC
A standard first OWI carries up to 93 days in jail, and a high-BAC first offense (0.17 or above, the charge most people call “super drunk”) carries up to 180 days with a longer license restriction and a required ignition interlock. Both are misdemeanors. The record is permanent unless it is later set aside, and since 2022 a single first-offense OWI can be set aside by petition after a five-year wait. We cover the first offense in detail in our guide to Michigan first-offense OWI penalties and defenses, and the set-aside process in how to get an OWI expunged in Michigan.
Second Offense Within Seven Years: Still a Misdemeanor, With Mandatory Jail
A second OWI within seven years of the first is where the statute stops being gentle. The minimum jail term is 5 days and the maximum is a year. Community service of 30 to 90 days is mandatory. The Secretary of State revokes your license for at least a year, and the court orders your vehicle immobilized for 90 to 180 days, with the plate confiscated.
Two details matter here. First, the seven years run from the date of the prior conviction to the date of the new arrest. Second, the prior does not have to be an OWI by name; a plea to impaired driving (OWVI) on the first case still counts as a prior on the second. A lot of people learn this at the arraignment.
Third Offense, Ever: The Felony
Before 2007, Michigan only counted priors within a ten-year window. Heidi’s Law, named for a woman killed by a driver with old convictions that no longer counted, removed the window. Today a third OWI conviction is a felony regardless of when the first two happened. Two convictions in your twenties and a stop in your fifties produce a felony charge.
The penalty is 1 to 5 years in prison, or, at the court’s discretion, probation with 30 days to a year in the county jail. Add a $500 to $5,000 fine, 60 to 180 days of community service, license revocation for at least a year (five years if your license was already revoked within the prior seven), and immobilization of the vehicle for one to three years or forfeiture of it outright. If you have prior felony convictions of any kind, the prosecutor can also file a habitual offender notice that raises the maximum sentence.
What counts as a prior
This is the part of a third-offense case where the defense work usually starts, because the felony depends entirely on the two priors holding up. The statute counts:
- Prior OWI convictions, including high-BAC convictions.
- Prior OWVI (impaired driving) convictions, which is why the plea that made the first case feel like a win still counts.
- Prior OWPD convictions (operating with the presence of a Schedule 1 drug or cocaine).
- Convictions under earlier versions of Michigan’s drunk-driving law, back to the OUIL era.
- Convictions from other states under laws that substantially correspond to Michigan’s.
A prior can be challenged. If you entered a plea on an earlier case without a lawyer and without a valid waiver of your right to one, that conviction may not be usable to enhance the new charge. The certified court file for each prior, not the Secretary of State printout, is what settles it.
OWI Causing Injury or Death: A Felony on the First Offense
Your record does not matter in this tier. An OWI that causes serious impairment of a body function to someone else (the statute’s examples include the loss or loss of use of a limb, loss of an organ, serious visible disfigurement, and a skull fracture) is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $1,000 to $5,000 fine, even if you have never been arrested before. An OWI that causes a death carries up to 15 years and a $2,500 to $10,000 fine, and the maximum rises to 20 years when the person killed was a police officer, firefighter, or other emergency responder on duty.
These cases turn on causation and the crash-scene evidence as much as on the breath or blood number. The prosecution has to prove the intoxicated operation caused the injury, and the defense investigation of the crash itself, including the other driver’s conduct, begins the first week.
Child Endangerment
Driving while intoxicated with a passenger under 16 is its own charge. A first offense is a misdemeanor with up to a year in jail, a $200 to $1,000 fine, 30 to 90 days of community service, or a combination of those. A second child-endangerment OWI within seven years is a felony, with 1 to 5 years in prison or probation with jail. Prosecutors file it alongside the base OWI, so a first-time driver with a child in the back seat can face two charges from one stop.
OWI, DUI, OWVI, OWPD: The Names
Michigan law does not use “DUI.” The charge is OWI, operating while intoxicated, and most people who have been through the 19th District Court say “OWI” too. OWVI, operating while visibly impaired, is the lesser charge that many first cases are negotiated down to; it carries lighter penalties and four points instead of six, and it still counts as a prior. OWPD is operating with any amount of a Schedule 1 controlled substance or cocaine in your body, punished like OWI. None of the names changes whether the charge is a felony; the record and the consequences do.
What a Felony OWI Case Looks Like in Wayne County
A felony OWI starts where a misdemeanor would, in the district court for the city of the stop: the 19th District Court for Dearborn, the 36th District Court for Detroit, the 20th for Dearborn Heights, and so on. The arraignment sets bond and conditions, which for an OWI often include no alcohol and testing, and sometimes an interlock or a tether. Our guide to what happens at an arraignment in Michigan walks through that hearing.
Because it is a felony, two more district court dates follow: a probable cause conference 7 to 14 days out, then a preliminary examination 5 to 7 days after that, where the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office has to show probable cause for both the drunk driving and the enhancement. The priors get tested here. If the judge finds probable cause, the case is bound over to the Wayne County Circuit Court, whose Criminal Division sits at the Criminal Justice Center, 5301 Russell Street in Detroit, for the arraignment on the information, pretrial, any plea, and trial. Felony sentences run under Michigan’s advisory guidelines, which score the offense and your record, and the sentencing judge has real discretion within them.
Several Wayne County district courts, the 19th among them, run a DWI/Sobriety Court program for repeat offenders. For a defendant who qualifies and is admitted, it means intensive supervision and treatment in place of some incarceration, and a sobriety court participant who installs an ignition interlock can get restricted driving privileges back after 45 days of a revocation that would otherwise run a year or more. Admission depends on the court and on the client’s history, but it is one of the few routes that changes both the sentence and the license problem at once.
What Can Be Done About a Felony OWI Charge
The defenses available on a first offense still apply: whether the stop was lawful, whether the field sobriety tests were administered as designed, whether the breath machine was calibrated and the observation period followed, whether a blood draw was done and stored properly. A third-offense case adds a second layer that first-offense cases do not have: the priors. If one of the two prior convictions cannot be used, the felony becomes a misdemeanor second offense, which changes the sentencing exposure from prison to the district court’s jail and probation range.
Before the probable cause conference, we pull what we call the prior-conviction file:
- Your complete Michigan driving record from the Secretary of State, which lists every alcohol-related conviction and its date.
- The certified register of actions and judgment of sentence for each prior, from the court that entered it.
- For each prior, proof of whether you had an attorney or signed a written waiver of counsel.
- Any out-of-state record, with the text of the statute you were convicted under, to compare against Michigan’s.
- The dates. Seven years for the second-offense enhancement is measured conviction to arrest, and an error of a few weeks has changed charges.
The other realistic outcomes on a felony OWI are a negotiated plea to a lesser charge where the evidence supports it, a sobriety court placement, or a trial where the stop or the test does not hold up. Which of those is available depends on the file, which is why the first weeks of a felony OWI case are spent collecting it rather than talking about it.
Can a Felony OWI Be Expunged?
No. The 2022 law that opened the door for drunk driving set-asides applies to one first-offense OWI in a lifetime, and it excludes any OWI involving death or serious injury. A second or third conviction cannot be cleared, and Michigan’s automatic Clean Slate expungement does not reach traffic offenses. For a felony OWI, the record you leave the courthouse with is the one you keep, which is the strongest argument for treating the first and second cases as seriously as the third.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OWI a felony in Michigan?
Usually not. A first or second OWI is a misdemeanor. It becomes a felony when it is your third conviction at any point in your life, when the OWI caused serious impairment of a body function to another person, or when it caused a death. A second OWI with a child under 16 in the vehicle within seven years is also a felony.
Is a second OWI a felony in Michigan?
No. A second OWI within seven years of the first is a misdemeanor, but a heavier one: a minimum of 5 days in jail and up to a year, a $200 to $1,000 fine, 30 to 90 days of community service, a license revocation of at least one year, and vehicle immobilization. It is a misdemeanor on paper and a felony in how it feels.
Is a third OWI a felony in Michigan?
Yes. Under Heidi’s Law, a third OWI conviction is a felony no matter how many years separate it from the first two. The penalty is 1 to 5 years in prison, or probation with 30 days to a year in jail, plus a $500 to $5,000 fine, 60 to 180 days of community service, license revocation for at least a year, and vehicle immobilization or forfeiture.
What counts as a prior OWI conviction in Michigan?
More than people expect. Prior convictions for OWI, OWVI (impaired driving), OWPD (operating with the presence of drugs), convictions under substantially similar laws from other states, and older convictions under Michigan’s former drunk-driving statutes all count. Pleading a first case down to impaired driving still leaves a prior on your record. Whether each prior is valid, meaning you had a lawyer or properly waived one, is one of the first things a defense attorney checks on a third-offense charge.
How many years do prior OWIs count in Michigan?
Seven years for enhancing a charge to a second offense; a lifetime for enhancing it to a felony third offense. A conviction from 1998 and another from 2009 make a 2026 arrest a third-offense felony charge.
Can a felony OWI be expunged in Michigan?
No. Michigan’s 2022 set-aside law for drunk driving applies only to a single first-offense OWI, and it excludes any OWI involving death or serious injury. Repeat convictions and injury or death cases cannot be cleared. That is one more reason the outcome of the first and second cases matters so much.
Where is a felony OWI case heard in Wayne County?
It starts in the district court for the city where you were stopped, such as the 19th District Court in Dearborn or the 36th District Court in Detroit, with an arraignment, a probable cause conference, and a preliminary examination. If the judge finds probable cause, the case is bound over to the Wayne County Circuit Court’s Criminal Division at 5301 Russell Street in Detroit for the rest of the case.
Conclusion
LegalSolv is a Dearborn, Michigan law firm whose OWI and drunk-driving defense practice covers first offenses, high-BAC charges, second offenses, and felony third-offense and injury cases in the 19th District Court, the other Wayne County district courts, and the Circuit Court. Hassan K. Bazzi leads the criminal defense practice, and the firm handles these cases in English and Arabic.
If you have been charged, or you have priors and a new arrest, the priors need to be pulled before your probable cause conference. Contact us before that date.
