In the latest twist to the backstory of a viral video centering on a Michigan man who virtually attended a hearing on his suspended driver’s license while driving, the judge in the case asserted the defendant never even obtained a license that could be suspended.
Judge Cedric Simpson’s assertion contradicted widely reported claims from Corey Harris that the suspended license at the heart of the viral hearing should have been reinstated long ago.
During a Wednesday hearing at his courtroom in Washtenaw county, Simpson said: “Based upon what the court has looked at, [Harris] has never had a Michigan license, ever,” the Daily Beast reported.
Simpson added that Harris “has never had a license in the other 49 states and commonwealths that form up this great union”.
According to the judge, Simpson does not even have driving privileges in Michigan.
Wednesday’s developments unfolded after Harris claimed to have been hard done by at a virtual court hearing about his purported license and its suspension.
His misdemeanor case emerged from a traffic stop in Pittsfield township last October.
In a video recording of the hearing on 15 May, Simpson could be seen asking Harris: “Are you driving?” In response, Harris said: “Actually, I’m pulling into my doctor’s office actually so just give me a second.”
Simpson shook his head in disbelief, saying: “I don’t even know why he would do that.” He then ordered Harris to turn himself into Washtenaw county jail by 6pm that day.
Reports later emerged that Harris’s suspended license was supposed to have been reinstated in January 2022. However, according to 7 News Detroit, which first reported the discovery, Michigan’s secretary of state allegedly never received clearance from the Washtenaw county friend of the court office to restore Harris’s license.
Harris had allegedly paid all the fees that would result in his license being reinstated – if he had one.
The case then took yet another surprising twist on Wednesday when Simpson asserted that Harris never had a license to begin with.
Clarifying the confusion in court, Simpson said that it was actually Harris’s Michigan driving privileges that were suspended last October, not his license.
“For example, if he had had a Kentucky license, he would be able to drive everywhere that Kentucky would allow him to drive,” Simpson said, the Daily Beast reports. “He just couldn’t drive in Michigan because his privileges had been restricted.”
Simpson revealed that Harris had known all along that he does not have a driver’s license.
His “counsel knows, and so do I – you cannot have both. Either you have an ID or you have a license,” Simpson said. “And he has religiously, every year, gotten a new ID, and so he knows that he doesn’t have a license.
“And quite frankly, I just wish he would have said that at the beginning, and all of this hoopla could have been just put all aside.”
According to online court records, Harris has posted a $450 bond to be out of authorities’ custody while awaiting the outcome of the case. His next hearing on the traffic stop has been tentatively scheduled for 13 August.
