How OWI Cases End in West Michigan District Courts

Every Michigan district court reports to the Michigan State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) how many cases it opened and how it closed them, case type by case type. We took the drunk-driving lines (the courts’ “OUIL/OWI” column) from the 39 reports for eight district courts in Kent, Ottawa, Allegan and Barry counties for 2019 to 2023, the latest year the reports were published court by court. These are counts of every drunk-driving case in each court. They are not results of this office.

Key numbers

• 76%of drunk-driving cases closed in 2023 ended in a guilty or no-contest plea (2,059 of 2,717)SCAO district court caseload reports, 2023; eight courts combined
• 11cases ended in a jury verdict in 2023, 0.4% of cases closedSCAO district court caseload reports, 2023; eight courts combined
• 12%were felony cases bound over to circuit court or transferred (319)SCAO district court caseload reports, 2023; eight courts combined
• 4%were dismissed by the prosecutor or the judge (115)SCAO district court caseload reports, 2023; eight courts combined
• 24% fewernew drunk-driving cases were filed in 2023 than in 2019: 2,742 against 3,588SCAO district court caseload reports, 2019 and 2023; eight courts combined

How drunk-driving cases closed in 2023

Court by court, 2023

Each court below hears cases from the place where the arrest happened. The share in the last column is guilty or no-contest pleas out of the cases that court closed. Differences between courts reflect the mix of cases (for example, how many are felonies), local charging and plea practices, and how each court records its dispositions. They are not a ranking, and they do not show how any one case will end.

Court names link to each court’s 2023 SCAO caseload report. “Dismissed” adds dismissals by the prosecutor and by the judge. “Cases closed” leaves out inactive status and case-type changes.

A note on the 61st District Court

The 61st District Court in Grand Rapids reported 209 bench verdicts in drunk-driving cases in 2023, out of 213 across all eight courts. Its count rose from 4 in 2019 to 148 in 2021, and its guilty pleas fell from 553 in 2019 to 168 in 2023. The reports do not explain the change, and it may reflect how the court records dispositions rather than more trials. Without the 61st, 84% of the 2,263 cases the other seven courts closed in 2023 ended in a plea.

Year by year, 2019 to 2023

2022: 7 courts; no 2022 report for the 58th District Court was published as a PDF. Percentages are shares of cases closed that year. The rise in verdicts from 2021 comes almost entirely from the 61st District Court (see the note above).

What the court categories mean

The definitions come from the SCAO’s instructions to courts (form SCAO 18). Each case that closes is counted once, on the first line of the SCAO’s list that applies: jury verdict, then bench verdict, plea, bound over, dismissed by the prosecutor, dismissed by the court, inactive status.

• Drunk-driving case: the SCAO case types FD (felony drunk driving), OD (misdemeanor drunk driving under a local ordinance) and SD (misdemeanor drunk driving under state law). The reports call this column “OUIL/OWI”.
• Guilty plea: a guilty or no-contest plea the court accepted. It can be a plea to the charge filed or to a lesser offense; the reports do not say which, or what sentence followed.
• Bench or jury verdict: a verdict after trial before a judge or a jury, guilty or not guilty. The reports do not split the two.
• Bound over or transferred: a felony case sent to circuit court after the district court stage. Every case in this line was a felony drunk-driving case. Its outcome is decided in circuit court and is not in these figures.
• Dismissed by the prosecutor: the prosecutor’s motion to dismiss was granted. The SCAO also counts a misdemeanor traffic charge reduced to a civil infraction on this line.
• Dismissed by the court: the judge dismissed the case, for example when a witness or officer did not appear.
• Inactive status: the case is on hold and not decided, because a warrant was issued before it was decided, the defendant was referred for a competency evaluation, or the case was stayed. When it resumes it is counted again as a reopened case.

What this means if you are charged with OWI in West Michigan

• Most cases end in a plea. 76% of the cases these courts closed in 2023 ended in a guilty or no-contest plea. A plea can be to OWI or to a lesser offense such as operating while visibly impaired; see plea agreements in OWI cases and OWI vs. OWVI vs. high BAC.
• Few cases are decided by a jury. Juries returned verdicts in 11 of the 2,717 cases, and the reports do not say how many were guilty or not guilty. Whether to plead or go to trial is the defendant’s decision; see plea vs. trial in Michigan.
• “Dismissed” does not always mean no consequence. In these counts, a dismissal by the prosecutor also covers a misdemeanor traffic charge reduced to a civil infraction.
• A felony OWI is decided in circuit court. 12% of the cases closed were felonies, for example a third offense or a crash causing serious injury or death, bound over to circuit court or transferred; see district court vs. circuit court.
• A warrant puts a case on hold. 351 more cases went on inactive status in 2023, which is how courts record a case stopped by a warrant, among other reasons; see what to do if there is a warrant.

These are court-wide counts, not results of this office. They cover every drunk-driving case in each court, whoever the lawyer was. Every case is different, and past results do not predict the outcome of any case.

Method

We used the 39 SCAO district court caseload reports (one report per court per year) for the 56-B, 57th, 58th, 59th, 61st, 62-A, 62-B and 63rd District Courts, 2019 to 2023, as published on the Michigan Courts website and retrieved on November 11, 2026. From each report we read the drunk-driving column on the summary page and the FD, OD and SD columns on the detail page; a script checks that the two pages agree and that the dispositions add to the reported total for every court and year. “Cases closed” is total dispositions minus inactive status and case-type changes. The eight-court totals and all percentages are our calculations. The script, the source files and their checksums are kept on file with this study.

Limits

• Newer years. 2023 is the latest year the SCAO published as court-by-court reports. Later years are published only in the SCAO’s Interactive Court Data Dashboard, an embedded report with no data download, so they are not used here.
• 2022. The 2022 index page points to the dashboard for court figures. The 2022 reports for seven of the courts are on the Michigan Courts website under the same file names as 2023; none was found for the 58th District Court.
• Cases, not people. One person can have more than one case, and a case that comes back from inactive status is counted again when it closes. Cases closed in a year may have been filed in an earlier year.
• What the reports do not show: the charge a plea was to, guilty or not guilty verdicts, sentences, and the outcome of felony cases in circuit court.
• Courts enter their own data. Recording practices can differ between courts, as the 61st District Court figures suggest.
• Other courts. The office also appears in courts that are not in this study, such as the 7th District Court in Van Buren County.

Reporters can reach the office at 616-438-6719. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it and note the change on this page.

Legal information, not legal advice. This study describes public court statistics. It is not advice about any case, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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