Division 1 of the court of appeals released a decision on November 9, 2026, on the ongoing DWLS Due Process Litigation we've been dealing with around the State. Find a copy of the opinion here. The decision is unpublished, but can still be cited under GR 14.1 by either party.

Division One reviewed litigation over DOLs compliance with due process in the context of license suspension/revocation. The ongoing challenges related to mailing custom have not have an appellate decision prior to this unpublished ruling. The good thing is that the court recognized DOL has a mailing custom, but did not find that the State presented proof of compliance with that custom for this individual letter. The ruling does not specificy exactly what would be required to show compliance, and leaves open the possibility of different methods.

Prosecutors should stand ready to continue litigating these motions by showing both 1) DOL has an established mailing custom at the time of suspension/revocation letter mailing 2) evidence supports an inference of compliance with that custom. This will likely require testimony from someone at consolidated mail services who can look at a past job ticket and indicate if that mailing job was completed without error, including placing the letter in the mail. That may mean we want to look at a time period of a least a few days (before and after) make sure the batch tickets reviewed by CSM can indicate lack of errors for all batches that could contain a defendant's letter. It would be useful to also get a copy of the batch tickets to aid in the testimony. 

A separate case litigating the mailing custom question in the context of HTO revocation is also pending currently in Division One.

Your State TSRP will continue working on this and keep you up to date with new developments.