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New Jersey allows people to expunge their criminal files in many types of cases, meaning that information related to a criminal case is removed from state and local agencies’ records and will not show up in most criminal background checks. Unfortunately, state law specifically excludes motor vehicle offenses, including driving while intoxicated, from eligibility for expungement. Even arrests for DWI are ineligible. Other states are considering similar laws to allow expungement of criminal records, but the proposed laws would similarly exclude DWI offenses. This effectively places DWI offenses, regardless of the specific circumstances, in the same category as non-expungeable violent crimes.

Because it is a motor vehicle offense and not a criminal offense in New Jersey, DWI convictions are not expungible. Likewise, the arrest for DWI is not expungible, however, again, because DWI is a motor vehicle offense, the arrest is not even “of record” on any criminal database. In other words, when stopped for a DWI, the “arrest” is not entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. No one will ever know that a DWI arrest has occurred in New Jersey, unless the Motor Vehicle Commission records are checked.

Expungement, under New Jersey law, means the “extraction and isolation” of court, jail, or law enforcement records relating to a criminal matter. NJ Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-1. This includes records of criminal investigations, arrests, detention, and criminal court proceedings. The records are not destroyed, but are removed and placed in separate storage for expunged files. The only time they might be reviewed again would be by prison administrators after a subsequent conviction. Expungement for a felony conviction is available ten years after the date of sentencing. The time period is shorter for lesser offenses. Arrests and criminal charges that never result in a conviction or other formal disposition have no waiting period before a person may petition for an expungement.

Certain offenses are ineligible for expungement. This includes convictions for violent crimes like murder, kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, and child endangerment. NJ Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-2(b). Records of drug convictions are ineligible for expungement if the offense involved more than a specified amount of the drug. Convictions involving official corruption also may not be expunged. New Jersey law also specifically omits motor vehicle offenses from expungement eligibility, and it applies this to DWI arrests as well as convictions. NJ Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-28. An arrest for alleged DWI that does not result in a conviction therefore cannot be expunged, but an arrest for a violent felony without a conviction potentially could be. Continue reading

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The New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division considered the appeal of a DWI defendant in State v. Lobo that challenged the admissibility of Alcotest results. The defendant argued in part that the state’s failure to provide him with complete repair and maintenance records for the device used to test his blood alcohol content (BAC) entitled him to relief on appeal. The state’s case relied on results from an Alcotest device, which has been sufficiently controversial that the state plans on retiring it. The court rejected each of the defendant’s points of error and affirmed the conviction.

The defendant was arrested on April 29, 2011 after a traffic stop. At a State Police barracks, officers administered a breath test using a Dräger Alcotest 7110 MK III-C device. The test showed a BAC of 0.13 percent, and the defendant was charged with DWI. The court ordered the state to produce repair records and other information regarding the Alcotest device. Prosecutors later informed the court that some repair records were not available, leading the court to modify its order to require production of “repair records that exist.”

Based on the information obtained about the device, the defendant moved to dismiss the case or exclude the Alcotest results on multiple grounds. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion. The defendant entered a conditional guilty plea, which allowed him to preserve the issues raised in his motion to dismiss for appeal. Continue reading

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A series of errors by a private laboratory testing company has called hundreds of pending DWI cases into question. Blood samples sent to the lab were reportedly mislabeled, or were subject to other paperwork errors, resulting in uncertain test results. Prosecutors are trying to determine whether retesting is possible, while DWI defendants and their advocates remain skeptical that the state has revealed all of the damage done by the lab’s errors. Laws defining the offense of DWI generally do not require evidence of blood alcohol content (BAC) obtained through blood or breath testing, but chemical evidence is generally considered the simplest way for prosecutors to prove intoxication.

The district attorney’s office in San Antonio, Texas contracted with the laboratory, which is located in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, to test samples taken by police in DWI cases. The lab reportedly sent a letter to the DA’s office in May 2014 informing it that an analyst had made multiple errors in paperwork affecting hundreds of samples. The DA’s office has reportedly not made the full extent of the errors public, but one error by the analyst, who has been terminated by the lab, involved incorrect labeling of 350 samples.

The lab has reportedly sent test results to the DA’s office with notices that they cannot definitively link the results to a specific sample, although the DA’s office has denied that results have actually been mixed up between cases. The office has also denied that any samples were contaminated by the lab, although news media have reported that some documents make reference to contaminated equipment. The situation has left both prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys uncertain how to proceed with pending DWI cases. Continue reading

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The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees criminal defendants the right to a speedy trial. If this right is denied, the court may dismiss the charges. The New Jersey Supreme Court considered this issue in New Jersey v. Cahill, ruling in early April 2013 that a sixteen-month wait for a DWI trial in municipal court denied the defendant’s right to a speedy trial. Applying a four-part test developed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 in Barker v. Wingo, the court affirmed the dismissal of the DWI charge.

The defendant was ticketed on October 27, 2007 for driving while intoxicated and other motor vehicle charges. Six months later, on April 10, 2008, a grand jury indicted him for fourth-degree assault by auto. The defendant pleaded guilty to the assault by auto charge in Camden County Superior Court on September 19, 2008. A judge sentenced him to one year of probation, plus fines and other penalties, on November 14, 2008.

That same day, the Camden County prosecutor sent written notice to the Pennsauken Municipal Court administrator that the Superior Court was remanding the October 2007 motor vehicle tickets to the municipal court, and that the defendant had waived double jeopardy. The municipal court notified the defendant in March 2010 that it had set the DWI and other motor vehicle charges for trial on April 12, 2010. This date was sixteen months after notice of remand was sent to the municipal court, and almost twenty-nine months after the date of the tickets. Continue reading

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As a New Jersey DWI lawyer, my goal is always to do the best job for my client, which means seeking to get the DWI dismissed. If that cannot be accomplished based on the circumstances of the case, then the next goal is to seek a reduction of the suspension time.

In first offense DWI cases in New Jersey, there is a two tiered sentencing structure.

If your breath or blood alcohol result was 0.10% or greater, then you are an alleged second-tier offender. This means, that if convicted, you face a license suspension of 7 to 12 months. If your breath breath or blood alcohol result was 0.15% or higher, then you are also subject to mandatory installation of an ignition interlock device.

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A New Jersey DWI charge is very serious and has significant consequences if you are convicted. As a result, your defense must be thoroughly planned and executed to obtain the best results possible.

It is always the goal of the qualified DWI defense attorney to attempt to have a DWI charge dismissed. The success of having the DWI dismissed, of course, depends on the specific facts and circumstances of the case and the overall situation.

Your DWI lawyer must always be ready to go to trial in your case. That doesn’t mean that your case will end up in trial, however if your lawyer is ready to actually try your case, the prosecutor, police officer, and judge may look at your circumstances differently.

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New Jersey DWI breath testing is not reliable and should be challenged by a qualified DWI lawyer.

“So, what you’re telling us is that the world is round, even though we all believe it is flat.” That is essentially what the judge said, who handled the original scientific reliability hearing in State v. Chun. This encapsulates the system’s view of breath testing in New Jersey and the world.

Breath testing has been demonstrated by scientific experts in the field to be up to 100% inaccurate. However, courts across the country have accepted the “forensic science” of breath testing, and have allowed this mechanism to be utilized to wrongly convict people of DWI. Many scholars have written on the subject, and those articles are available for review.

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I just finished meeting with a NJ DWI client, prepping him for a potential trial. The client said to me that when he chose my law firm, he had spoken with other attorneys trying to decide which law firm was best for him. He wanted to know whether I was going to “show him the beef, and not just the sizzle”. I looked quizzically at him, and asked him what that meant.

He told me that when researching my firm and discussing his options with the other lawyers he was interviewing, one lawyer had the nerve to say that the “high-priced lawyers are all sizzle and no beef”. The lawyer went on to say that he could do the same job that the more expensive lawyers do at half the cost.

During the balance of the prep time, we discussed “the beef”. We discussed how I will defend his case at trial, how I will not back down, and how I will fight for him until the very end. That “sizzle” is the beef. When hiring a lawyer, the client must be certain that that lawyer and law firm will follow through on his or her behalf. In other words, the potential client must make sure that the lawyer and law firm will fight all the way and try a case. You may not end up a trial, but you want to make sure that the lawyer you hire is preparing your case as if it will go to trial. That is the best way to assure that your case is prepped properly and fought fully.

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NJ DWI prosecutions are about to change significantly. Due to litigation in a case that I filed in front of the New Jersey Supreme Court, State v. Chun, the state has acknowledged that the Alcotest test machine is being scrapped in New Jersey.

Five years ago, in March 2008, the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered nine software changes to the Alcotest machine in order to make it reliable for use in New Jersey. This was after three years of litigation as to the scientific reliability of the machine. However, in the five years since the Chun decision, the State has implemented none of the required software changes to the machine.

In December 2012, we discovered that the data posted online from machines statewide was incomplete and corrupted. As a result, along with co-counsel, I filed a motion to compel the State to reformat the online information, and to comply with the original Chun order. The State replied to the motion, admitting that the online information was, in fact, incomplete. The State further indicated that it did not and could not comply with the Supreme Court order from 2008. In its responsive brief, the State asks that the Supreme Court absolve it of the requirement to fix the software in the Alcotest. The State announced that the Alcotest was going to be retired by the end of 2016, and that it was seeking a new breath testing instrument by that time. Rather than implement any new software, and to avoid any further challenges to the scientific reliability of the machine, the state asked the Supreme Court to allow it to continue using the Alcotest until it found a new machine by the end of 2016.

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In a New Jersey DWI case, the prosecutor must prove the basic elements of the offense. The simplest of those elements is whether the individual arrested actually operated the motor vehicle.

Often, New Jersey DWI arrests are made as a result of tip call, or someone calling into the police department reporting an erratic driver. The caller will sometimes give the license plate number of the vehicle, which can then be traced to the owner’s residence. If the police then locate the car in the driveway of the residence, without that driver in the vehicle, there is a question as to who operated the vehicle. Unless the caller can identify the driver, or if the driver admits to operating the vehicle, the state will have a difficult, if not impossible time, in establishing who operated the vehicle.

Even if operation is established, the state must still prove that the operator drove the vehicle while intoxicated. Depending on how long the vehicle was stationary at the residence, it may be difficult for the state to establish that the driver did not drink alcohol once the motorist arrived at the residence.

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