Success Stories
Our office had the opportunity to help out another one of the our clients who had been charged with a DWI and 3rd degree drug possession of prescription drugs. Our client was a hard working family man who had no prior record and had a great job which could have been easily lost if he was convicted of the felony drug possession or couldn’t drive to work for an extended period of time from a DWI conviction.
His case was sent to CJP in Hudson County Superior Court since he was charged with a 3rd degree felony which could carry up 3 – 5 years in state prison if convicted. At CJP our criminal defense attorney was able to speak with the prosecutor about the circumstances of the case and the state agreed to downgrade the charges from an indictable crime down to a disorderly persons offense and send the case back down to municipal court. This was a huge win right from the beginning because now our client was no longer facing the possibility of a felony conviction.
Once at municipal court we began challenging the evidence against our client as it pertained to the drugs and DWI. We were able to put forth a compelling argument and convince the judge to sign an order demanding that the state produce certain evidence against our client by a certain date or in the alternative that those missing pieces be suppressed. Ultimately, we were able successfully argue that the judge dismiss the DWI charges based on several items of missing evidence and the fact that the state may have trouble proving that the defendant actually had the intent to operate the vehicle. As for the drug charges – our client was admitted into the conditional discharge program which will result in a dismissal of the case after 12 months with no violations. To learn more about how a Kearny NJ DWI attorney may be able to help you, contact our office today for a free consultation.
State v. L.B. decided August 30, 2016
Our Hoboken DWI defense attorneys recently represented a client who was arrested for drunk driving and DWI in a School Zone after Hoboken Police found him passed out unconscious behind the wheel in the middle of the road around 5:44 A.M. Upon approaching the car the police noticed all the doors were locked and there was loud music blasting from inside the car. According to their report, the police could see our client seated inside with his eyes closed but he was completely unresponsive to their commands and it actually took them several minutes of knocking on the windows and physically shaking the car to wake our client from his slumber.
When he finally woke up and rolled down the window, the police smelt an odor of alcoholic beverages emanating from inside the car. According to the report, after speaking with the police, he appeared to be disoriented and did not know where he was at first. The police also noted that he had slow speech and glassy eyes. Based on the circumstances, an ambulance had been called to make sure our client did not need medical attention. When they asked him to step out of the car to be checked by the EMTs he was also observed to be stumbling and had to be guided with the assistance of the medical personnel. Lastly, he was heard making open admissions to the EMTs that he had been consuming alcohol throughout the night.
Based on these observations, the police arrested our client for DWI and DWI in a School Zone and transported him to the police station where he was administered the breathalyzer which showed he was in fact above the legal limit. This was our client’s first time in trouble and he was obviously very distraught about the situation, especially since he faced up to a 2 year loss of his driver’s license, if convicted. In order to challenge the State’s case against him, our defense lawyers began combing through the evidence looking for inconsistencies or potential issues with the police officer’s procedures and the breathalyzer machine itself. Based on the information we uncovered, we brought in a retired state trooper breath test coordinator, as a DWI expert, to challenge the validity of the breathalyzer reading. In the end, our attorneys made a motion to dismiss based on the deficiencies in the State’s evidence and the court dismissed both the DWI and DWI in the School Zone against our client.
State v. G.S. decided on October 24, 2017 resulted in Reckless Driving with 60 day loss of license
Our office represented a client who had been charged with a DWI after crashing his car on the New Jersey Turnpike. State Troopers soon arrived and arrested him under suspicion of drunk driving and took him back to the station where he blew a 0.13% BAC. As a first time offender, he faced a mandatory driver’s license suspension of 7 – 12 months. To make matters worse, our client was a commercial driver who owned his own business and had a CDL. If convicted of the DWI, in addition to any basic driving suspension, he faced a mandatory 1 year suspension of his CDL and would be unable to work.
Our attorneys put together an aggressive defense to attack the State’s case against him and challenged their level of proofs, which included retaining a DWI expert. After months of back and forth, the case was set for trial and when the State’s key witness failed to show for a second time, the judge granted our motion to dismiss based on lack of prosecution. The DUI and all the ancillary charges were dismissed and our client was able to walk out of the courtroom without even losing his license for a day.
State v. N.G.
Our DWI attorneys recently defended a client who was charged with driving while intoxicated after he rear-ended a car near the Holland Tunnel. Port Authority Police were called to the scene because of the accident and after speaking with our client they smelled alcohol on his breath and decided to arrest him for DWI. He was brought to the Port Authority Police Station so they could conduct the breathalyzer, also known as the Alcotest machine. However, the Alcotest failed after the machine had an internal error so the officers had to again transfer our client to another police station to conduct the test where he eventually gave a breath sample of 0.12% which was over the legal limit.
As part of our representation, we requested all the relevant evidence pertaining to our client’s case be produced in court. In particular we wanted to see the first breath sample from the Alcotest that failed earlier in the day in order to what level of alcohol it registered and also to set up a detailed timeline after the defendant’s arrest to see if the police officer’s followed the correct protocols, in particular the required 20 minute observation period before the breathalyzer. However, the prosecutor could not produce the results from the earlier test because, according to the police, they had destroyed it. Based on this information, our attorneys filed a motion to suppress the breathalyzer reading from evidence and successfully argued the motion before the municipal judge who suppressed the breathalyzer reading. This meant that the prosecutor could no longer rely on the 0.12% alcohol reading to prove our client guilty of the DWI and instead could only use the standard field sobriety tests such as walking a straight to try and prove he was drunk at the time of the accident. On the day of trial, our attorneys were able to convince of the police officer and the prosecutor that they could not prove the DWI simply based on the field sobriety tests because the defendant had performed them very well. Therefore, the court dismissed the DWI charges against our client.
State v. J.Z. decided April 10, 2017