Driving Under the Influence (DUI) Charge in Bernards Township, New Jersey Dropped

DUI Dismissed Bernards NJ

Do you need a lawyer for a driving under the influence (DUI) charge in Bernards NJ? We can help. Here is a case we recently handled there with great results.

Travis J. Tormey recently represented a client who was charged with driving under the influence of drugs (DUI) in Bernards Township, New Jersey. The defendant had been pulled over by a state trooper for careless driving. When the trooper approached the car, he suspected that the defendant was driving under the influence. Field sobriety tests were administered at the scene, and the defendant allegedly failed the tests. As a result, she was arrested and charged with drunk driving. However, later, when the defendant was tested using the Alcotest 7110 breath-testing device, she registered a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .00 percent. Nonetheless, the state trooper still believed that she was under the influence of drugs, so he obtained a urine sample.

Before the case proceeded to court, Mr. Tormey received the discovery from the Bernards Township Municipal Prosecutor. Mr. Tormey noticed one glaring omission in the package, an ingredient that is always needed for a drug DWI conviction in New Jersey. At the time of the incident, the state had failed to call a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) to the scene to examine the client and determine whether she was actually under the influence of drugs at the time of the traffic stop. A DRE is a law enforcement officer trained to detect whether a driver is under the influence of drugs. The DRE performs a series of tests on the driver at the police station when making this determination. The DRE also generates a detailed report as to the findings of the testing.

Skilled DWI and DUI Defense Lawyers with Offices in Morristown, NJ

The lab report for Mr. Tormey’s client came back positive for prescription drugs. (These drugs had been prescribed to the defendant by a doctor.) However, Mr. Tormey successfully argued that a positive drug test alone is inconclusive in a DUI case. Drugs can show up in a person’s system for a long time after use. Therefore, without the DRE evaluation and report, the state was unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Tormey’s client was under the influence of drugs at the time she operated the motor vehicle. The DUI charge was dismissed. This was yet another major victory for the Tormey Law Firm.