Second Offense DWI Charges Dropped
New Jersey DWI Defense Lawyers in Morris County
DUI Lawyers
Arrested for a 2nd offense DWI in NJ? The Tormey Law Firm can help. Travis J. Tormey recently represented a client who had been accused of driving while intoxicated (DWI) in New Jersey.
The client was charged with a violation of N.J.S.A. 39:4-50. Unfortunately, our client also had a prior DWI offense on his driving record. The earlier offense had occurred nearly 10 years before the most recent incident. However, New Jersey law counts every DWI offense within a 10-year period; as a result, our client was charged with second offense DWI.
The penalties for second offense DWI in New Jersey are significant. If our client had been convicted, he would have been subject to 90 days in jail and a 2-year suspension of his driving privileges in the State of New Jersey. Moreover, the court could have required him to install an ignition interlock device on his car for a period of 1–3 years after his license was restored. He also could have been ordered to perform 30 days of community service. Needless to say, the stakes were extremely high.
Mr. Tormey got to work right away to help the client beat the DWI charges. First, Mr. Tormey obtained the discovery evidence in the case and isolated a number of issues related to the Alcotest machine that was used on the night of the arrest.
Although the client’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was above the legal limit of .08 percent, it was barely over the limit. Additionally, since the client suffered from asthma and frequently used an alcohol inhaler, the results of the breath test were potentially inflated. Beyond that, the police officer failed to change the testing mouthpiece in between breath samples; this could have allowed alcohol to linger in the mouthpiece and inflate the reading. Thanks to Mr. Tormey’s efforts, the breath test reading was suppressed by the prosecutor in the case.
When Mr. Tormey examined the evidence in the case, he also identified problems with the field sobriety testing. These tests typically include a one-leg-stand test and a walk-and-turn test. Mr. Tormey was able to challenge the field sobriety test results in this case because our client had recently undergone major back surgery; as a result, he was not medically capable of performing these very physically demanding tests. Additionally, the client was 50 pounds overweight, which made performing the field sobriety tests almost impossible.
Charged with a Second Offense DWI in NJ? Contact us now
As a result of Travis Tormey’s quick thinking and strategic defense tactics, the prosecutor agreed to dismiss the DWI charge. Our client pleaded guilty to a minor traffic summons for failure to keep right – and the DWI charge went away completely. Needless to say, our client and his wife were thrilled with the result. This case represented a major success for the Tormey Law Firm.
