The Law Offices of Edward Harrington Heyburn, PC

On August 31, 2010, in an unpublished opinion, the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division reversed a lower court conviction for DWI/DUI where the State failed to turn over historical data and repair logs for the police Alcotest. State of New Jersey v. Maricic. While these documents are not foundational documents necessary for the State to obtain a conviction, they are documents that would challenge the reliability of the Alcotest.  This case begs the question of what happens when the State says that they do not have repair logs.  For a long time, the State has been able to shirk its responsibility to turn over repair logs by denying that any such documents exist.  Now that the appellate division says Defendants are entitled to such documents, the fight to show that the State fails to properly maintain repair logs in on!

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For a short time DWI Defense Attorneys thought that there was hope that the Courts would exclude alcotest results when the police failed to have the officer conducting the test make a 20 minute observation of the suspect prior to adminstering the test.  The Appellate Division quashed that hope in State v. Ugrovics.  The court held, “ Consistent with the underlying principles articulated by the Court in Chun, we hold that the State is only required to establish that the test subject did not ingest, regurgitate or place anything in his or her mouth that may compromise the reliability of the test results for a period of at least twenty minutes prior to the administration of the Alcotest.  The essence of this requirement is to ensure that the test subject has been continuously observed during this critical twenty-minute window of time.  The identity of the observer is not germane to this central point.  The State can meet this burden by calling any competent witness who can so attest.”  For now, if you burb before the Alcotest, you better let someone know or suffer an abnormially high reading.