Travis J. Tormey recently helped a client fight first offense DWI charges in Guttenberg Municipal Court. The client was stopped by a patrol officer while driving through Guttenberg NJ. The client allegedly registered a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .13 percent, which is well over the legal limit in New Jersey. As a result, the client was charged with drunk driving and faced significant DWI penalties, including: a 1-year suspension of his driver’s license, heavy fines, alcohol education classes at the Intoxicated Driver Resource Center (IDRC), and up to 30 days in the local county jail.

Shortly after the client was arrested, he contacted the Tormey Law Firm. Mr. Tormey immediately got to work on behalf of the client. Mr. Tormey examined the discovery evidence in the case and determined that the client’s breath test readings should not be admissible at trial. It was clear to Mr. Tormey that the two breath samples provided by the client on the night of the DWI stop were “outside tolerance,” indicating that the breath machine may have been working improperly. In accordance with the New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling in State v. Chun, the municipal court judge declared that the breath test samples in this DWI case were inadmissible as evidence.

Mr. Tormey also argued that the client’s field sobriety tests should be declared inadmissible because they never should been administered by the patrol officer. The client had been medically discharged from the military due to health issues with his foot. Mr. Tormey argued that the patrol officer should not have asked the client to undergo field sobriety testing during the traffic stop. The Tormey Law Firm utilized the services of a DWI expert, a retired New Jersey State Trooper, who testified that the client’s medical issues prevented him from successfully completing the field sobriety tests.

Thanks to Mr. Tormey’s challenges to the evidence in the case, the client’s DWI charges were dismissed. Our client avoided a driving while intoxicated (DWI) conviction and instead had his license suspended for just 30 days due to a careless driving citation. This was an extremely favorable outcome for the client and a major success for the Tormey Law Firm.