Some NJ Drunk Driving Convictions Can Be Overturned: See If You Apply

NEW JERSEY — The Middlesex County Prosecutor posted the following public notice on Feb. 20:

If you were arrested and/or convicted of Driving While Intoxicated (“DWI”) in New Jersey between 2008 and 2016, you may be entitled to what the courts call "post-conviction relief."

This means your DWI conviction could be vacated or voided, and cleared from your record.

This follows a court battle called State v. Eileen Cassidy (2018), which was where a New Jersey State Police sergeant, Marc Dennis, was found to be calibrating several Alcotest instruments and failed to follow the proper protocol.

This applies to anyone who submitted a breath test in a DWI arrest in the following New Jersey counties where those Alcotests were used: Middlesex County, Monmouth County, Ocean County, Somerset County and Union County.

Dennis is now in prison. NJ Attorney General Matt Platkin said the calibrated Alcotests were used in more than 200,000 DWI convictions that are now eligible to be overturned. New Jersey Superior Court found that the sergeant’s failure to follow the established protocol negatively affected the scientific reliability of the breath tests, and ruled that the results from those instruments are inadmissible in court.

If you believe you may be entitled to relief, you may file a petition for post-conviction relief under Court Rule 7:10-2 with the town where you were convicted.

Says the NJ Attorney General: "You may consult with a private attorney or municipal public defender, if available, to determine whether you are entitled to relief and/or what action, if any, you should take."

The public now has access to two documents that can help determine whether you may be entitled to post-conviction relief. The first is a spreadsheet of every breath sample given on affected Alcotest instruments between November 5, 2008, and April 9, 2016. The second is a database containing PDFs of the various affected calibration records. Both can be found here.