Please find attached a copy of the NJ Supreme Court’s opinion in State v. Chun. I have not had the chance to review that opinion in detail yet. I will comment on the opinion soon.
State v. Chun: State v. Chun.pdf
Michael L. Saile, Jr. is a partner at the Law Firm of Saile & Saile LLP located in lower Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He has been representing injured individuals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey his entire career. He has focused his attention to victims of serious car accidents. Mr. Saile recently published his first consumer oriented book entitled “How to Maximize Your Pennsylvania Car Accident Case Before an Insurance Company Takes Advantage of You.” Mr. Saile was recently listed as a Rising Star Super Lawyer.
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THIS PROBABLY WONT BE PUBLISED, BUT HERE I GO.
I read the 149 page attachment to this initial post.
Here is my assessment.
1)Reisig got almost want he wanted. FIRST AND FOREMOST HE WANTED THE RULES DEFINED. ACCOMPLISHED!
HE WON ON THE FOLEY TOLERANCE ISSUE, REDUCING THE TOLERANCE TO PLUS/MINUS, 5 PERCENT, FROM PLUS/.MINUS 10 PERCENT, INCLUDED A WORKSHEET
He lost on breath tempeture and radio interfernce.
All other factors from downey in 1984 were upheld and now identified to be part of the alcotest, including the proofs, with a few add ons.
2)Levow lost on the expansion of Crawford and confrontational rights. Hopefully he will do what he said and appeal.
3)Menzel lost the argument all results should be thrown out based on error with the code
4)Sachs lost his bid for full validation. This is also what i have been pushing for in many posts.
So, it looks like of the 4, Reisig was the big winner here.
I dont feel good about being a pawn in this litigation. Simply because I should have had the stop be challangble long ago, thus giving me the oppotunity to clear my name and has this overwith. Getting the stop and testimony of the stop on record, would not have only been beneficial to me, but for the State as well. Their is case law to support my opinion that talks about the prosecutor’s duty.
While i truley belive that scientific evidence of this kind can not be suported without the showing of validation data for each instrument, i understand why this was cut short.
The Chun defense forgo’ed the remainder of the initial hearings in order to write and have adendum a adopted, but this was not untmatley adopted, .. meaning, a good portion of the chun defense was left out of the initial hearings/trial, in judge kings court.
so when the supreme court says not enough was put on record, it is clear that is a result of the agreement for adendum a, in liue of the continuation of the trial.
defense attorneys, the courts, the state, drager, and citizens all win from the decision, but defendants lose, because they were tied tro an inadequet and incomplete in violation of basic rights, which now they are tied to.
the last hope is levow’s appeal to the us supreme court, and also a new defendant putting forth validation arguments, maybe myself.
well, this is my initial feelings and thoughts.
I have a DWI (first offense – NJ) and received a BAC of 0.10. Is there any chance the BAC can be reduced to lower levels – so I only lose my licence for 3 months??? Please help
I blew a BAC of .08 twice.. Does that mean they will let me off??? I had a stay sentence pending..
There may be the possibility that either of you will get a break of some sort. You need to have an attorney review with matter thoroughly to determine whether your reading is acceptable under Chun.
Any cases that involve AIR’s that were produced from machines with calibration times much longer than 6 months should be suppressed. If the findings (as well as the Dreager recommendations before the alcotest was put into use) were that the machine may not be reliable without more frequent calibrations, than how can they look to convict people on the basis of reports produced by machines that had calibration records of 7-8-9 or more months?
mr levow had advised me some time ago, that the appeal to the us supreme court could not take place until a defendant is adjudicated under the nj supreme court decision. then at that time, possibly all the alcotest dui cases could be put on hold again.
i am not sure if he meant one of the chun defendants or just any defendant.
What does this mean for people who had a stay based on the State v. Chun? The State goes by the book and they are no allowances for anyone. I wonder how many police officers who were drunk behind the wheel got even brought into court. I have a lot of buddies who are cops and all they do is flash their badge and they are off.
It certainly seems that way. There are people who were dwi, and had perfectly clean records, and are highly unlikely to ever do something so foolish again, yet they will be crucified by the courts. There is lots of money to be had, since our tax dollars are not enough for the state. I have friends who are in the NYPD and they’ve actually driven fellow officers home after finding them dwi.
I went to court 3/05/08 for blowing an 08.
The decision was to hold for the Chun decision.
The DMV took my license away for 7months on 3/9/08 along with all surcharges, loss of a job etc in the next coming weeks. The Chun decision didn’t happen until 3/17/08 how could all of this have happened before the Chun decision. Calls and faxes into my attorney have not been answered or returned. I would assume there is a lot of confusion over this litagation but for my life I have lost my license my job and alot ot moneies that I need to owe for restoration and court fees. Something just doesn’t seem right!
page 2 paragraph 4 discusses the tolerance… .01 +/-; coupled with the use of a like percentage…. in pending cases in which the AIR reports a BAC obtained using a doubled tolerance range…. has anyone read this and understand what it means? if my lowest reading was .105 do i have any chance of reducing suspension time?
Correction – my readings were .101 and .105… thanks
Shirley, I’m certainly no expert on this ruling. But your readings as given are within .01 +/-; and even if those two values are rounded to the nearest 100th, your two readings would be .10 and .11 which is still within the .01 +/-
Now there are rules in place in NJ so that no plea agreement can be reached in a dwi case, but it really all depends on what jurisdiction you you are in. If the prosecutor for your area is not afraid of the state, many of them will still plea the case down to the 3 month suspension. But technically they are not supposed to.
DWI laws in are unconstituonal…period, The States gave in under duress to lower the BAC to .08 or not get the Highway funding monies in the millions??? I don’t know but that sounds illegal to me.
We need more responsbale DWI laws in this Counrty, reminds me of the witchhunts of the earlier centuries where people really believed in that nonsense, now that seems so silly & crazy in retrospect, hope the laws now get repealed and seem outrageous in the future, to much punishments & way to much money for DWI convictions….unfair to say the least!