More than 20,000 drunken-driving convictions in New Jersey could be in jeopardy after the state’s highest court ruled on Tuesday that breathalyzer tests used to win those judgments were inadmissible. The unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court stems from criminal charges brought more than two years ago against a State Police sergeant who was accused of falsifying calibration records on breath test devices that were used in five of New Jersey’s 21 counties. As part of their decision, the justices ordered state authorities to notify anyone whose case involved results from machines Dennis calibrated. They must tell them that those results were not scientifically sound, so they can decide whether they want to go to court and seek to have their convictions vacated. The accusations against Dennis called into question any test result involving a machine he handled, including devices used by local police in Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Somerset, and Union counties between 2008 and 2016. State authorities maintained that the temperature check Dennis was accused of skipping was one of several "redundancies and fail-safes" to ensure the readings are accurate and that omitting that one step did not invalidate the results. They claim that omitting that one step didn't invalidate the results, noting New Jersey is the only state that requires the step. But the Supreme Court, siding with Judge Joseph Lisa, who was appointed as a "special master" to handle the issue, found the omission of the step raised "substantial doubts" about the reliability of the machines. “We’ll be issuing guidance shortly for our county prosecutors and municipal prosecutors over how to handle those cases,” Gurbir Grewal, the New Jersey attorney general, said at a news conference on Tuesday. It is unclear how state courts and law enforcement officials will now proceed.
– A lot of drunk drivers in New Jersey could end up getting away with it because one police officer allegedly failed to do his job properly. The state's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that some 20,667 people accused of drunk driving could have their cases tossed because of Sgt. Marc Dennis, who allegedly failed to perform a temperature check while calibrating machines used to check blood-alcohol levels, NJ.com reports. The ruling means that test results from five of New Jersey's 21 counties—Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Somerset, and Union—are inadmissible as evidence if they involve "Alcotest" machines that Dennis handled. A criminal case against the officer, who denies wrongdoing, is still pending. It's not clear how many convictions will actually be vacated—some defendants will have been found not guilty, while others could have been convicted on other evidence. State authorities told the top court that the step Dennis allegedly skipped is only required in New Jersey, the AP reports. The judges ordered the state to notify people who could seek to have DWI convictions vacated because of the ruling, though lawyer Matthew W. Reisig predicts a "hornets' nest" lies ahead in the courts. "The state at some point is going to notify people, but we don’t know if they are notifying the correct people," he tells the New York Times. "I have zero confidence that the state knows who the affected people are." (This driver was involved in a fatal DUI crash 90 minutes after police let him go.)