A New Jersey DWI charge is unlike a traffic ticket. It is, by statute, a non-criminal violation prosecuted in municipal court — but the consequences are punishing.
A first conviction may carry license forfeiture, ignition-interlock installation, mandatory alcohol education at an Intoxicated Driver Resource Center, and insurance surcharges that compound for years. A second conviction invites two days of mandatory jail. A third invites one hundred and eighty.
Avery & Avery has defended Alcotest, refusal and per-se charges in every county of the State. Robert Avery presided over hundreds of municipal-court matters of this character before founding the firm; John Avery has carried that institutional knowledge into a generation of cases that turned, more often than not, on the procedural fitness of the State's evidence.
What we challenge
Every DWI defense begins with the discovery file. We obtain the Alcotest 7110 calibration records, the operator's certification, the ten-minute observation log, body-worn-camera footage and the dispatch CAD. From those documents we identify the pressure points — cases where the State's procedural compliance is incomplete, cases where the underlying stop will not survive scrutiny, cases where the breath sample itself was unreliable.
Alcotest 7110 challenges
The instrument's reliability depends on documented twenty-minute observation, calibration within the prescribed window, and an operator certified at the time of administration. Each is, by statute and case law, a precondition to admissibility — not a presumption.
Refusal-statute defenses
A refusal conviction under N.J.S.A. 39:4-50.4a requires the State to prove unequivocal, voluntary refusal. Confused responses, ambiguous statements and procedurally defective Standard Statement readings each create defenses recognized by New Jersey case law.
License-restoration counsel
Where conviction is the realistic outcome, our work shifts to mitigating it: ignition-interlock minimization, IDRC sequencing, hardship-license eligibility and the correct calculation of statutory enhancements.