Posted on 09/02/2007 3:22:06 AM PDT by Daffynition
New Jersey appellate court decision upholds a DUI for a man sleeping in a parked truck under the influence.
New Jersey Superior Court logoA New Jersey appellate court yesterday upheld the principle that convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) can be imposed on individuals who were not driving. David Montalvo, 36, found this out as he responsibly tried to sleep off his intoxication in his GMC pickup truck while safely stopped in the parking lot of the Market Place Deli on a cold February morning last year. At around 5am he awoke to see a Hamburg Police Department patrolman standing over him. The officer had opened the door of Montalvo's truck to rouse the man and insist that he take a breathalyzer test. Montalvo refused.
He was arrested and forced to make a conditional guilty plea to the charge of DUI, intending to challenge the police officer's actions as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Montalvo's attorney argued that the patrolman could have no reasonable grounds to suspect that a sleeping man was involved in criminal activity. Montalvo's truck was running, in park, because according to weather records it was about 25 degrees Fahrenheit that Saturday morning.
"From the perspective of the officer on the scene, I don't find at all that what he was doing was unreasonable," Superior Court Judge Thomas Critchley Jr. said in his rejection of Montalvo's argument. "In fact, I find it would have been unreasonable to have stopped his inquiries at any point short of what he did."
The appellate court agreed that the officer was acting reasonably to render assistance to someone who may have been in distress.
"The officer wanted to make sure the driver was 'okay,' nothing was wrong with the businesses and that the truck was operating properly," the appellate decision concluded. "We are convinced that under the facts as observed by Officer Aaronson defendant was lawfully subject to limited inquiry based upon an objectively reasonable exercise of the officer's community caretaking function."
The appellate division affirmed Montalvo's DUI conviction, meaning the sleeping motorist faces a civil remedial fee or "driver responsibility" tax of $3000 in addition to various other fines and fees of at least $1000, plus his legal bills.
[The full text of the unpublished court ruling is available in a 49k PDF file at the source link.]
Yup. Keys in the ignition is the killer here. Car running or not.
When the keys are in the ignition you are presumed to be “in control” of your “vehicle”.
Hey, I represent that remark! (And what about Louisiana?)
“”Anyone who would defend a drunk driver thinks crime is ok and would defend a child rapist.””
“”Another fan of drunk drivers. Thinks murder is okay and yes if you think drunk driving is okay since they often murder people you are fine with murder.
I pray you have no children.””
“”So you go out drinking and gleefully get into a car intent on driving home if you kill someone who cares?””
“”ANother person who loves drunk drivers and killers.””
“”Another defender of drunk drivers another person who thinks killing is ok. Is killing while drunk driving your favorite crime?””
“”No drunk driving murder lover the responsible thing and what every person who has a shred of decency does IS NOT DRIVE.
Please tell me you live nowhere near me in Illinois since you love those drunk drivers. If my family was killed you’d say “WOO HOO! A DRUNK DRIVER KILLS AGAIN! YEA DRUNK DRIVER!”””
“”Yes who cares if the guy was a drunk who went out for the purpose of killing people as everyone who drives drunk does “”
WOO HOO! I’m always gleefully drunk when I drive home from my pro-child rapist rallies, but only rarely do I give the DUI cheer of
“WOO HOO! A DRUNK DRIVER KILLS AGAIN! YEA DRUNK DRIVER!”””
Man what a goof. Some Americans are really insane.
What a crock of sh!t.
Someone earlier in the thread posted that one could receive a DWI for operating a bicycle in FL after drinking. This struck me as particularly funny considering that in Amsterdam, half of the people riding their bicycles (which is an absolutely astonishing number by the way) are coming from the bar!
I used to ride my bike to the bar (and home, drunk) all the time when I was younger.
It’s even happened for someone sleeping in his driveway listening to his car stereo.
This is so totally wrong. It's also a sign of America becoming an injust police state.
What's the next step? You have to wonder whether it's hauling people over at random and charging them with attempted murder because they have the means (a car, a hunting gun, a rock in their front yard) and "could murder at any time."
Did you know that studies show that 92.7% of those posting shrilly and irrationally to Internet forums have been drinking?
Since when can one be arrested for DUI, sleeping in a parking lot?
This is scary for us all - it sets a precedent =
It's higher than you think.
Ahhh? It was below freezing.........are you saying he would've been better off to have taken the chance of never waking up =
It would not have. Sometime back in the 80s a friend got a DUI though he was sleeping in a non-running car.
Our society is slowing being strangled to death by attorneys and their litigious lack of common sense and public good.
He was still NOT on a public road = or road of any kind. The truck was "cranked" as it was below freezing and the guy had enough sense to know that, without heat, he could wake up dead, as it were.
The truck was in park...and on private property.
This precedent should alarm us all. Under this, one could be arrested and so charged sitting in their own driveway = or even inside the house if, as one poster posited, they "had the keys" to their vehicle "in their pocket" = Sound far fetched? Not a big stretch from what happened here.
Was the man sitting behind the wheel? or in the front passenger seat? I suspect that if he had been sitting in the front passenger seat, he might have won his case.
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