Bergen County DWI Lawyer

Bergen County DWI Lawyer

You got pulled over in Bergen County. Maybe it was Route 4 in Paramus. Maybe Route 17 in Mahwah. Maybe Garden State Parkway through Fort Lee. The officer said you were swerving, smelled alcohol, failed field sobriety tests. They arrested you for DWI, took you to the station, made you blow into the Alcotest machine. Now you’re holding a ticket that says Municipal Court appearance, license suspension, fines and surcharges – trying to understand what happens next and whether you can keep your license.

Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group. We’re a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek, with over 50 years combined experience defending DWI cases in New Jersey and New York. We handle DWI cases in Municipal Courts throughout Bergen County. This article explains New Jersey’s DWI statute N.J.S.A. 39:4-50, the penalties you’re facing based on your BAC level and prior offenses, and why breath test refusal often carries worse consequences than the DWI itself.

First Offense DWI – BAC Tiers Matter

New Jersey divides first-offense DWI penalties into tiers based on your blood alcohol content. BAC .08% to .10% is the lowest tier – three-month license suspension, fines between $250 and $400, 12 hours at the Intoxicated Driver Resource Center, possible jail time up to 30 days though most first offenders avoid actual jail. But this tier is rare, most people arrested blow higher than .10% because police don’t pull you over unless your driving is noticeably impaired, and noticeable impairment usually means BAC above .10%.

BAC .10% or higher increases suspension to seven months to one year. Fines increase to $300 to $500. You’re required to install an ignition interlock device in your vehicle after the suspension period, must maintain it for the restoration period. Insurance surcharges of $1,000 per year for three years get added – that’s $3,000 total to your insurance company on top of whatever premium increases they impose for having a DWI conviction.

BAC .15% or higher triggers the most serious first-offense penalties. License suspension extends four to six months initially, but then you must install ignition interlock for nine to fifteen months during which you can drive only vehicles equipped with the device. New Jersey recently amended the law to require interlock rather than extend full license suspension – legislators wanted to keep people employed rather than lose jobs due to inability to drive. But interlock isn’t free, costs $100-150 monthly for monitoring and maintenance, plus installation fees.

Bergen County Municipal Courts process hundreds of DWI cases monthly. Paramus Municipal Court, Hackensack Municipal Court, Fort Lee Municipal Court – each hears DWI cases weekly. These courts follow standardized sentencing under N.J.S.A. 39:4-50 because New Jersey doesn’t allow plea bargaining in DWI cases. You can’t negotiate a DWI down to reckless driving like in other states. The statute sets mandatory minimum penalties, and judges must impose them if you’re convicted.

Second Offense – Penalties Jump Dramatically

Second DWI within 10 years of the first conviction carries mandatory jail time – 48 hours to 90 days, though judges often allow weekend jail or home detention with electronic monitoring. License suspension is two years. After the suspension, you must maintain ignition interlock for two to four additional years. Fines increase to $500 to $1,000, plus the same surcharges and IDRC requirements. 30 days community service becomes mandatory.

We’ve defended clients facing second-offense DWI where the first conviction was eight or nine years earlier – they thought enough time had passed that it wouldn’t count against them. But New Jersey’s lookback period is 10 years, and that 10 years runs from date of first conviction to date of second arrest, not conviction to conviction. If your first DWI was in 2015 and you get arrested again in 2024, that’s within the 10-year window even though you completed all the first-offense penalties years ago.

Third offense DWI is even harsher – 180 days jail (though often reduced through alternative programs), 10-year license suspension, $1,000 fine. At this point you’re looking at potential loss of employment, inability to maintain professional licenses that require driving, serious impact on family responsibilities. Third-offense penalties are designed to be severe enough that people don’t drive intoxicated again.

Breath Test Refusal – Often Worse Than DWI

Refusing the breath test at the police station is a separate offense under N.J.S.A. 39:4-50.4a. First-offense refusal carries seven months to one year license suspension – worse than the three-month suspension for low-tier DWI. Plus $300 to $500 fines, IDRC, ignition interlock. And refusal doesn’t prevent DWI prosecution – if the prosecutor has other evidence of intoxication (field sobriety tests, officer observations, statements you made), they’ll charge both refusal and DWI, and you face penalties for both if convicted of both.

Second refusal within 10 years means two-year license suspension minimum, $500 to $1,000 fine, ignition interlock during the suspension and one to three years after restoration. Third refusal is 10-year suspension and $1,000 fine. These penalties run independent of any DWI penalties – you can lose your license for 10 years on a refusal even if the DWI charge gets dismissed.

People refuse breath tests thinking it helps their case by preventing the state from getting BAC evidence. Sometimes this works – if the stop was bad, if field sobriety tests weren’t properly administered, if officer observations are weak, refusal might make prosecution harder. But in Bergen County, prosecutors treat refusal as consciousness of guilt – you knew you were over the limit so you refused. And Bergen County Municipal Court judges have heard thousands of DWI cases, they know what intoxicated driving looks like based on testimony alone, they’ll convict on officer observations even without BAC evidence.

Alcotest 7110 Calibration Defenses

New Jersey uses the Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C breath testing device. The New Jersey Supreme Court approved its use in State v. Chun, but only if police follow specific protocols: the device must be calibrated semi-annually, operators must be certified, proper testing procedures must be followed including 20-minute observation period before testing. If any of these requirements aren’t met, the breath test results can be suppressed.

We request calibration records, coordinator certifications, solution change logs, temperature probe certificates, repair histories as part of discovery. Sometimes the calibration is late – device was due for calibration in June but wasn’t calibrated until August, and your arrest was in July. That makes the test inadmissible. Sometimes the coordinator who performed the calibration wasn’t properly certified. Sometimes the officer who administered your test didn’t wait the full 20 minutes after last observing you eat, drink, smoke, or regurgitate.

Bergen County Municipal Courts are familiar with Alcotest challenges – they’ve heard them before, they know the case law, they know when challenges have merit versus when defendants are just fishing. Having an attorney who knows the technical requirements and can identify genuine calibration defects in the discovery documents is necessary. Generic challenges don’t work, you need specific evidence that protocols weren’t followed.

No Plea Bargaining Creates Trial Pressure

New Jersey abolished plea bargaining in DWI cases decades ago. You can’t plead to a reduced charge. Your options are: plead guilty to DWI and receive the statutory penalties, take it to trial and win (charges dismissed), or take it to trial and lose (same statutory penalties as if you pled guilty). This creates different strategic considerations than criminal cases where plea negotiations reduce charges.

Because there’s no benefit to pleading guilty early, most DWI defendants in Bergen County either negotiate over suppression issues or proceed to trial. If we can get the breath test suppressed due to calibration problems, prosecutor might dismiss because their evidence is too weak without BAC. If we can suppress the stop because officer lacked reasonable suspicion, entire case gets dismissed. But if suppression motions fail, trial becomes about credibility – did the officer’s observations actually indicate intoxication, or could they be explained by nervousness, medical conditions, physical limitations that affect field sobriety test performance.

At Spodek Law Group – we’ve tried DWI cases in Bergen County Municipal Courts and challenged breath tests that didn’t meet New Jersey’s technical requirements. Todd Spodek has handled hundreds of DWI defenses and knows which Bergen County judges are receptive to calibration challenges versus which judges rarely grant suppression motions. If you’re facing DWI charges in Bergen County, call us at 212-300-5196. The sooner we review the discovery documents and identify defenses, the better your chances of avoiding conviction or reducing penalties.