Criminal Law Blog

The Appellate Division continued in relevant part: We recognize that hospital nurses, phlebotomists and other medical personnel are not police officers. Nonetheless, their close interaction with law enforcement officers, in extracting blood from DWI suspects and in...

The three-judge panel continued in relevant part: Likewise, we recently decided in State v. Renshaw, that a hospital nurse's blood sample certification under is testimonial under Crawford. In Renshaw, as here, a private hospital employee was asked by a police officer...

The Appellate Division continued in relevant part: In State v. Berezansky, we held that a defendant in a drunk-driving prosecution was similarly denied his constitutional guarantee of confrontation when a municipal judge admitted a State Police laboratory certificate...

The three-judge panel continued: We also note that the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation guarantee has been deemed applicable to state courts for several decades through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  See Pointer v. Texas (1961). For these reasons,...

The Appellate Division continued in relevant part: In another seminal opinion, decided in June 2006 after the matter now before us was tried, the United States Supreme Court clarified in Davis v. Washington that hearsay statements are "non-testimonial" when they are...

Even though the defendant suggests innocent connotations for each of these factors individually, "it is not fatal to the State's case that these, or other speculative circumstances, permit of some other rational explanation of defendant's conduct or fail to exclude...

The three-judge panel continued in relevant part: On de novo review, the Law Division upheld defendant's DWI conviction. The Law Division judge held that the admission of the blood sample certificate and the State Police laboratory documents did not violate the...

The Court continued in relevant part: After being supplied with the defense expert's report, the municipal prosecutor stipulated to its admission. The prosecutor also stipulated that the State could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's blood alcohol...

The Court continued in relevant part: The results reported on Exhibit S-5 showed that defendant's blood alcohol content was 0.103%, a concentration above the legal limit. These findings were essentially consistent with the corresponding worksheets admitted into...

The Court continued in relevant part: Exhibit S-2 further recites, in pre-printed language, that the specimen was "given to the requesting law enforcement officer" and "was taken pursuant to Section 1 of the New Jersey Public Law 1986, Chapter 189 7, and was taken in...