Legal Question in DUI Law in New Jersey

My case is a complex one, but i'm really trying to find out if there IS anything I can even do.

This case is reguarding my fiance.

In his youth (around 14), he had been physically assulted at school by two peers, beaten into a seizure and through the seizure - leaving him with some frontal lobe brain damage. He suffered with seizures and being highly medicated from 14 to 18, on numerous different medications for mood instability and seizures. At 18, he asked to be taken off the medications. He was weaned off everything... the seizures stopped completely and the mood instabilities went into remission for the most part.

When he was 22, his father and him got into a physical altercation which ended in him having some head trauma. There was a courtcase and all, different story there. A week later, unbeknownst to him a seizure occured and he was found at the top of his street while he was walking to a local store, a block away from his house. Apparently there was a re-injury of his original trauma. No one had witnessed the seizure, just him laying in the street. He was under the impression he has passed out or something of the sort since there was no information. It was the end of summer and it was hot out, so he thought that maybe he hadn't had enough water that day.

A few weeks later, he was driving to a friends house after work and had a seizure behind the wheel. As he seized, his car continued in it's path into the front of a home at the end of the block. Luckily, the house was for sale and no one was hurt. Besides a dislocated arm, he also was not hurt. This was his second seizure, and the end of his driving!

Throwing in the curveball here, my fiance is a recovering addict. He is on a methadone matinence program in the area. (Not going to get all medical here, but his stress and issues led to alot of self-medicating. In getting older, he's grown up and realized he was only hurting himself.)

The night of the accident, they tested his blood at the hospital when they put his arm back in the socket. He tested positive for his Methadone, prescribed at the local clinic by the doctor. From what i've gathered, NJ has laws (and a pretty big bias) saying you can't drive on Methadone... but there are no rules at the clinic about driving in, in fact over 2,000 people come daily to this perticular one - driving themselves. There is NO information saying that it's illegal to drive on Methadone, at the clinic or mentioned by the staff, although apparently it is.

Just for background sake, his low dose... doesn't make him drowsy and he had been driving himself for months prior to this incident.

He was charged with a DUI, with a positive result for Methadone.

Also he has had re-occuring seizures since, 20+ by now, hospital agreed and is back at his Neuro Doc getting medicated.

So my questions are:

1. Is there a template or something that the state goes by to determine the level of intoxication?

Does he have any rights in using the medication as prescribed and legally? Like there are levels for alcohol, the .08 limit, are there levels for Methadone?

2. Is a DUI really the best charge for this case?

He offered up the information that he was taking Methadone to the police when they came to the scene of the accident, as he did not want any pain medication for his dislocated arm. (Which was apparently a mistake.) Doesn't his seizure disorder mean anything, otherwise, obviously he would have never had the accident and been blood tested to begin with!

3. Why don't the NJ Methadone Clinics have information reguarding the dangers of NJ prosecuting you for your legal use of Methadone? Shouldn't that be a law if just by simply having Methadone in your blood, and an accident or generic traffic stop occurs, you can be charged with a DUI?

I appreciate any answers or information to help me understand the legailities of this case.

Thank you for reading.


Asked on 7/06/11, 7:09 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Gary Moore Gary Moore Attorney At Law

The limitations of this life is that non one has global awareness and knowledge, except the Almighty. People simply fail to recogize what they are seeing. That is why charges have to be

fought against and a lawyer is needed to make things right.

Call me if you like.

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Answered on 7/06/11, 7:24 am


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