Vague Google searches about New Jersey DWI laws will not tell you the whole story, and neither will anecdotes about a friend’s uncle who got pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving in the 1990s.
The penalties for DWI in New Jersey vary a lot from one case to another. It makes a difference whether you have a previous conviction for drunk driving, or for anything else. It matters whether your blood alcohol content (BAC) was only slightly above the legal limit or at bachelor party levels of intoxication. It also makes a difference whether you pleaded guilty or whether a judge convicted you following a trial.
With DWI, as with any other offense, you have the legal right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and you cannot be convicted if law enforcement violated any of your rights in collecting the evidence against you or prosecutors violated your rights when presenting the evidence at your trial. To find out more, contact a New Jersey DWI lawyer.
The Penalties for a First Offense DWI Depend on How Much You Drank Before Driving
As of 2023, according to the current version of the New Jersey DWI laws, the penalties for a first conviction for DWI vary according to your BAC at the time of the traffic stop. Any BAC greater than or equal to 0.08% is considered DWI. According to New Jersey Law P.L. 2003 chapter 314), you can get the following penalties for a first time DWI conviction if your BAC was at least 0.08% but not greater than 0.099%:
- A fine that can be anywhere from $250 to $400,
- Up to 30 days in county jail,
- 3 to 15 months of using an ignition interlock device on your car,
- Two consecutive days of attendance at an Intoxicated Driver Resource Center (IDRC),
- An insurance surcharge of $1,000 per year for three years,
- License revocation for 3 months.
With any DWI conviction, you must forfeit your driver’s license until you get the ignition interlock device installed on your car, which means that the total time until your full driver privileges are reinstated can be considerably longer than 30 days. The judge in your DWI case has the option to sentence you to jail, home detention, or probation, or not to include that part of the sentence at all, but the driving restrictions and IDRC attendance are mandatory parts of the sentence.
If your BAC at the time of your first DWI was between 0.10 and 0.15, the fines increase to between $300 and $500, and you must keep the ignition interlock device on your car for at least seven months but not more than one year; the exact amount of time that you must use the ignition interlock device is up to the judge. If your BAC was 0.15% or higher, your sentence will also include four to six months of driver’s license suspension. You must keep an ignition interlock device attached to your car throughout the driver’s license suspension period and also keep it there for an additional nine to 15 months after your license is reinstated. Again, the exact timetable for regaining your driving privileges is up to the judge’s decision.
DWI Penalties are More Severe for Repeat Offenses
The penalties for a first offense DWI conviction in New Jersey are severe enough, but they are even worse for repeat offenses. For a second offense, DWI jail time is part of the mandatory minimum sentence. The judge must make you stay in jail for at least 48 consecutive hours, but you can get a sentence of up to 90 days. All the other portions of the sentence increase, too. The fine can range from $500 to $1,000, and the driver’s license suspension can be for anywhere from one year to two years. After your driver’s license suspension ends, you must keep the ignition interlock device on your car for two to four years. You must undergo an IDRC evaluation and then complete the individualized program indicated by the IDRC. Your sentences might also include up to 30 days of community service.
For a third DWI conviction, the fine increases to $1,000. The judge can sentence you to up to 180 days in jail, order you to complete inpatient treatment for substance abuse disorder. If the court orders you to undergo inpatient treatment, then up to 90 days of inpatient rehab can count as time served toward a jail sentence. Your driver’s license suspension can last up to eight years, followed by two to four years of driving with an ignition interlock device. The insurance surcharge is $1,500 per year for three years. Other than that, the sentence for a third conviction is the same as for a second conviction.
All of the above assumes that you did not cause an accident while driving drunk, 
and the DWI arrest was the result of a police officer pulling you over because of erratic driving or a traffic violation such as expired tags. If you cause an accident while driving under the influence of alcohol, the penalties are even more severe. If someone gets seriously injured in a collision you caused while drunk, you could get charged with a felony and sentenced to state prison.
Fees Associated With a DWI Conviction in New Jersey
Even if you do not get a jail sentence, a DWI conviction can be a serious drain on your finances. In addition to the court-ordered fine and the insurance surcharge, there are other fees you must pay.
You must pay the following fees toward the following funds aimed at preventing drunk driving and other dangerous activities:
- $100 to the Drunk Driving Enforcement Fund
- $100 as a Motor Vehicle Association restoration fee
- $100 to the Intoxicated Driving Program
- $50 to the Violent Crimes Compensation Fund
- $75 to the Safe and Secure Community Program
One of the worst parts of getting a sentence that does not include incarceration is that you have to pay for your own punishment. Ignition interlock devices are not cheap. Likewise, if you get sentenced to home detention, you have to pay for your own GPS ankle monitor. This does not even include the money that you will have to spend on rideshare rides when you commute to and from work while your driver’s license is under suspension.
Draeger Alcotest 9510: New Jersey’s New Breathalyzer Test
Until recently, New Jersey police officers and sheriffs’ deputies used the Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C breathalyzer to measure drivers’ BAC during traffic stops. In 2008, the New Jersey Supreme Court handed down a ruling in the State v. Chun case, stating that the breathalyzer device could only measure drivers’ BAC accurately if it was properly calibrated. Many drivers before and after the State v. Chun ruling were falsely accused of DWI because of breathalyzer errors.
Recently, New Jersey law enforcement has been using the breathalyzer Alcotest 9510. This device is meant to be more error-proof than the Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C, but no breathalyzer is perfect. Challenging the results of a breathalyzer test may be a valid defense in a DWI case, if you can convincingly argue that the device was not properly calibrated. The New Jersey DWI lawyers at the Law Offices of Jonathan F. Marshall are knowledgeable about the Alcotest 9510 and can help you figure out whether your breathalyzer results are accurate.
If breathalyzer tests are prone to human error, other kinds of field sobriety tests are even more subjective and unscientific. Trying to figure out whether someone is drunk by asking them to recite the alphabet backwards is about as reliable as figuring out whether someone likes butter by holding a yellow flower under their chin based on whether the person’s chin turns yellow. In the latter test, the person will only appear to like butter (based on their chin turning yellow) if the person is light skinned and you perform the test in certain lighting conditions.
With the reciting the alphabet task, people whose children had watched videos of the Busy Beavers singing the backwards alphabet song, especially if those parents worked at home during the pandemic with nothing but YouTube to keep their children entertained, would be at an advantage. People who had never tried to recite the alphabet backwards before would be at a disadvantage, especially if English was not their first language. Physical tests, such as walking an imaginary tightrope or touching your finger to your nose while looking straight ahead, test physical health and fitness, not sobriety.
The bottom line is that just because a police officer decides that you are too drunk to drive, this by itself is not enough to secure a DWI conviction. The costs of having a DWI conviction on your record are much higher than the costs of hiring a criminal defense lawyer.
DWI Defense Lawyers in New Jersey
A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for drunk driving in New Jersey, even if a breathalyzer test showed that your BAC was above the legal limit. Contact the Law Offices of Jonathan F. Marshall to discuss your DWI case.
