Legal News

On Drinking-and-Starting-Your-Car-but-then-Passing-Out

By Ashby Jones

For all of those Law Blog readers who on any given evening like to drink a couple six-packs, get in the front seat of your car, start it up and then fall asleep, boy do we have good news for you: Such activity is not necessarily criminal, at least not in New Jersey.

That’s right: a New Jersey appeals court held on Tuesday that being drunk behind the wheel of a parked vehicle, even with the engine running and the parking brake off, can’t carry a DWI conviction without proof of intention to drive, reports the New Jersey Law Journal.

In State v. Putz, the Appellate Division said the trial court ignored credible evidence that the defendant, Joshua Putz, who was found asleep in his idling pick-up truck after midnight in Phillipsburg, N.J., had no intent to move the vehicle prior to falling asleep.

“The conclusion that defendant intended to move the vehicle cannot have been made with respect to the moment of arrest, but must have been predicated upon his ‘intent’ before he fell asleep,” said Judges Mary Catherine Cuff and Christine Miniman.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).