TRENTON — Around the same time a local judge was disciplined for drunk driving, the state Supreme Court issued a directive to Superior Court, Tax Court and Municipal Court judges regarding the disqualification of judges charged with or convicted of DWI offenses.
On June 2, Peter Tourison, a former municipal court judge in Cape May, Middle Township and Stone Harbor, was censured by the Court for violating judicial rules related to his drunk driving arrest in March last year.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision (Directive 04-09) mandates that judges convicted of drunk driving be disqualified from hearing DWI cases for a year.
This measure updates a directive from 1999 that disqualified judges for only as long as their driver’s licenses were suspended.
Since the time of the previous directive, the state Legislature lowered the blood alcohol level required for DWI offenses from .10 percent to .08 percent and lengthened the period of license suspension for first-time offenders, mandating three-month suspension when violation involves blood alcohol level below .10 percent and lengthening suspension from six months to seven when level above .10 percent.
Under the previous rules, because Tourison’s blood-alcohol-content was below .10 percent at the time of his arrest, he lost his driver’s license for 90 days and would have been disqualified for that period of time following his sentencing date of June 25, 2008. Under the new directive, Tourison would be precluded from hearing drunk driving cases for a full year.
The directive states that judges with reserved decisions in DWI cases when they are charged with drunk driving will have those cases transferred to other judges. In addition, judges that are disqualified from hearing DWI cases must apply to the Supreme Court before hearing those cases again.
In addition to drunk driving incidents, the new directive also puts similar rules in place for judges involved in domestic violence matters.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com
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