NEW BRUNSWICK — According to a report from law.com, members of the judicial conduct panel empowered to level discipline against a local judge in trouble for drunk driving had concerns over the judge’s attempts to spoil his breath test results.
Peter Tourison, a municipal judge for Cape May, Stone Harbor and Middle Township courts, pled guilty June 25 to a DWI charge related to an incident that occurred on March 27 in North Cape May.
Tourison lost his driver’s license for 90 days and was charged over $700 in fines and surcharges.
If that were the end of it, Tourison’s fate would be fairly predictable. Since the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct was formed in 1974, eight of the 11 state judges disciplined for similar offences received public reprimands. The others received censure.
Tourison’s case, however, has an additional twist.
While he was in police custody, the judge repeatedly applied lip balm and placed pennies in his mouth in an effort to delay his blood alcohol content test. Those efforts would not have fooled the test, but nothing is allowed to be in or near the suspect’s mouth for 20 minutes before the test is administered.
Eventually, police were able to give Tourison the test in which his blood alcohol was determined to be .08, New Jersey’s legal limit.
As a judge who had handled numerous DWI cases, Tourison likely knew how to play the game. He may have been trying to delay the test long enough to reduce his alcohol level to below the legal threshold or to show that the officer did not perform a proper oral inspection, as the law.com article suggested.
According to the law.com, panel members at the Dec. 10 hearing pressed Tourison’s lawyer, Robert Ramsey, about why the judge resorted to delaying tactics.
Ramsey called the antics “stupid things” that people do when they are drunk, according to the report. He noted that a refusal to take a breath test in a previous case was not considered an aggravating factor.
Tourison’s attorney said a reprimand as the proper discipline for this offense.
ACJC Vice Chairman Daniel O’Hern, a former state Supreme Court justice, said refusing a test and attempting to fix a test were two different things, law.com reported.
The law.com report said Tourison apologized for the incident and reported that he had stopped drinking thanks to counseling
and support from his wife Kathy.
When the committee publishes its recommendation to the Supreme Court, the Herald will report its findings. For the complete story see the Herald’s Dec. 17 print edition.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com
