Sentence and Appeal

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

by Theodore Sliwinski, Esq.

The Interstate Compact

If a driver is convicted in New Jersey, then he will lose only his driving privileges in the State of New Jersey. However, New Jersey will report conviction to home state. Thereafter, your home state also suspend your driver’s license for whatever period someone in your state would receive if he were convicted for a DWI.

The Interstate Driver’s License Compact requires member states to report traffic tickets received by a driver to their home state. Consequently, once the traffic ticket or the DWI is reported, then he will receive points and insurance hikes in home state. Moreover, in most cases, when a driver receives a DWI in New Jersey, once the case is reported to his home state, he will also receive a significant suspension of his driver’s license. New Jersey is a member of the Compact, and will report any infractions to your “home state”.

The only states that are NOT members of the Interstate Compact are:

Tennessee
Georgia
Massachusetts
Wisconsin
Michigan

If you are an out-of-state driver, please call me to discuss ways to limit your exposure from any potential N.J. DWI conviction, and the ways that we can fight the DWI that is haunting you.

If you have been charged with “refusal”, then there are many excellent strategies that we can explore to save your license. Many states have varying laws with regard to their respective refusal statutes. Many states give drivers much more rights to refuse a breath test than New Jersey does. Therefore, even if you are convicted of refusal in New Jersey, there is no guarantee that a drive will also lose their driver’s license in their home state.

About the Non-Resident Violator Compact

The Non-Resident Violator Compact requires member states to suspend the drivers license of those who get traffic tickets for moving violations in other states and fail to pay them. The compact is not supposed to include non-moving violations such as expired inspection stickers, equipment violations such as window tinting or parking violations.