Archive for June 2011

In Davis v. United States (Docket No. 09–11328, Decided June 16, 2011), the United States Supreme Court held that searches conducted in objectively reasonable reliance on binding precedent are not subject to the exclusionary rule because suppression would do nothing to deter police misconduct and would come at a high cost to both the truth…

In Arizona v. Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710 (2009), the United States Supreme Court held that where there is no possibility that an arrestee could reach into the area that law enforcement officers seek to search, the justifications for the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement—protecting arresting officers and safeguarding evidence of the offense of…

In New Jersey, however, N.J.S.A. 34:15–36, defines “employee” as “synonymous with servant, and includes all natural persons, including officers of corporations, who perform service for an employer for financial consideration [.]” FN5 (emphasis added). Service performed in exchange “ ‘for financial consideration’ is a cardinal legal requirement in [workers’] compensation for the creation of the…

In Voss v. Tranquilino (Docket No. A-110-09, Decided June 1, 2011) the New Jersey Supreme Court held that N.J.S.A. § 39:6A-4.5(b)—prohibiting driving while intoxicated (DWI) offenders involved in accidents from suing for recovery of economic or noneconomic loss—does not preclude negligence suits against licensed alcohol servers. That is, N.J.S.A. § 39:6A-4.5(b) is coexistent with the…

Late last week New Jersey’s Supreme Court decided in State v. Schmidt that once a person gives initial consent to providing a breath sample, no further action by the police is necessary to provide additional warnings to him in the event he does not provide adequate breath samples. In other words, teh defendants have to…