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Police officers throughout Ocean and Monmouth County are now using a new device that can scan passersby vehicle license plate numbers in a second and instantly provide the status of your vehicle and information about its owner. With 6 cameras mounted on the roof of the "reader car", information is instantly sent to the dashboard computer screen. If a vehicle warrants stopping, such as a outstanding warrant for arrest, an alert beeps and the officer can initiate a motor vehicle stop. The legality of the instruments usage has already been approved in a recent case, State v. Donis, that held that a police officer may randomly check the status of a vehicle registration or driver's license and whether the vehicle or its plates are stolen. According to one source, there are approximately 1.5 million unregistered or unlicensed vehicles in the State of New Jersey.
The scanners have powerful uses for crimes other then motor vehicle violations enforcement. Each scanner saves the data of license plate numbers it has read. If for example, bank robbers are casing a place for several hours beforehand their plates may be picked up by a police camera. Police are able to fetch this data many days later if need be as evidence to help establish probable cause and other elements of the crime.

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The everyday traffic stop by a police officer has recently taken a drastic new turn. Implementation of tiny personal cameras pinned onto every police officer in Sea Girt Jersey is sure to create vibrations that will be felt for decades to come throughout New Jersey courtrooms. Created by Axon System the mini cameras are mounted on a headband, eyeglasses, or clipped to the collar of police and are able to record up to six hours of an officer at work. When video is recorded, it is wirelessly uploaded to a website, evidence.com, where it is available for retrieval by an officer with the proper authority. This groundbreaking implementation of technology, already used in Western States, is hoped to lead to better overall law enforcement procedure. In today's highly litigious society where even a simple traffic stop may end up in municipal court, this new upgrade will have untold effects.

The new technology will cost the Sea Girt Police Department about $2,000 per system and $1,200 in annual cost for data storage per unit. Sea Girt, with only 11 police officers, is the first of New Jersey's 566 municipalities to implement the mini cameras but already officials in Morristown and Cape May County have indicated their intent to have them soon. This new technology is possibly a response to the current trend of motor vehicle drivers recording snippets of their traffic stop with a cell phone. Rather than having only 10 seconds of recording, the longer videos will provide greater insight into the specifics of what happened.

Continue reading ""Big Brother" Police in New Jersey Are Watching You!" »

Aberdeen is a township of about 17,000 residents located in northern Monmouth County. It is bordered by Keyport, Matawan, Hazlet, and Middletown and directly accessible by the Garden State Parkway, Route 35, and on the New Jersey Transit's North Jersey Coast Line train. Up until the 1960s, Aberdeen was an extremely popular tourist destination, boasting a beautiful boardwalk and a large number of shops catering to out of town visitors. After Hurricane Donna destroyed much of Aberdeen's beautiful beachfront land, Aberdeen rebuilt and today is once again heavily visited. Because of its proximity to the beach and the many convenient options it affords to those wishing to travel north into New York City, Aberdeen faces a large increase in traffic activity during the summer months. Seeking to maintain the peaceful and quiet nature of the township, local law enforcement in Aberdeen typically meets this growing summer crowd with a heightened sense of security, writing an increased number of disorderly persons offenses, moving violations, and DWI, DUI, and Refusal charges.

Last year alone, Aberdeen witnessed 43 disorderly persons offenses. Some of the more common disorderly persons offenses include disorderly conduct (N.J.S. 2C: 33-2), underage drinking (N.J.S. 2C: 33-15), use or possession of a fake ID (N.J.S. 2C: 21-2.1), assault (N.J.S. 2C: 12-1), possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia (N.J.S. 2C: 35-10 and N.J.S. 2C: 36-2), criminal mischief (N.J.S. 2C: 17-3), resisting arrest (N.J.S. 2C: 29-2), and trespassing (N.J.S. 2C: 18-3). If convicted, a person may face severe repercussions including jail time, large monetary fines, participation in community service, probation, payment of restitution, and other penalties.

Motor vehicle moving violations are also quite often written in Aberdeen, as last year the township witnessed 1,814 moving violations. Additionally, 69 DWIs were written in Aberdeen in 2010. Moving violations include offenses such as speeding, failure to stop, and careless and reckless driving. Penalties for such offenses can include the assessment of motor vehicle points on your driver's license leading to increased insurance premiums, and significant monetary fines. Alcohol related drunk driving violations, such as DWIs, carry increasingly severe penalties and first time offenders can face loss of their driver's license for up to a year, fines over $500, jail time, completion of a program at an Intoxicated Driver Resource Center, and the installation of an ignition interlock device into their vehicle. Where the offense has occurred in a school zone, regardless of whether or not school is in session, the penalties will be doubled.

Continue reading "Aberdeen Criminal Defense Lawyer: Aberdeen Municipal Court" »