Jeffrey L. Weinstein Attorney-at-Law

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Municipal Court (Traffic Court)
General Moving or Traffic Violations. These include violations such as speeding, careless driving, disregard of traffic signals, and numerous other violations. All such violations carry fines. Many of these carry Motor Vehicle “Points” as well. If you are convicted of, or, plead guilty...

If you have been convicted of a crime, or if you have lost in a civil court, you have the right to appeal. However, the appeal process can be confusing and highly time sensitive. If you have been convicted of a traffic violation in a Municipal Court, you have only 20 days to file your notice [...]

The real estate capabilities of our firm span many departments. Clients with real estate needs are able to draw from our firm’s experience in the legal areas of commercial and residential real estate, land use planning, environmental regulation, redevelopment, eminent domain, historic...

Litigation (Civil & Criminal)
A controversy before a court or a “lawsuit” is commonly referred to as litigation. If it is not settled by agreement between the parties it would eventually be heard and decided by a judge or jury in a court. Litigation is one way that people and companies resolve disputes arising...

Business Formation Contract Negotiation Commercial law (sometimes known as business law) is the body of law that governs business and commercial transactions. It is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals with issues of both private law and public law. Commercial law includes...

When New Jersey tells you not to use a handheld cellphone to talk or text while driving, they mean it.
In the 23 months since New Jersey’s ban of talking or texting on handheld cellphones, police have written 224,725 citations, according to the NJ Star-Ledgeradding up to about four percent of the state’s total moving violations, not counting drunk driving, during that period, and by far the most any state has written so far.
The tickets include a $100 fine, even for a first offense; and yes, it will go on your record. New Jersey is also among many states that now allow data to be collected about cellphone use or distraction on police accident reports.
A Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind survey, co-sponsored by the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety, last July found that hand-held voice use was down versus two years before, however a higher percentage of nearly all age groups are sending more handheld texts while driving than before.
Just as speeding is tied to other hazardous behaviors, it’s tied to unsafe cellphone use: According to the PublicMind poll, drivers who speed regularly are two and a half times more likely than other drivers to have sent a text message while drivingmore likely too, to have made “rude gestures at other motorists.”
The study also found that using a hands-free phone was just as risky as holding a cellphone while driving.
New Jersey’s handheld cellphone use ban covers all drivers, for talking or texting, and it’s a primary enforcement offensemeaning that an officer can pull the driver over and issue a citation for that alone. In neighboring New York, talking on a handheld is primary but texting is secondary, meaning that citations will only be issued in combination with another citation.
Although the telecommunications industry has blocked a number of bans through lobbying efforts in the past, some of them are now getting on board in advising drivers not to talk or text at all when behind the wheel. Wireless provider AT&T has just launched a campaign that declares, “txtng & driving it can wait”
Furthermore, a recent report from the IIHS hinted that there are other factors in playlike our attitudes about distraction. Looking solely at the frequency of crashes before and after the enactment of new laws restricting handheld cellphone use in several states, the researchers found no recognizable reduction in accidents. This hints, experts say, that people might actually be communicating more behind the wheelor in more hazardous situationswith “safer” hands-free options, or having hands free allows them to do other distracting tasks, like eating or drinking.

By Trish G. Graber
New Jerseyans convicted of certain drunken driving offenses would have their vehicles outfitted with a breathalyzer device that would lock their ignition if their blood alcohol concentration reading reached a certain level, under a law signed today by acting Gov. Stephen Sweeney.
The ignition interlock device would be mandatory for first-time offenders with a blood alcohol concentration of at least .15, and would remain in place for six months to a year. All repeat offenders would be required to outfit their vehicles for one to three years, under the law.
The measure was named “Riccis Law” in honor of Ricci Branca, a 17-year-old Egg Harbor Township teen killed by a drunken driver while riding his bike. The driver, who fled the scene but was later caught, had a blood alcohol concentration of .339, more than four times the legal limit of .08.

The law makes it a disorderly persons offense for someone to start a vehicle for an offender, either by blowing into a device, tampering with it or dismantling it.

Soon your realtor could be paying you.
Its illegal right now, but pending legislation would allow realtors and real estate brokers to pay home-buyers a portion of their commissions at the close of a deal.
New Jersey is one of 11 states that dont allow the incentive, said Sen. Nicholas P. Scutari (D-Union), one of the bills sponsors. It would be up to the individual real estate agent to decide whether to pay the client.
“Were trying to help the real estate market and to allow real estate agents and brokers to make deals happen,” Scutari said.
Patrick Lashinsky, chief executive of ZipRealty, a California-based online real estate brokerage, said the process would allow his company to streamline its business model.
“We do business in New Jersey, we do business in Pennsylvania, and for us we had to alter our model” in New Jersey, he said. “We do this everywhere else.”
The bill (S139/A373) cleared the Senate Commerce Committee today. It has passed the Assembly and now goes to the full Senate for consideration.

By The Associated Press
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was spending his last full day in office mulling scores of bills that await his signature.
Corzine today was working out of his Newark office while the governor’s Statehouse office in Trenton is readied for his successor. He will be signing bills privately throughout the day.
He has no public schedule.
Among the items on Corzine’s desk is legislation giving chronically ill patients legal access to marijuana. If Corzine signs the measure, New Jersey would become the 14th state to allow medical marijuana.
He’s also considering several clemency requests.

By Michael Rispoli/The Star-Ledger
A Superior Court judge today tossed a woman’s drunken driving conviction because she had no way of knowing that sleep-driving was a possible side-effect of her sleeping pills.
Marie Connelly, 54 of Hillsborough, was taking Ambien and Seroquel when the incident occurred Sept. 10, 2006 — six months before the Food and Drug Administration ordered the makers of Ambien and 12 other insomnia drugs to include a warning that patients could be susceptible to sleep-driving, which is akin to sleepwalking.
Despite the new information, a municipal court judge last year convicted her of driving while intoxicated. Connelly’s attorney Richard Uslan appealed, insisting she was pathologically intoxicated when Hillsborough police arrested her in the parking lot a strip mall on Route 206.
During last year’s trial, an expert said there was no way for Connelly to know the sleeping pills would cause her to sleep-drive — therefore, she did not know the consequences of her actions or the ramifications of what was happening.
Somerset County Assistant Prosecutor Daryl Williams said that while the FDA warnings didn’t reference sleep-driving, they did caution against combining alcohol with the Ambien. Connelly had four glasses of wine a few hours before she got behind the wheel of a car, and had a blood alcohol concentration was .10 percent. The legal limit is .08.
In Connelly’s acquittal, Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong said he was convinced that her intention “was to go to bed, sleep through the night and get up the next morning to go to work. Thus giving rise to reasonable doubt as to her guilt.”
“It would be, indeed, such an ‘injustice’ to hold her responsible for the undisclosed side-effects of a popular and readily available medication that she was lawfully prescribed and properly administered with no knowledge of the untoward side effects of the sleep aid,” Armstrong wrote in his decision.