NJ Legislation Targets Road Rage

Posted on December 31, 2008 by John Marshall

The New Jersey Legislature recently approved stiffer penalties for individuals found guilty of road rage.  Individuals were previously exposed to a fourth degree offense and up to 18 months in jail.  The amendment now makes it a third degree offense and carries up to 5 years in jail.  The bill loosely defines "road rage" as including any actions or maneuvers of aggression, akin to harassment with a car (e.g. tailgating, driving at an excessive speed, weaving through traffic, etc.).

The legislative revision was contained in a bill captioned "Jessica's Law", named after a young lady seriously injured as a result of a road rage incident.  Jessica was injured when an individual who believed he was cut off weaved through traffic, causing an accident. 

Over the last 15 to 20 years as a defense lawyer, I have learned that there are simply some people out there who could be described as unreasonable, irrational, and even unstable.  Many have seen these individuals on the road waving their hands, yelling or even driving aggressively for seemingly nothing.  While I certainly agree with the revision of the statute, I have a hard time thinking that it is going to deter the type of individual who engages in "road rage". 

 

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Disorderly Persons Offense Grounds to Disposses Public Housing Tenant

Posted on December 3, 2007 by LexBlog
A disorderly persons offense (DP) in New Jersey is a petty offense that is handled in municipal court. These types of offenses include simple assault and harassment. In the recent case of Housing and Redev. Auth. of Twp. of Franklin v. Miller, A-2463-06, the court held that a tenant may be evicted from federally subsidized public housing upon conviction for a disorderly persons offense. The court held that a statute allowing eviction for "criminal activity" (known as the one-strike law) should be read broadly, consistent with its purpose of making public housing safe. Therefore, Judge Donald Coburn's panel found no intention by Congress to exclude petty offenses from the "criminal activity" that justifies eviction. A Somerset County Superior Court judge found that the housing authority was within its rights to terminate the lease under 42 U.S.C.A. 1437d(1)(6), which requires that leases of federally subsidized housing provide that "any criminal activity that threatens the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants or any drug related criminal activity on or off such premises, engaged in by a public household tenant, any member of the person's household, or any guest or other person under the tenant's control, shall be good cause for termination of the tenancy." On appeal, the judges agreed that a DP offense was included in criminal activity sufficient to warrant eviction.
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