Legal landscape note: This article was originally published in 2015 and describes the law as it stood at that time. New Jersey law changes frequently.
Your license was suspended after multiple DWI convictions, and you drove anyway. In New Jersey, that decision carries a consequence many drivers never see coming: mandatory jail. In February 2015, a three-judge Appellate Division panel held in State v. Harris that defendants convicted under N.J.S.A. 2C:40-26b -- driving while suspended following multiple DWI offenses, a fourth-degree crime -- must serve the statutory minimum of 180 days in jail with no eligibility for parole. Home detention, in-patient rehabilitation, and other alternative programs cannot be substituted for that jail term.
The ruling, decided in six consolidated cases, extended the Appellate Division's earlier decision in State v. French, which had rejected a split sentence of 90 days in jail followed by 90 days in an in-patient rehabilitation facility. Writing for the panel, Judge Michael Haas pointed to the statute's language that "the sentence shall include a fixed minimum sentence of not less than 180 days during which the defendant will not be eligible for parole," and concluded that no sentencing alternative is available.
The panel reasoned that the Legislature's purpose was public protection: a defendant who loses driving privileges for DWI but continues to drive anyway presents exactly the recidivism risk the statute targets. Defense attorneys argued that home detention is itself a form of incarceration and that nothing in the statute expressly forbids alternative programs, but the court disagreed.
The practical takeaway is that a charge under N.J.S.A. 2C:40-26b carries mandatory county jail time if it results in a conviction. Keep the summons, suspension notices, and records showing when and why the suspension began.
Based on reporting by Michael Booth, New Jersey Law Journal, February 4, 2015.