STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. STEPHEN A. ZADROGA (18-07-0550, HUDSON COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) (A-4432-19)
This criminal prosecution arises out of a head-on collision that killed a passenger in defendant’s car. Defendant had driven the car into the lane of oncoming traffic, and an accident reconstruction expert estimated he had been speeding at over 80 mph in a 25 mph zone at the moment of impact. His blood sample was extracted at a hospital later that day, yielding apparent test results from the State Police laboratory of a blood alcohol content (BAC) well over the legal limit.
A grand jury charged defendant with vehicular homicide, drunk driving, and other offenses. After seven witnesses for the State had testified, a testifying nurse revealed that the State had inadvertently misattributed to defendant the blood sample of a deceased hospital patient, which the hospital had mistakenly released, and which the State then failed to authenticate. In addition, it came to light that defendant's own blood sample had been irretrievably lost.
The trial judge declared a mistrial and found the State had acted in bad faith in its misattribution of the blood samples. The judge denied defendant’s motion to dismiss all charges with prejudice, but did dismiss with prejudice the three counts of the indictment that hinged on the BAC level. Defendant appealed; the State did not cross-appeal the judge’s finding of bad faith.
The court holds the proper remedy in this unusual situation is to re-present the matter to a new grand jury, solely based on the reckless driving allegations, without proof or contentions by the State of defendant's intoxication or impairment. The court rejects defendant’s claim of a double jeopardy violation, as the mistrial was justified on the grounds of manifest necessity. The court also rejects defendant’s argument that it is fundamentally unfair to maintain any charges against him.
