Senior Partner Michael R. Ascher Wins Five Year Legal Battle Before the New Jersey Supreme Court

Senior Partner Michael R. Ascher Wins Five Year Legal Battle Before the New Jersey Supreme Court

On January 18, 2007, the New Jersey Supreme Court rendered its long awaited decision in State v. Dispoto. The Court affirmed the dismissal of all charges against defendant obtained by Michael R. Ascher during a Motion to Suppress Evidence and a Miranda hearing. The Supreme Court adopted Mr. Ascher’s argument that probable existed for the issuance of search warrants in the case which had been issued in both a Domestic Violence and Criminal matter. The Court further adopted Mr. Ascher’s argument that domestic violence proceedings cannot be used as a pretext for obtaining information to advance a criminal investigation. The decision amplified prior decisions of the Appellate Division that the purpose underlying domestic violence proceedings is to protect victims of domestic violence from further violence and not to discover evidence of criminality.

The Supreme Court specifically held that an invalid domestic violence search warrant to search for weapons issued under the domestic violence act could not be used as a bootstrap mechanism to obtain evidence to sustain the issuance of a criminal search warrant. As a result, all evidence seized through the defendant’s compliance with the invalid domestic violence search warrant constituted fruits of the poisonous tree and had to be suppressed.