State v. Connelly

Outcome: Judgment of Acquittal

Description: Judge tosses conviction for sleep-driver Hillsborough woman unaware she was driving drunk, ruling says Thursday, March 12, 2009 BY JENNIFER GOLSON Star-Ledger Staff A Superior Court judge yesterday tossed out a woman's drunken-driving conviction, saying 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 on Sept. 10, 2006. That was six months before the federal Food and Drug Administration ordered the makers of Ambien and 12 other insomnia drugs to include a warning that patients could be susceptible to the phenomenon that's similar to sleepwalking, but involves a car. Despite the information that surfaced after her arrest, a municipal judge convicted Connelly of driving while intoxicated last year. Defense attorney Richard Uslan appealed, insisting she was pathologically intoxicated when Hillsborough police arrested her in the parking lot of a strip mall on Route 206. During last year's trial, an expert said Connelly didn't know the consequences of her actions or the ramifications of what was happening. And, based on information previously available about Ambien, there was no way for her to know about the risk for sleep-driving. Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong heard arguments yesterday from Uslan and Somerset County Assistant Prosecutor Daryl Williams, who insisted with or without the Ambien, Connelly was still driving while intoxicated. A few hours before her arrest, she consumed four glasses of wine and her blood-alcohol concentration was .10 percent. The legal limit is .08, Williams said. Connelly's case has been in and out of municipal and Superior Court. Her predicament started late that summer evening, when she came home after visiting her mother, had a few glasses of wine and ate a frozen dinner, according to the brief Uslan filed. She took her medications with seltzer, and went to bed, intending to sleep through the night. It wasn't until the morning after, that she learned what had transpired. There were tickets on her kitchen table for driving while intoxicated and careless driving, and a note from her sister. "The defendant was upset and had no recollection at all of what apparently had happened the previous evening," Uslan wrote in court papers. A police video showed Connelly driving slowly, striking a curb twice and crossing a double yellow line in an area connecting two parking lots. She emerged from the vehicle in an old red sweatshirt with holes in it, the bedclothes she typically wouldn't wear in public, attorneys said in court papers. There was alcohol on her breath, her speech was slurred and she could barely stand, police said. She initially pleaded guilty to the DWI offense, and the careless driving charge was dismissed. That was before she learned about the risk of sleep-driving that comes with taking Ambien, with or without alcohol, Uslan said. During yesterday's appearance in Somerville, Uslan defined pathological intoxication as taking a medication or a substance without having any knowledge at all of what the ramifications could be. Williams said while no one knew of the potential for sleep-driving, there were other warnings, including sleepwalking. Either way, she was drunk, he said. "The Legislature has made it clear that once drivers become intoxicated and operate a motor vehicle, it does not matter how they become intoxicated or whether they realized they were intoxicated or believe they could overcome the effects of intoxication," Williams wrote in court papers. In his written decision, Armstrong said the state Legislature did not envision that a prescription sleep aid would produce the unlikely side-effect of sleep-driving resulting in a DWI conviction. A drug meant to alleviate insomnia turned out to be a hidden menace to the motoring public. It would be an injustice to impose penalties.