Car Accident Turned Dui And We Weren’t Under The Influence

Edit; the state is NJ.

A week ago, my husband and I got into a car accident while getting breakfast early in the morning. On our way back home, I was passenger and on my phone eating my sandwich. My husband must have reached down into the bag on my lap (I felt him do so) and took his eyes off the road for a second. Next thing we know we’re on the side of the road.

Police came and everything seemed fine. They never asked us if we had been drinking, if we were under the influence, not one time. They asked for our insurance and registration, I told them where it was and an officer went and got it. Paramedics briefly looked us over. This all happened in about 15 minutes. All of a sudden an officer comes over to my husband and says “due to the severity of the accident we have to do field sobriety”.

Since the accident wasn’t severe, it was just my husband and I involved, I obviously questioned this. He hit the back of someone’s trailer, no other cars or people were involved. Next thing I know, he’s being handcuffed. He absolutely didn’t fail the field sobriety. He did exactly as instructed. Walked toe to toe. He wobbled upon turning around one time but never lost balance or anything. Stood on his leg and counted, kept his leg raised didn’t drop it or miss count.

Then we go to the station and they breathalyze him twice. The first one he passed, the officer told him it was “all good”. The second one “malfunctioned” so they wanted to take him to the next town over to have another one done. At this point he called me and I told him to refuse it since he already blew twice for them, and passed, and do nothing else. He didn’t speak to them other than to say yes to the Breathalyzer.

So they released him to me and made me sign something about not driving for 12 hours because he was being charged for one of the above checked reasons (nothing was checked off). They said we’d receive a ticket in the mail and we can come get the police report in 7-10 days. We’re trying to obtain it today.

My question is, how on earth did this turn into a DUI? They never once asked me OR my husband if we had been drinking. Never asked if we had taken anything or were on medications. Even after asking for the field sobriety and him supposedly failing it. I can’t understand how it flipped so fast and turned into a DUI when we weren’t under the influence and they obviously knew we weren’t since we never even got questioned once about any substances. In fact they didn’t question us about anything at all.

Second edit; I forgot to mention that my husband was also not mirandized if this makes a difference. He was told “you’re under arrest for DUI” after “failing” the field test, was driven to the station and asked to blow. We were never informed that refusing a THIRD breathalyzer could be seen as an outright refusal and at the time they didn’t treat it as such or inform us it could be seen as refusing.

The officer said “our machine malfunctioned would you be willing to go to another station to blow again” my husband said no and he said “okay you’ll be released to your wife and mailed a ticket.” He didn’t say “so you’re refusing to take a test” or “this will be seen as a refusal”. If this was the case, my husband would have said how am I refusing if I blew twice for you already and it could have been explained further and he would have continued to cooperate.