For over a month, I have been following the case of Monica Montoya after finding it at Will Grigg’s blog. It is the story of a young working mother who lives in Roselle, New Jersey.

Ms. Montoya works at a Dunkin Donuts in Roselle. One day in July 2007, she was walking to the bus stop near her job in order to go pick up her 6 year old daughter from school. It was her daughter’s first day of summer school at a new school.

As she walked toward the bus stop, she came upon an accident involving a van and a pedestrian. All parties to the accident were still present. The pedestrian was bleeding from her head and Ms. Montoya approached her with a kleenex to wipe her head.

At that point, one of the officers who recognized her from the Dunkin Donuts asked her to interpret because the pedestrian could only speak Spanish. She interpreted for quite a while and also borrowed another officer’s cell phone in order to call the pedestrian’s family.

She then noticed that she had missed her bus and she became concerned about her daughter. She expressed her concern and the officers asked her to stay longer. She asked the officers for the use of a cell phone to call her own mother to ask her to pick up her daughter. At that point, the officer whose telephone she borrowed before told her that the battery was dead.

She walked toward the crowd to ask for a cell phone. Suddenly Officer Harold Breuninger grabbed her from behind and threw her down, causing a huge and lasting bruise to the side of her forehead. He arrested her for “obstruction” and “resisting arrest”, despite the fact that these charges are questionable in light of the 20 minute video of the event—although the seconds of the arrest are off camera. Below is an edited version:

Despite the video, the prosecution of Ms. Montoya continues. In fact, things have worsened. The case has been moved from the municipal prosecutor to the Union County prosecuter’s office—the very same office which is investigating the arresting officer’s conduct. The prosecutor denies that there is a conflict of interest, but will not agree that any interview of Ms. Montoya regarding her complaint will not be used in her prosecution. In other words, the prosecutors would have the option of twisting her words in an interview about the officer’s conduct in order to further their obscene prosecution. Her attorney, understandably will not agree to the interview.

Thus, the investigation of the office is at a stalemate and the prosecution continues to trial. This is a farce.

In my opinion, there is no way that probable cause exists to prosecute Ms. Montoya. The elements of the crime are absent.

She did not obstruct the investigation in any way, shape or form—whether purposely or unintentionally. The police had the option of calling an official interpreter retained by the police department to finish up the investigation—one who is actually paid for their service. Moreover, what legal duty did she have to stay to continue interpreting?

Here is the statute under which she is being prosecuted:

2C:29-1. Obstructing Administration of Law or Other Governmental Function. a. A person commits an offense if he purposely obstructs, impairs or perverts the administration of law or other governmental function or prevents or attempts to prevent a public servant from lawfully performing an official function by means of flight, intimidation, force, violence, or physical interference or obstacle, or by means of any independently unlawful act. This section does not apply to failure to perform a legal duty other than an official duty, or any other means of avoiding compliance with law without affirmative interference with governmental functions

There is simply no evidence that she PURPOSELY impaired, perverted, or prevented the investigation. Thus, that element is absent. Second, as I stated above, the police had the option of getting an official interpreter—so the investigation could have continued—while she made arrangements for her daughter, or went to pick her up so that the daughter wasn’t whisked away by government functionaries because of abandonment.

In one of the earlier articles, there was a suggestion that this is a case of first impression and that no one knows how the courts will rule on a situation where “obstruction” has not been charged against a person that was ceasing his or her volunteerism in such a situation. If this is true, such a case should never be filed because the public is not on notice that ceasing to help the police in a non-emergency situation where they are not a witness or party to the accident is a crime.

The ethical use of prosecutorial discretion does not allow for criminally prosecuting people under novel and untried theories and interpretations of statutes. Thus, the argument that because a court has never encountered such a case, the prosecution should continue to determine if the courts will rule that these facts constitute violation of this law simply does not hold water—and takes us down the path to totalitarianism. The prosecutor knows that Ms. Montoya did nothing to hinder the investigation—much less purposely. He is engaging in nothing less than CYA behavior.

The longer the Union County prosecutor continues down this road, the more he transforms himself into a clone of disgraced Durham, N.C. D.A., Michael Nifong—complete with Nifong’s bird-brains and shameful lack of decency.

If he continues the prosecution—he should suffer the consequences—just like Michael Nifong.

Here is a character reference by one of her daughter’s teachers.

Here are links to other articles regarding this story:

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