KEVIN BLANCHARD VS. NEW JERSEY DEPARMENT OF CORRECTIONS (NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS) (A-3834-17T4)
In this Department of Corrections disciplinary appeal, the court holds that the Department acted arbitrarily, capriciously or unreasonably in denying a confirmatory laboratory test of a powder, seized from the inmate, which a field test indicated contained cocaine. The court reaches this conclusion in light of the field test's inherent limitations; the lack of other direct or circumstantial evidence that the inmate possessed drugs; the department's regulation compelling routine confirmatory tests of drug specimens; and the absence of any reasoned explanation for the Department's refusal to subject the seized powder to a confirmatory laboratory test.
