Justia New Jersey Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The issue before the Supreme Court was whether State intercepted phone conversations and text messages between a husband and wife, pursuant to a court-approved wiretap, were protected communications under the marital communications privilege. A second issue raised in this case was whether New Jersey should adopt a crime-fraud exception to the marital communications privilege. In the fall of 2010, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office was investigating Teron Savoy as the alleged leader of a drug trafficking network. As part of the investigation, the State obtained court orders under the New Jersey Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act authorizing wiretaps of two cell phones Savoy used. Among many hours of interceptions, the State recorded two or three phone calls and intercepted five text messages between Savoy and his wife Yolanda Terry. In those communications, Savoy asked Terry to pick up money from co-defendant Chardel Holman. The State alleged that Savoy had previously fronted heroin to Holman. In a detailed oral opinion, the trial judge denied the motion to suppress the conversations. The court found that the communications were admissible at trial because any confidential communication would be disclosed by a third party, and not a spouse. The trial court also discussed the crime-fraud exception to the marital communications privilege, which many federal and state courts have adopted, and concluded that “any communication made in this case in furtherance of drug trafficking is [not] worthy of protection.” Defendants appealed. In a published opinion, the Appellate Division reversed. The panel determined that under Rule 509 and the Wiretap Act, the communications in question were protected. In addition, the panel noted that strong public policy concerns supported applying a crime-fraud exception to the marital communications privilege. The Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Division: "A confidential marital communication protected under the marital communications privilege does not lose its privileged status by virtue of a wiretap under the New Jersey Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act." The Court, however, proposed a crime-fraud exception to the marital communications privilege and, pursuant to the Evidence Act of 1960, sent it for approval by a joint resolution of the Legislature and for the Governor’s signature. View "New Jersey v. Terry" on Justia Law

This was the second time defendant James Robinson appeared before the Supreme Court concerning his conviction for two drug transactions in December 2003 and January 2004. In "New Jersey v. Robinson," (200 N.J. 1, 18 (2009)), the Court held that a twenty- to thirty-second delay between the police knocking and announcing their presence to execute a search warrant and the forcible entry into defendant's apartment was not unreasonable. Defendant then filed a motion to reduce his fifteen-year term of imprisonment subject to a five-year period of parole ineligibility. The trial court had imposed two mandatory extended terms on one count of second-degree distribution of a controlled dangerous substance (CDS) within 500 feet of public property and one count of third-degree possession of CDS with intent to distribute. Treating the motion as an application to correct an illegal sentence, the trial court held that the mandatory repeat drug offender extended term should not have been imposed on the second-degree offense. The trial court then imposed a discretionary persistent offender extended term sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment subject to a five-year period of parole ineligibility on the second-degree offense and a mandatory repeat drug offender extended term of seven years' imprisonment subject to a three-year period of parole ineligibility on the third-degree offense. Defendant argued that this sentence also was illegal. Upon review, the Supreme Court held that the plain language of N.J.S.A. 2C:44-5(a)(2) barred the imposition of a discretionary extended term when the prosecutor has requested one and the trial court is obliged to impose a mandatory extended term on another offense in the same proceeding. "The statutes governing sentencing provide sufficient flexibility to fashion an appropriate sentence to address the repeat offender without resorting to multiple extended terms. To that end, when a defendant is eligible for imposition of both a discretionary extended term and a mandatory extended term, the State may elect which extended term it wishes to pursue." View "New Jersey v. Robinson" on Justia Law

An investigation of a reported shooting in a part of town led Pennsville police to the house in which police knew defendant Michael Lamb had resided at one time. Defendant's stepfather emphatically informed police that they were not welcome on his property or in his house. Defendant’s girlfriend appeared at the door and left the house. She supplied information to police that provided probable cause for defendant’s arrest and confirmed his presence in the house. Later, defendant’s stepfather agreed to leave the house, and soon thereafter, defendant left the house at the insistence of his mother. Defendant’s mother permitted police officers to enter the house and agreed to a search of the room where her son and his girlfriend were staying. Police located a loaded handgun and ammunition similar to the equipment used in the earlier shooting. The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court was defendant's challenge to the warrantless search of the house. The Court concluded after review that the consent to search provided by defendant’s mother was knowing, voluntary, and valid. The absence of defendant and his stepfather from the home permitted defendant’s mother to provide or withhold consent. View "New Jersey v. Lamb" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented to the New Jersey Supreme Court centered on the validity of a warrantless search of the bedroom of defendant Byseem Coles, "nine days shy of twenty years old" when the events pertinent to this appeal occurred. Defendant lived with other family members in his aunt’s home where he had his own bedroom. The bedroom door had a padlock on it to keep others, especially young children living in the household, from getting into his private belongings. While out one evening, defendant was detained by a police officer investigating a reported robbery in the area. After a showup in which the robbery victim failed to identify defendant as the perpetrator, and after a search of defendant’s person that produced no evidence linking defendant to the crime, defendant’s detention was continued because he had no identifying documents on him. At defendant’s urging, two officers walked a few houses over from where defendant was being held in a patrol car to ask one of defendant’s relatives to confirm that he lived at the address he had given the police. Instead of merely confirming defendant’s identity and that he lived in the home, the inquiries by the police turned into a concerted effort to obtain defendant’s aunt’s permission to search defendant’s bedroom. During the ensuing search, weapons unrelated to the robbery under investigation were found in his room. Upon review of defendant's appeal, the Supreme Court concluded defendant’s detention was unlawful. The police lacked probable cause to continue his detention after the showup and the search of defendant produced no evidence linking him to the crime. Although the police officers were entitled to a reasonable, but brief, opportunity to confirm defendant’s identity, that identification was accomplished at the threshold of defendant’s home. When the police efforts turned immediately thereafter to securing from defendant’s aunt consent to search defendant’s bedroom, their actions were premised on the belief that the man held in the patrol car was Byseem Coles. However, at that point, defendant’s detention ceased to be lawful. The interactions with defendant’s aunt cannot be disentangled from the unlawful detention of defendant in a patrol car parked a few houses down the street. Thus, the objective reasonableness of this asserted consent-based search founders on the unlawfulness of the police detention of defendant in the totality of these circumstances. View "New Jersey v. Coles" on Justia Law

The taxpayer, Bocceli, LLC, is the taxpaying sublessee of a commercial property owned by Penns Grove Associates in the Township of Carney's Point. The Township's tax assessment list incorrectly listed Prime Accounting Department as the owner. In 2007, the Township wrote to Prime Accounting requesting updated income and expense information for purposes of assessing the value of the property. Prime Management's interest in the property transferred to a new lessee, WIH Hotels, Inc. That inquiry eventually reached WIH, which submitted a late response and paid taxes for 2007. WIH entered into a sublease with Bocceli, which became responsible for property tax payments. In 2008, the managing member of Bocceli visited the tax collector's office, made a tax payment, and requested that the tax assessment list be changed to designate "Bocceli, LLC" as the owner and that notices be sent to the property. According to the Township, the clerk advised the managing member that a deed needed to be presented to the assessor's office to change the list. No deed was presented, and Prime Accounting remained on the list. The tax assessor sent the annual request to Prime Accounting. When it was returned undelivered, the Township reviewed its records and discovered that WIH had responded to the prior year's request. It sent another request to WIH, which did not forward it to Bocceli. Later that year, the tax collector advised the tax assessor of the address that the managing member had provided, but it continued to list Prime Accounting as the owner. In early 2009, the assessor notified Bocceli of the annual tax assessment. Thus, at that time, the assessor was aware of Bocceli's responsibility to pay property taxes and used Bocceli's mailing address to serve the notice of assessment that prompted this tax appeal. The tax assessment list continued to designate Prime Accounting as the entity responsible to pay the taxes. The issue before the Supreme Court centered on whether a tax appeal complaint timely filed, but one which did not name the aggrieved taxpayer as the plaintiff, should have been dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Supreme Court concluded that Bocceli's misdesignation of the plaintiff did not deprive the tax court of subject matter jurisdiction. "The defect in the complaint did not prejudice the Township and [could] be corrected by an amended complaint that relate[d] back to the filing of the original complaint." View "PrimeAccounting Department v. Township of Carney's Point" on Justia Law

Bonita Pitt visited inmate defendant Ralph Sowell in a prison area monitored by security cameras. Sergeant Salvatore D'Amico of the Department of Corrections (DOC) observed Pitt and defendant lean forward. Defendant appeared to kiss Pitt on the cheek. She lifted her shirt slightly, reached into her left front pocket, took out an item, and placed it in defendant's hand. D'Amico then saw defendant lean back and place the item into a bag of potato chips. D'Amico immediately radioed an officer to seize defendant and the bag of chips. When the officer approached defendant, D'Amico, still monitoring the security cameras, saw defendant place the bag of chips under the seat next to him, and an officer recover the bag of chips. D'Amico emptied the contents of the bag of chips, which contained a balloon with thirty envelopes of heroin inside it. After waiving his Miranda rights, defendant admitted to a DOC investigator that he received drugs during the visit. Defendant was charged with drug offenses. At trial, D'Amico testified as to his observations, and the State played the videotape recording of the entire incident. A DOC investigator was accepted as the State's expert in "narcotics investigation." During testimony, the expert opined that "an exchange of narcotics took place." The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court centered on whether the State properly elicited expert testimony in response to a hypothetical question that in this case, "an exchange of narcotics took place." Upon review, the Court concluded that the expert's opinion was improper because it related to a straightforward factual allegation that was not beyond the understanding of an average juror and because the expert referred to facts not contained in the hypothetical. The Court affirmed defendant's conviction however, concluding that under the plain error standard, there was overwhelming evidence in the record of his quilt. View "New Jersey v. Sowell" on Justia Law

The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court in this case was whether the investigatory stop of defendant Don C. Shaw was constitutional, and if not, whether discovery of an outstanding parole warrant for his arrest was an intervening circumstance that broke the causal chain between the unlawful detention and a subsequent search. In 2011, a police task force arrived at a multi-unit apartment building to execute an arrest warrant on a named fugitive just as two people, Shaw and Niam Gardner, exited from the common entrance of the building. Detective Brown saw the two men part ways, but he did not observe any criminal activity. The officers stopped Shaw and Gardner to determine whether either one was the fugitive identified in the arrest warrant. The officers had the name and description of the fugitive, but the only features that Detective Brown recalled that the fugitive and Shaw shared in common were that both were black men. The officers held Shaw because he refused to give his name, and Brown was prepared to take Shaw to the State Police barracks to run his fingerprints to determine if he was the fugitive they were seeking. Police ultimately determined that Shaw was not the target of the fugitive arrest warrant, but that he was on their list of named individuals wanted for parole violations. Shaw was arrested, and a search revealed he was carrying heroin. Shaw was then charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance and related offenses. Shaw moved to suppress evidence of the drugs. The trial court found that Shaw was the subject of an unreasonable stop in violation of the Fourth Amendment, but declined to suppress the drugs, concluding that the parole warrant dissipated the taint from the illegal detention because the warrant stood as an independent basis for arresting and searching Shaw. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the police did not have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity to justify the investigatory detention, which was based on nothing more than a non-particularized racial description of the person sought. The parole warrant was not an intervening circumstance that sufficiently purged the taint from the unlawful detention. View "New Jersey v. Shaw" on Justia Law

In this appeal, Defendant Stanley Smith (a/k/a Jerry Johnson) contended that the police improperly obtained certain telephone toll records and that evidence developed from those records should have been excluded at his trial. Defendant further contended that certain remarks by the prosecutor in summation were so improper, he was entitled to a new trial. Shortly before 5:30 p.m. on December 31, 2001, Robert Priester was shot to death while sitting in his automobile in the parking lot of the M & M Deli in Ewing, New Jersey. Defendant was charged with murdering Priester, and a jury found him guilty. The trial court sentenced him to serve thirty years in prison, subject to the parole ineligibility provisions of N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2. The Appellate Division affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence in an unpublished opinion. Upon review, the Supreme Court rejected Defendant's arguments on appeal and affirmed. View "New Jersey v. Smith" on Justia Law

Defendant Johnnie Parker was seventeen years old when he was questioned by police about the stabbing death of Demetreas Fletcher. Parker gave a statement to officers admitting that he and a friend, also a juvenile, had killed Fletcher, but he claimed that he was pressured to commit the crime by a drug dealer known as "Polo Mike," for whom Parker worked. Parker expressed to the officers his belief that he would have been killed if he had not complied with Polo Mike’s orders. The other individual involved in the slaying corroborated Parker’s statement that Polo Mike had ordered Fletcher’s death and that they feared for their lives if they did not comply. The Family Part waived jurisdiction and both young men were indicted for murder and other crimes. Parker eventually entered a negotiated plea of guilty to an amended charge of aggravated manslaughter, and the State agreed to recommend a sentence of twenty-five years in prison. When Parker appeared before the trial court to plead guilty, his attorney did not mention Parker’s belief that he would be killed if he did not comply with Polo Mike’s directions. At the sentencing hearing, Parker’s attorney made no argument on his behalf and merely expressed sympathy for the victim’s family and asked the judge to sentence Parker in accordance with the negotiated plea. Parker did not file a direct appeal from his conviction or sentence. Parker filed a timely petition for post-conviction relief in 2007, and counsel was assigned to represent him. In the petition, the attorney argued that the performance of Parker’s trial attorney was ineffective because he failed to investigate the surrounding facts, did not argue that Parker had acted under duress, and did not assert at sentencing that Parker should receive a lesser period of incarceration. The judge reviewed the petition and supporting documents and denied post-conviction relief. The Appellate Division affirmed. After considering the arguments in support of post-conviction relief, and applying the strong presumption in favor of oral argument for initial post-conviction relief petitions, the Supreme Court concluded that Parker was entitled to oral argument and remanded the case back to the trial court. View "New Jersey v. Parker" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case concerned the nature of the nexus that must be proven by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) under the Spill Compensation and Control Act (Spill Act or Act) against Sue’s Clothes Hanger (Sue’s), the only direct defendant that remained in the case, for costs expended in the investigation and remediation of contaminated groundwater that tainted private wells in Bound Brook. The trial court dismissed the Spill Act claim, concluding that even if the building where Sue’s was located is a contamination source, the evidence was insufficient to establish that Sue’s discharged PCE that contaminated the groundwater. The court found: the groundwater and soil contamination preceded Sue’s dry cleaning operation; there was no evidence that the drip from Sue’s continued or the pavement below showed signs of contamination; the DEP took no other action regarding the drip, suggesting it was not considered to be significant; there is no evidence that PCE in the groundwater or soil came from Sue’s rather than from others who had conducted dry cleaning operations in the building; and because there are alternative sources of contamination from the building and Zaccardi’s, the DEP had not established by a preponderance of the evidence that Sue’s contributed to the groundwater contamination. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Division in holding that in order to obtain damages under the Spill Act, the DEP must demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, a reasonable connection between the discharge, the discharger, and the contamination at the damaged site. The proofs failed to establish a sufficient nexus between the groundwater contamination and Sue’s discharge during its operation. View "New Jersey Dep't of Envtl. Prot. v. Dimant" on Justia Law