Justia New Jersey Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Rosette Martinez was home with her daughter and her daughter's friend on Christmas Day in 2015 when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. A man opened the door and stated, “I’m here for your dad, George,” leading her to believe he was there to fix something at the house. Martinez believed she recognized the intruder as someone who had recently done contracting work on their house. He then pulled out a “long gun,” instructed the women to lay face down, tied their hands behind their backs, and began to rifle through possessions. At some point during the robbery, the women heard the intruder’s phone ring and announce a “[c]all from” a name. The daughter testified that she heard the intruder’s phone announce an “incoming text” message from a name she did not recognize, but the message was not read aloud. All three women testified that they heard clicking noises that indicated to them that the intruder was taking pictures with his phone. After the intruder left, the women untied themselves and called 911. In this appeal, the issue presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court was whether it was cumulative error for the trial court to admit two pieces of evidence: expert testimony that defendant Roberson Burney’s cell phone was likely near a crime scene based on a “rule of thumb” approximation for cell tower ranges in the area, and a first-time in-court identification of defendant by a witness who had previously identified another person as the perpetrator in a photo lineup. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court concluded the trial court erred in admitting both the testimony placing defendant’s phone at or near the crime scene and the first-time in-court identification. Those errors, in combination, deprived defendant of a fair trial. View "New Jersey v. Burney" on Justia Law

In January 2017, an individual wearing a baseball cap and gloves robbed a bank in North Brunswick, New Jersey. Bank surveillance footage captured the entire 57-second robbery. In November 2017, defendant was charged in three other robberies after his former girlfriend, “Joan,” identified him in a wanted photo from one of those robberies. After the office investigating the other robberies notified police about defendant, he became a suspect in the North Brunswick robbery as well. In September 2018, a detective showed the teller six photos, one at a time, and asked if he could identify the person who robbed the bank. The teller picked a photo of someone other than defendant and said at trial that he was 75-90 percent sure of the identification. At trial, the prosecutor asked the teller if he could identify the robber in court. The teller identified defendant, who was seated in between his lawyers at counsel table. The teller said he was “maybe like . . . 80 percent” sure. The prosecution did not provide advance notice of the in-court identification, and defense counsel did not object to it. During cross-examination, the teller revealed that he had met with the prosecutor prior to trial and that the prosecutor had “informed [him] that the individual who was accused of committing this robbery is in court seated at the defense table.” Joan also testified at trial. She was shown two still photos from the bank surveillance video and testified she was 100 percent positive that each depicted defendant. A police sergeant testified about the investigation, in which he was asked a series of questions while the video was played for the jury. The more open-ended questions invited and led to more open-ended narrative responses. A jury found defendant guilty of robbery. The Appellate Division affirmed his conviction. The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, finding: (1) the inherently suggestive nature of first-time in-court identifications, conducted in front of a jury, risks depriving defendants of their due process rights; and (2) narration evidence, or "running commentary" on video evidence by someone who has merely studied a recording, violated defendant's right to confrontation. Judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for a new trial. View "New Jersey v. Watson" on Justia Law

Defendant Rami Amer moved to dismiss his New Jersey indictment for offenses related to a series of burglaries, alleging a violation of his speedy trial rights under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD). Defendant was arrested in New Jersey in November 2016 in connection with seventeen burglaries. He was arrested the next month in Pennsylvania in connection with a series of burglaries committed in that state. In October 2017, defendant pled guilty to the charges pending against him in Pennsylvania and was incarcerated there. On February 23, 2018, the State received defendant’s notice under the IAD, in which he requested the prompt disposition of his New Jersey charges. Defendant was transported from Pennsylvania to New Jersey the same day. On May 21, defendant filed two motions to suppress, which were denied on July 13. During jury selection on July 24, the trial judge informed counsel that after July 31, the trial would resume on September 13. Neither party objected to that proposed schedule, but when jury selection resumed the next day, defense counsel stated that the IAD required the trial to begin on August 22, 2018, and argued that defendant’s rights under the IAD would be violated if, for example, the court began a trial but “put it off [for] six months.” The trial court ultimately entered an order stating that trial had commenced for IAD purposes on July 24, 2018, when jury selection began, and that the IAD’s 180-day time period had been tolled between the filing and the denial of defendant’s motions. In an August 28, 2018 letter, defendant contended that the trial court had violated his rights under the IAD. Treating defendant’s letter as a motion to dismiss his indictment, the trial court denied the motion. In October 2018, the jury convicted defendant on four counts. The Appellate Division affirmed on that issue. The New Jersey Supreme Court found the trial court did not violate defendant’s speedy trial rights under the IAD, and it properly denied defendant’s motion to dismiss his indictment. The Court did not agree with the Appellate Division that defense counsel waived defendant’s rights under the IAD. But the Court affirmed the Appellate Division’s other determinations: that the IAD’s 180-day time period was tolled during the pendency of defendant’s pretrial motions, and that defendant was “brought to trial” when jury selection began prior to the deadline. View "New Jersey v. Amer" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's review centered on whether Facebook could be compelled to provide the contents of two users’ accounts every 15 minutes for 30 days into the future based only on probable cause, the ordinary standard for a search warrant, or whether the State must instead satisfy certain requirements and apply for a wiretap order, which required an enhanced showing -- one beyond probable cause -- because gaining access to private communications in real time is considerably more intrusive than a typical search. In the two matters under review, trial courts quashed the State’s request for prospective information based on a Communications Data Warrant (CDW), which was the equivalent of a search warrant and can be issued on a showing of probable cause. The Appellate Division consolidated the cases and held that the State could obtain prospective electronic communications with a CDW, reasoning that the wiretap statute applied to the contemporaneous interception of electronic communications, not efforts to access communications in storage. The Supreme Court concluded that based on the language and structure of the relevant statutes, the State’s request for information from users’ accounts invokes heightened privacy protections. "The nearly contemporaneous acquisition of electronic communications here is the functional equivalent of wiretap surveillance and is therefore entitled to greater constitutional protection. New Jersey’s wiretap act applies in this case to safeguard individual privacy rights under the relevant statutes and the State Constitution." View "Facebook, Inc. v. State of New Jersey" on Justia Law

After receiving a “be on the lookout” (BOLO) email based on a tip from a confidential informant (CI) that defendant Cornelius Cohen would be traveling to the Carolinas to pick up firearms and bring them back to New Jersey to sell, State Trooper Charles Travis noticed one of the cars described in the BOLO email traveling on the New Jersey Turnpike, and pulled the vehicle over for traffic violations. When Travis approached the vehicle, he noticed multiple air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror. Travis testified that he smelled “a strong odor of raw marijuana” in the vehicle during the stop and observed “greenish-brown vegetation” on the driver’s beard and shirt, which the trooper identified as marijuana. With defendant and his passenger handcuffed and in separate patrol cars, Travis started searching the passenger compartment, where he recovered from the glove compartment a 9mm spent shell casing. The search of the passenger compartment did not reveal any marijuana. Travis did not apply for a search warrant based on the information supplied by the CI, but instead proceeded to the front of the vehicle where he opened the vehicle’s hood and searched the engine compartment. There he found a rifle and a revolver. Travis then searched the trunk, where he found a duffle bag containing hollow point bullets. No marijuana was recovered from the car, defendant, or the passenger. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized during the car search. The trial court held that “[t]he odor of raw marijuana emanating from a vehicle without a detectible pinpoint establishes probable cause to search the entire vehicle.” Defendant subsequently entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of unlawful possession of a weapon, and appealed his eventual conviction. The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that expanding the search to the engine compartment and trunk went beyond the scope of the automobile exception. As a result, the seized evidence should be suppressed. View "New Jersey v. Cohen" on Justia Law

Defendant Andreas Erazo was convicted for the 2017 rape and murder of eleven-year-old A.S. The Appellate Division found that defendant’s confession, obtained during a second interview, five hours after his initial 90-minute interview, was not knowing, intelligent and voluntary, and should have been suppressed. The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, finding defendant was not in custody at the time of the pre-confession interview, thus Miranda was not implicated. The Supreme Court also found that the detectives’ tactics during the Mirandized interrogation were not coercive, did not minimize the Miranda warnings, and were consistent with New Jersey v. Sims, 250 N.J. 189 (2022). Thus, under the totality of the circumstances, defendant’s Miranda waiver was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, and the trial court properly denied his motion to suppress. View "New Jersey v. Erazo" on Justia Law

A jury found defendants Kenneth Daniels, Levell Burnett, and Barry Berry guilty of being leaders of a drug trafficking network, known in New Jersey as the “kingpin” offense. As to the four material elements of the kingpin offense, the jury asked whether it was “possible” to be a supervisor (the third element), but not to occupy a high-level position (the fourth element). The New Jersey Supreme Court considered whether the judge’s response to that question was error capable of producing an unjust result. The Court also considered the Appellate Division’s determinations that the trial judge should have modified element four of the model kingpin charge by adding language from New Jersey v. Alexander, 136 N.J. 563 (1994), to further explain what constituted a “high-level” member of a conspiracy and that the judge needed to tailor the kingpin charge to the evidential proofs admitted against each defendant, as well as its determination that Berry’s motion for a judgment of acquittal should have been granted. The Supreme Court held that judges are encouraged, when practical, to respond “yes” or “no” to unambiguous and specific questions posed by juries during deliberations. Without concluding he should have answered “yes,” the Appellate Division determined that the trial judge failed to adequately address the “fundamental import of the jury’s question.” It found that the trial judge should have modified element four of the model kingpin charge by adding language from Alexander, and it determined that the judge needed to tailor the kingpin charge to the evidential proofs admitted against each defendant. The Appellate Division therefore reversed the kingpin convictions as to defendants Kenneth Daniels and Levell Burnett. As to defendant Barry Berry, however, the appellate court reversed an order denying his motion for a judgment of acquittal and vacated his conviction. The Supreme Court held the trial court was under no obligation either to mold the charge sua sponte by factually addressing the varying levels of authority that each defendant played in the conspiracy or to modify the model charge by adding further definitional language from Alexander. And the Court concluded the trial judge properly denied Berry’s motion for a judgment of acquittal. The Court therefore affirmed as modified the Appellate Division’s judgment to vacate the kingpin convictions as to Daniels and Burnett; and it reversed the appellate court’s reversal of the trial judge’s denial of Berry’s motion for a judgment of acquittal. The case was remanded for a new trial against all defendants on the State’s kingpin charge. View "New Jersey v. Berry; Daniels; Burnett" on Justia Law

Defendants Jamire Williams and Tyshon Kelly, two males, had borrowed the car from its female owner. When they passed Police Officer Jeffrey Kless, who had been parked on the side of the road, Kless ran an mobile data terminal (MDT) query on the car. The results revealed a photo of and standard identifying information about the car’s registered owner, and that the registered owner had a suspended license. Kless pulled the car pulled over without incident. It was not until he arrived at the passenger-side window that Kless concluded the driver was not the owner. Believing that he might have smelled marijuana while standing there, despite a stuffy nose, Kless arranged with a backup officer, who had not smelled anything except air fresheners, to have a canine sniff the car. Prior to the sniff, Kless asked defendants to exit the vehicle. Williams stated that the officers would need consent from the vehicle’s owner to perform the sniff, but an officer on the scene responded, “We don’t need consent.” The dog uncovered the presence of marijuana. An on-the-spot search thereafter revealed a gun under the driver’s seat. Kless patted down defendants and placed them under arrest. Throughout the car search and pat down, Williams repeatedly protested to the officers about the search, including their lack of consent from the car owner. Defendants moved to suppress the evidence found in the car. The trial court denied the motions. The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded an MDT query revealing that a vehicle’s owner has a suspended New Jersey driver’s license provides constitutionally valid reasonable suspicion authorizing the officer to stop the vehicle -- unless the officer pursuing the vehicle has a sufficient objective basis to believe that the driver does not resemble the owner. Based on the specific facts presented here, the initial stop of the vehicle was valid because it was based on reasonable suspicion. However, the Court found the detention of defendants and the borrowed car was unconstitutionally prolonged after the officer recognized the driver was not the car’s owner. The officer’s admittedly uncertain ability to tell if he smelled marijuana was inadequate evidence of “plain smell” to justify a continuation of the stop and a search of the vehicle. Judgment was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "New Jersey v. Williams" on Justia Law

In October 2018, Rutgers University Police were dispatched to a campus residence hall to investigate reports that a student, defendant Izaia Bullock, had threatened to harm his girlfriend’s parents. When Officer Peter Archibald arrived to speak to another student, he encountered defendant in the hallway of a campus residence hall. After a brief discussion, Officer Archibald escorted defendant out of the building into the adjacent courtyard where they were met by two additional uniformed, armed Rutgers Police officers. Before advising defendant of his Miranda rights, Officer Archibald asked defendant why the officers were there, and defendant stated that he made a statement about wanting to hurt someone, specifically “[m]y girlfriend and her family.” After defendant made that admission, Officer Archibald advised defendant that he was “not in trouble” and then recited a cursory version of the Miranda warnings to defendant. After being transported to police headquarters, detectives administered Miranda warnings and defendant signed a waiver form. Two Rutgers Police detectives subsequently conducted a video-taped interrogation. Prior to the interrogation, one of the detectives stated that she was aware defendant already spoke to the officers and stated, “[b]ut we just have to do it again.” Defendant made additional incriminating statements, including details of his plan to kill his girlfriend’s parents. Prior to trial, the trial court suppressed all of defendant’s statements, finding that he was in custody in the courtyard and should have been properly advised of his rights, which did not occur. The trial court also suppressed the statements defendant made at the police station because of improper administration and waiver of Miranda rights. The Appellate Division affirmed, agreeing with the trial court that defendant’s statements in the courtyard must be suppressed. The New Jersey Supreme Court concurred with the Appellate Division and affirmed suppression of defendant's statements. View "New Jersey v. Bullock" on Justia Law

Dispatched to a residence where an axe murder had taken place, Detective Marchak learned that the victim and his stepson, defendant Joao Torres, were the only two people believed to have been in the house the previous night. In the bedroom, the mattress was soaked in blood and there was a significant amount of blood on the wall and ceiling. Within a few hours, officers located defendant, placed him under arrest on an outstanding warrant, and, at 3:55 p.m., placed him in a squad car to be transported to the police station. At the station, detectives interviewed defendant until he invoked his right to counsel. Defendant made incriminating admissions during the interview that provided probable cause to arrest him for murder. Defendant was ultimately charged in a twenty-count indictment with murder, disturbing human remains, and several other offenses. Defendant moved to suppress the warrantless seizure of his clothing. After a hearing, the judge denied the motion. Defendant entered a guilty plea. He then appealed, arguing that “the trial court erred in denying the motion to suppress the evidence seized as a result of the warrantless strip search.” The Appellate Division held that the search was not a strip search but remanded “for more explicit findings of fact and conclusions of law” to justify the warrantless seizure. On remand, the trial court issued an amplified written opinion holding that the seizure of defendant’s clothing was valid as a search incident to arrest under the totality of the circumstances. The Appellate Division affirmed. Finding no reversible error in the lower courts’ judgments, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed. View "New Jersey v. Torres" on Justia Law