Justia New Jersey Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Wildemar Dangcil’s contended the hybrid jury-selection process implemented by the New Jersey Judiciary in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) deprived him of his rights to presence and representation; and (2) failed to ensure him a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. Jury selection for defendant’s trial was scheduled for April 20, 2020, but was adjourned in light of the pandemic. On July 22, 2020, in coordination with representatives from the Attorney General’s Office, Office of the Public Defender, County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey, and New Jersey State Bar Association, the New Jersey Supreme Court established a plan to resume criminal and civil jury selections using a hybrid process intended to maintain the core components of pre-pandemic jury operations modified to protect the health and safety of jurors, attorneys, parties, and all court users. Defendant’s trial was Bergen County’s first to utilize the hybrid process. During the virtual phase of jury selection, defense counsel filed an Order to Show Cause challenging the array as not being drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. The trial court rejected the challenge. After the Appellate Division affirmed and remanded for resumption of the trial, defendant was convicted of multiple offenses, including attempted aggravated arson. He was sentenced to an aggregate eighteen-year term of imprisonment. The Supreme Court granted direct certification to address the issues defendant raised about the jury selection process. Though the challenge was to the new hybrid process, it was also directed at pre-pandemic practices -- notably, pre-voir dire juror excusals and deferrals -- that remained largely unchanged during the COVID-19 crisis. The Supreme Court held that the pre-voir dire disqualification, excusal, or deferral of jurors was not a stage at which defendant was entitled to be present or be represented, and that defendant failed to support his representative-cross-section claim. Therefore, the Court affirmed. View "New Jersey v. Dangcil" on Justia Law

Rasheem McQueen was arrested after driving off when Piscataway police officers attempted to stop him for traffic violations. At police headquarters, McQueen was permitted to make a call on a landline in the “report writing room.” No one told him the call would be recorded: no sign was posted warning that all calls were recorded; no one stood over McQueen to listen to the conversation, and he “mumbled on the phone, hiding what his conversation was.” Later that day, a detective recovered a gun found outside the home near where McQueen had been stopped, and became “suspicious” about the call McQueen had made from headquarters. Without securing a warrant or a subpoena, or consent from McQueen, detectives listened to McQueen’s recorded conversation. The recording revealed that McQueen called Myshira Allen-Brewer and told her to look for his “blicky” (slang for a handgun) near where the gun was found. McQueen was transferred to the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center, from where he made further telephone calls to Allen-Brewer on a clearly designated recorded line. During telephone calls placed from the Correction Center, an automated message advised parties their conversation was being recorded, and inmates received written notification of the warning. In their conversations, McQueen again told Allen-Brewer to look for the “blicky.” A recording of those Correction Center conversations was secured through a grand jury subpoena. Both McQueen and Allen-Brewer were indicted on multiple counts, and both moved to suppress their telephone conversations recorded by the Piscataway Police Department and the Correction Center. The motion judge suppressed the recorded calls and dismissed the indictment against Allen-Brewer. The Appellate Division reversed the suppression of the Correction Center calls and reinstated the charges against Allen-Brewer. The panel, however, split on the legality of the seizure of the police station call, with the majority affirming the suppression of that call. Only Allen-Brewer’s appeal went before the New Jersey Supreme Court, who reversed the Appellate Division: McQueen and Allen-Brewer had a reasonable expectation of privacy in their conversation in the absence of fair notice that their conversation would be monitored or recorded. The recorded stationhouse telephone conversation was not seized pursuant to a warrant or any justifiable exigency and therefore should have been suppressed. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "New Jersey v. McQueen" on Justia Law

Defendant Bennie Anderson was employed by Jersey City in the Tax Assessor’s office. His position gave him the opportunity to alter property tax descriptions without the property owner filing a formal application with the Zoning Board. In December 2012, defendant accepted a $300 bribe in exchange for altering the tax description of a property from a two-unit dwelling to a three-unit dwelling. Defendant retired from his position in March 2017 and was granted an early service retirement pension. In November 2017, defendant pled guilty in federal court to violating 18 U.S.C. 1951(a), interference with commerce by extortion under color of official right. Defendant was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a fine. Based on defendant’s conviction, the Employees’ Retirement System of Jersey City reduced his pension. The State filed an action in state court to compel the total forfeiture of defendant’s pension pursuant to N.J.S.A. 43:1-3.1. The trial court entered summary judgment for the State, finding that the forfeiture of defendant’s pension did not implicate the constitutional prohibitions against excessive fines because the forfeiture of pension benefits did not constitute a fine. The Appellate Division affirmed the grant of summary judgment to the State, but on different grounds, concluding the forfeiture of defendant’s pension was a fine, but that requiring defendant to forfeit his pension was not excessive. The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded forfeiture of defendant’s pension under N.J.S.A. 43:1-3.1 did not constitute a fine for purposes of an excessive-fine analysis under the Federal or New Jersey State Constitutions. Because the forfeiture was not a fine, the Court did not reach the constitutional analysis for excessiveness. View "New Jersey v. Anderson" on Justia Law

In the twin cases before the New Jersey Supreme Court in consolidated appeals, officers engaged in pretextual stops: they stopped each defendant because part of the license plate was covered; as the arresting officer in Roman-Rosado candidly conceded, though, the purpose of the stop was to try to develop a criminal investigation. The police found contraband in both cases -- drugs in one matter and a gun in the other -- which formed the grounds for defendants’ convictions. Defendants argued that, if read expansively, statute at issue here, N.J.S.A. 39:3-33, prohibited drivers of motor vehicles with license plate frames or identification marker holders, that conceal or otherwise obscures any part of any marking imprinted on the vehicle’s registration plate. Defendants contended this statute was unconstitutionally vague and overly broad, and also invited discriminatory enforcement. The Supreme Court held that N.J.S.A. 39:3-33 required all markings on a license plate be legible or identifiable. If a frame conceals or obscures a marking in a way that it cannot reasonably be identified or discerned, the driver would be in violation of the law. In practice, if a registration letter or number was not legible, the statute would apply; but if a phrase like “Garden State” was partly covered but still recognizable, there would be no violation. Under that standard, defendant Darius Carter’s license plate frame, which covered the phrase “Garden State” entirely, violated the law, so the stop was lawful. In contrast, defendant Miguel Roman-Rosado’s plate frame did not cover “Garden State.” It partially covered only ten or fifteen percent of the slogan, which was still fully legible, so the stop was unlawful. Because there was no lawful basis to stop Roman-Rosado, evidence seized as a direct result of his stop had to be suppressed. View "New Jersey v. Carter" on Justia Law

In August 2014, at approximately 2:26 a.m., Hiram Gonzalez was involved in a one-vehicle accident. Officers Leon Tucker and Saad Hashmi of the Jersey City Police Department (JCPD) were dispatched to the scene. They determined Gonzalez’s vehicle was inoperable and called for a tow truck. Officer Tucker offered to drive Gonzalez to a nearby gas or PATH station, but Gonzalez refused, saying he would wait for his brother. Officer Hashmi acknowledged that the standard police practice is to leave a stranded motorist in a safe place or offer them a ride within the city’s limits, but he claimed there was no standard practice for when a stranded motorist refuses a ride but was not in a safe place. Officer Hashmi also stated that he and Officer Tucker could have waited with Gonzalez until he had a ride, but they did not because it was a busy Saturday night in the summer and “there were a lot of calls going out.” Before leaving the scene, the officers told Gonzalez to remain in the pedestrian walkway, which had a guardrail between the roadway and the sidewalk. Gonzalez was struck at around 3:42 a.m. According to a toxicology report, he had a BAC of .209% at the time he died. The officers claimed that Gonzalez did not appear intoxicated. The issue this case presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's review centered on whether the officers were entitled, under the particular facts and circumstances of this case, to any of the immunities from liability provided by the New Jersey Tort Claims Act (TCA), the Good Samaritan Act, or N.J.S.A. 26:2B-16, a statute that immunized officers from liability for assisting persons intoxicated in a public place to an appropriate location. The Court determined the immunities from liability provided by the Good Samaritan Act, N.J.S.A. 26:2B-16, and most TCA provisions invoked by defendants did not apply here. Defendants’ actions might be entitled to qualified immunity under certain TCA provisions on which defendants relied, however, if the involved officers’ actions were discretionary, rather than ministerial, in nature. In this instance, because of a factual dispute, that determination was for the jury to make upon remand. View "Estate of Hiram Gonzalez v. City of Jersey City" on Justia Law

The issue presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's review in this case was whether defendant Paulino Njango, whose time in prison exceeded the permissible custodial term authorized by his sentence, was entitled to have the excess prison time he served reduce the period of parole supervision he had to serve under the New Jersey No Early Release Act (NERA). The post-conviction relief court found that the excess time Njango served in custody was “unfortunate” but could not “be given back.” The Appellate Division affirmed, determining that the period of Njango’s NERA parole supervision could not be reduced, even though “[Njango] was imprisoned longer than he should have been due to a failure to properly award” him prior service credits. The Supreme Court reversed. "We do not agree that relief cannot be granted to Njango. The fundamental fairness doctrine is an integral part of the due process guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, which protects against arbitrary and unjust government action." The Court held that the excess time that Njango erroneously served in prison had to be credited to reduce the period of his parole supervision. The case was remanded to the New Jersey Parole Board for a calculation of the excess time Njango served in prison and a credit toward his period of parole supervision. View "New Jersey v. Njango" on Justia Law

The issue presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's consideration was whether defendant Zakariyya Ahmad’s statement to police -- which occurred when defendant was 17 years old and without his being advised of his Miranda rights -- was properly admitted at his trial for multiple offenses related to the murder of a cafe owner in Newark, New Jersey. The Appellate Division affirmed, agreeing that defendant was questioned as “part of an investigatory procedure rather than a custodial interrogation” and that Miranda was therefore not implicated. The Supreme Court found admission of the statement was harmful error: a reasonable 17-year-old in defendant’s position would have believed he was in custody and not free to leave, so Miranda warnings were required. View "New Jersey v. Ahmad" on Justia Law

Nicholas Mirov disappeared in 1975, and defendant Craig Szemple told members of Mirov’s family that he had driven Mirov to a bus station so that Mirov could go to New York City. Four months after Mirov disappeared, police discovered a body in the woods. Police did not identify the body until sixteen years later, when defendant’s brother, under questioning about a different homicide, revealed defendant’s prior admission to killing Mirov. The issue presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court centered on whether the State could be compelled to search its file to determine the existence of information in a post-conviction context, where defendant sought to obtain any statements or reports memorializing any interviews with his ex-wife, Theresa Boyle, that may have occurred after a letter admitting to the 1975 murder of Mirov, believed to be written by defendant, was produced by Theresa’s father in 1992, during defendant’s first trial for Mirov’s murder. Defendant’s first trial ended in a mistrial, and he was re-tried in 1994. The State admitted into evidence the letter, testimony by a handwriting expert that defendant authored the letter, the .32 caliber bullets found lodged in the victim’s neck and the base of the tree where the victim’s remains were found, and the testimony of defendant’s brother that (a) his family kept a .32 caliber handgun in the family store where defendant worked, and (b) that defendant confessed to shooting the victim. The Supreme Court held that because defendant was aware of the letter, and the circumstances relevant to this appeal for nearly twenty-five years, yet provided no evidence -- and made almost no effort to uncover evidence -- that police interviewed Theresa after production of the letter, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s post-conviction discovery request. View "New Jersey v. Szemple" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Armando Rios, Jr., a Hispanic male, was hired by defendant Meda Pharmaceutical, Inc. (Meda) in May 2015. Defendant Tina Cheng-Avery was Rios’s direct supervisor. Rios claimed Cheng-Avery twice directed a racially-derogatory term toward him at their place of work. Rios says he reported her comments to Meda’s Director of Human Resources after each incident. Cheng-Avery placed Rios on probation in February 2016 for poor performance. Meda fired Rios in June 2016. Rios filed a complaint alleging in part that defendants violated the Law Against Discrimination (LAD) by creating a hostile work environment. The trial court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment, finding that no rational factfinder could conclude Cheng-Avery’s alleged comments were sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment. The Appellate Division affirmed. The New Jersey Supreme Court found that the remarks from the perspective of a reasonable Hispanic employee in Rios’s position, a rational jury could conclude the demeaning and contemptuous slurs, allegedly uttered by a direct supervisor, were sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment in violation of the LAD. The Appellate Division was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Rios v. Meda Pharmaceutical, Inc." on Justia Law

In June 2020, weeks after George Floyd was killed at the hands of a Minneapolis Police Officer, the New Jersey Attorney General issued two Directives calling for the release of the names of law enforcement officers who commit disciplinary violations that result in the imposition of “major discipline” -- termination, demotion, or a suspension of more than five days. A summary of the misconduct and the sanction imposed also had to be disclosed. In this appeal, the issues presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court came from challenges brought against the Directives by five groups representing state and local officers. The Appellate Division found that the Directives did not violate constitutional guarantees of due process or equal protection. The court also rejected claims that the Directives violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and that they impaired appellants’ right to contract and violate their constitutional right to collective negotiations. Finally, the appellate court concluded the Directives were not arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, or against public policy. The Supreme Court found the Directives were consistent with legislative policies and rested on a reasonable basis. The Court did not find merit in the bulk of the remaining challenges, except for one that required "more careful attention:" Officers subjected to major discipline for the past twenty years said they were promised that their names would not be released, and that they relied on that promise in resolving disciplinary accusations. Essentially they asked the State to stand by promises they claimed were made throughout the prior twenty years. Resolution of that issue will require judicial review to decide if the elements of the doctrine of promissory estoppel were met. The identities of officers subject to major discipline since the Directives were issued in June 2020 could be disclosed; going forward, future disciplinary sanctions could be disclosed in the same manner. View "In re Attorney General Law Enforcement Directive Nos. 2020-5 and 2020-6" on Justia Law