The unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court continued in relevant part: Defendant’s plea was accepted, and jail credits were assessed per time accrued on each charge. Defendant argued that all of the 4727 days of jail credit should be applied to the aggravated assault charge even though he had accrued only 1012 days on that charge. […]
Miscalculation of Jail Credits (Part 1)
On May 2, 2019, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided the Cape May County case of State v. Isiah T. McNeal. This was a per curiam opinion. This means that the decision called for such a straightforward application of the law to the facts that none of the justices needed to conduct their own independent […]
Undisclosed Charges and Miranda Rights (Part 4)
The Court continued: A.G.D., detectives questioned the defendant at his home about allegations of sexual abuse. 178 N.J. at 59. The detectives did not tell the defendant that a warrant for his arrest had been issued. The defendant confessed to the alleged sexual abuse and was subsequently convicted of related offenses. Before trial, the defendant […]
Undisclosed Charges and Miranda Rights (Part 3)
Justice Fernandez-Vina continued: A few moments later, Detective Mera mentioned that they had charges against Vincenty. Vincenty then stated that he did not get a letter from a judge about the charges and asked the detectives what the charges were. The officers showed Vincenty a list of the charges and explained to Vincenty that he […]
Undisclosed Charges and Miranda Rights (Part 2)
The New Jersey Supreme Court continued: Detective Mera explained that the police identified Vincenty from the video recording of the attack and sought his assistance to identify the second assailant on the video recording. Detective Mera told Vincenty that “the judge already charged him,” explained that they obtained Vincenty’s DNA from the mask, and informed […]
Undisclosed Charges and Miranda Rights (Part 1)
On March 11, 2019, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided the Hudson County case of State v. Adrian A. Vincenty. The principal issue was whether the defendant’s statements to detectives must be suppressed when the detectives failed to inform him that charges had been filed against him. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Fernandez-Vina held […]
Eyewitness Identification Procedures (Part 7)
The majority concluded with the following in relevant part: On the other hand, if it turns out that the police essentially tracked Roberts’ full statement of confidence on the photo display report form and offered no confirmatory feedback, defendant would be hard-pressed to show that a technical violation of Rule 3:11(d) was “clearly capable of […]
Eyewitness Identification Procedures (Part 6)
Chief Justice Rabner continued in relevant part: The Court outlines the points that such a charge should include and notes that counsel should request such a charge when the facts warrant it. The Court asks the Model Jury Charge Committee to amend the model charge. In this case, the officers did not comply with Rule […]
Eyewitness Identification Procedures (Part 5)
The majority continued in relevant part: The Court relies on its supervisory powers to require, further, that when it is not feasible to make an electronic recording of an identification procedure, law enforcement officers must document the reasons for not having done so. The same requirement applies when officers cannot prepare a contemporaneous, verbatim written […]
Eyewitness Identification Procedures (Part 4)
The Supreme Court continued in relevant part: In Henderson, the Court reaffirmed Delgado. 208 N.J. at 252. To guard against confirmatory feedback, the Court required law enforcement to record a witness’ statement of confidence “in the witness’ own words before any possible feedback.” Id. at 254. Henderson added that “if an eyewitness’ confidence was not […]
