Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

This appeal posed a narrow question for the New Jersey Supreme Court's review: whether a particular defendant’s statutory right to a speedy trial was violated. Defendant Marcus Mackroy-Davis was arrested on November 11, 2019 in connection with a drive-by shooting in which one person was killed. A complaint against Mackroy-Davis charged him with conspiracy to commit murder, and the State moved to detain him pending trial. The court entered an order of detention on December 23, 2019. On February 13, 2020, a grand jury returned an indictment charging Mackroy-Davis with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and obstruction. Defendant maintained his innocence and stated he intended to go to trial. Consistent with guidance from public health officials, the Judiciary for more than a year was unable to summon jurors, witnesses, lawyers, court staff, and the parties for in-person jury trials in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the Supreme Court entered fourteen omnibus orders that tolled the clock for the start of criminal trials for a total of 461 days. The New Jersey Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA) replaced New Jersey’s prior system of pretrial release with a risk-based system that, for the first time, allowed judges to detain high-risk defendants pretrial. In October 2021, the State obtained a superseding indictment that added three new charges against Mackroy-Davis stemming from information the State learned from a codefendant in May 2020. The parties returned to court to arraign Mackroy-Davis on the superseding indictment on November 15, 2021. Over defendant’s objection, the court ordered excludable time “due to extenuating circumstances.” The following day, the court entered two orders for excludable time, one for 59 days and a second for 159 days. The court also set a trial date of April 22, 2022, at which time, the State announced it was ready to proceed. The Supreme Court determined that because the prosecution announced it was ready to proceed to trial at the two-year mark, defendant’s statutory right to a speedy trial was not violated. The Court therefore affirmed the trial court and remanded the case for trial. View "New Jersey v. Mackroy-Davis" on Justia Law

On the morning of February 24, 2014, defendant Abayuba Rivas went to the Police Department and reported that his wife Karla Villagra Garzon was missing. Over the next several days, Rivas gave statements to the police to assist in the missing-persons investigation. Rivas stated that he had left his two-year-old daughter home alone while he drove around looking for Karla, who, he thought, may have had a liaison with someone. Rivas was ultimately arrested and incarcerated for child endangerment and providing false information to the police. After a suicide attempt while held in jail, Rivas was taken to a local hospital. After reading Rivas his Miranda rights, the detectives questioned him, and Rivas soon departed from his earlier story. The next afternoon, on March 18, detectives returned to the hospital and began a nearly six-hour question-and-answer session. The detectives had Rivas read aloud each of his Miranda rights and then asked him if he understood those rights. He answered in the affirmative but repeatedly queried the detectives about his right to an attorney. During the continued interrogation, Rivas confessed to killing Karla. On March 19, Rivas was discharged from the hospital and transported to the police station, where he gave a videotaped statement. Rivas was read his Miranda rights and informed that his family was prepared to retain an attorney to represent him. Despite that information, Rivas waived his rights and indicated his willingness to speak with the detectives. The trial court ultimately found that Rivas’s statements about his desire to secure counsel were “objectively unclear and ambiguous,” and therefore the detectives had the duty either to clarify the ambiguity or cease questioning. The trial court suppressed the March 18 statement but found the March 19 statements admissible. The New Jersey Supreme Court suppressed the March 19 statements too, finding Rivas never freely initiated further conversations with the detectives, further questioning of defendant was barred. “That Rivas waived his Miranda rights on March 19 -- a day later -- does not alter the equation. A violation under Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 (1981), is not subject to an attenuation analysis. Therefore, Rivas’s March 19 statements must be suppressed.” View "New Jersey v. Rivas" on Justia Law

Defendant Ashley Bailey and Edwin Ingram married in 2011 and remained married until Ingram’s death in 2016. They had two children. In April 2014, the New Jersey State Police commenced an investigation of an alleged drug distribution network operating in Camden. The investigators identified Ingram and his brother, his half-brother, and three other men as targets of the investigation. Investigators wiretapped phones associated with defendant, her husband, and other targets of the investigation. Police arrested targets of the investigation and defendant in October 2014. Defendant gave two statements in the immediate aftermath of her arrest, admitting she had accessed the LEAA system to review police reports on Ingram and his associates, but denied that her actions were intended to benefit Ingram or anyone else. Defendant claimed that she made numerous phone calls to her husband’s associates in an attempt to locate him and denied that the abrupt decrease in the number of calls was related to the wiretaps. Shortly before trial, defendant moved to exclude the text messages that she exchanged with Ingram on the ground that they were protected by the marital communications privilege. Defendant argued that because the Legislature had not yet amended N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-22 to adopt the crime-fraud exception to the marital communications privilege when she and Ingram exchanged the text messages, the trial court should not apply that exception. The trial court admitted the text messages into evidence, and the State read them into the record. The jury acquitted defendant of conspiracy but convicted her of both counts of official misconduct. The New Jersey Supreme Court found that the crime-fraud exception could not be properly applied to marital communications that preceded the Legislature’s amendment of N.J.R.E. 509. The Court found no evidence that the Legislature intended that amendment to retroactively apply to otherwise privileged marital communications that occurred prior to that amendment. The trial court’s admission of the text messages therefore constituted error. However, that error was harmless given the extensive evidence presented by the State in support of defendant’s official misconduct convictions. View "New Jersey v. Bailey" on Justia Law

In 2020, the Legislature amended N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1 to add a new mitigating factor fourteen: “[t]he defendant was under 26 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense.” N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(b)(14). It provided that “[t]his new act shall take effect immediately.” L. 2020, c. 110, § 2. In this appeal, the Court considers defendant Rahee Lane’s argument that the new mitigating factor should be applied to defendants who were under twenty-six years old at the time of their offenses, if their direct appeals were pending when the statute was amended. The New Jersey Supreme Court construed N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(b)(14) to be prospective, finding in the statutory language no indication that mitigating factor fourteen applied to defendants sentenced prior to the provision’s effective date. The Court viewed N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(b)(14)’s legislative history to confirm the Legislature’s intent to authorize sentencing courts to consider the new mitigating factor in imposing a sentence on or after the date of the amendment. View "New Jersey v. Lane" on Justia Law

In 2010, a joint task force of local and federal law enforcement began investigating Mykal Derry, the leader of a drug organization, and his brother, Malik, among others. During the course of the investigation, a man was shot and killed in Atlantic City. A federal grand jury indicted nineteen individuals involved with the Derry drug organization in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Defendants were convicted of various drug offenses, as well as the discharge of a firearm during the commission of a drug trafficking crime. Following their federal convictions, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office indicted defendants, as relevant here, for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. In federal court, defendants received a sentence enhancement that applied if a victim was killed under circumstances that would constitute murder. The federal prosecutor did not seek restitution because he was informed that New Jersey had charged defendants with murder and would seek restitution in state court. The District Court ultimately sentenced defendants to life without parole on the drug trafficking conviction; a concurrent term of four years on all other drug and conspiracy convictions; ten years on the discharge of a firearm conviction, to be served consecutively to the life sentence; and ten years’ supervised release. Defendants moved to dismiss their state-court indictment under N.J.S.A. 2C:1-3(f), arguing that the federal prosecution already captured the murder because the discharge of a firearm charge covered the shooting of the victim. They further contended that the sentencing enhancement and resultant term of life-plus-ten-years adequately served New Jersey’s interests such that dismissal was in the interest of justice. The trial court denied their motion. Based on the differences between the federal and state proceedings, the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendants’ motion to dismiss the indictment. View "New Jersey v. Derry" on Justia Law

Around midnight on May 7, 2011, a 7-Eleven was robbed. At approximately 12:15 a.m., Sergeant Mark Horan of the Hamilton Township Police Department received a transmission about the armed robbery, which “had just occurred.” Horan testified that the dispatch described the suspects “as two Black males, one with a handgun.” Horan activated the lights and sirens on his marked patrol car and drove towards the 7-Eleven. Approximately three-quarters of a mile from the 7-Eleven, Horan saw a car approaching in the oncoming traffic lane. He illuminated the inside of the vehicle and observed three Black males; “[t]he description of the suspects was two Black males so at that point I decided to issue a motor vehicle stop on the second vehicle.” Horan later explained that he was also struck by the lack of reaction to the spotlight by the occupants of the car, and that he “took into consideration the short distance from the scene, as well as the short amount of time from the call” as he made the stop. Defendant Peter Nyema was sitting in the passenger seat, and defendant Jamar Myers was in the rear passenger-side seat. The dispatcher advised Horan that the vehicle had been reported stolen. All three occupants were placed under arrest. More officers arrived on the scene, and while several officers secured the arrestees, others assisted Horan in searching for a weapon. Officers searched other parts of the vehicle, locating additional clothing in the trunk and a black semi-automatic handgun under the hood. Searches of the men themselves yielded just under $600 cash. Approximately $600 was reported stolen from the 7-Eleven. The vehicle was then impounded, and police transported the three men to the police station. The issue this case presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's review in this case was whether reasonable and articulable suspicion existed when Horan conducted an investigatory stop of defendants' vehicle. The Supreme Court determined the only information the officer possessed at the time of the stop was the race and sex of the suspects, with no further descriptors. "That information, which effectively placed every single Black male in the area under the veil of suspicion, was insufficient to justify the stop of the vehicle and therefore does not withstand constitutional scrutiny." View "New Jersey v. Myers" on Justia Law

In June 2011, defendant Christopher Radel pled guilty to a weapons offense. In October 2015, the court entered an order directing the local police department to confiscate any firearms at Radel's residence. Before carrying out the order, police learned: Radel resided at an address different than on the court order; Radel had two active municipal arrest warrants; and he possessed firearms other than a Beretta listed on the order. Police thereafter set in motion a plan to enforce the order to retrieve weapons and arrest Radel on the outstanding warrants. Performing a protective sweep, officers observed in plain view imitation firearms, butterfly knives, hatchets, bows and arrows, a ballistic vest, simulated police identification badges, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, a glass pipe, and a safe capable of storing firearms. Police obtained a search warrant, netting the multiple weapons, drugs and related paraphernalia, and over $8,000 in cash found in the protective sweep. The trial court denied Radel’s motion to suppress the evidence, and the Appellate Division reversed, finding “no support for the [trial court’s] conclusion that the police had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that there were other persons inside the home or that they posed a risk to the police or others.” In 2017, a warrant for Tyler Fuller’s arrest was issued. Police learned Fuller might have been staying at a trailer park, in possession of a "large amount of narcotics." Four officers went directly to the front building where the trailer's owner (Terres) had said Fuller might be found. As police approached the front door, which was wide open, they observed two men inside, later identified as Mark Boston and William Willis. The officers announced their presence, Boston ran toward a bedroom, with one officer pursuing, believing that he might be Fuller. The officer struggled with Boston and eventually handcuffed him. A computer check revealed that both Boston and Willis had outstanding warrants for their arrest. During a protective sweep of the trailer, an offer peered into a hole in the floor, "large enough for a person to hide" under the residence. The next day a search warrant was issued, and multiple weapons were seized from the trailer. The trial court denied Terres’s motion to suppress the evidence, and the Appellate Division affirmed. The New Jersey Supreme Court found that "a self-created exigency by the police cannot justify entry into the home or a protective sweep." Here, the Court found a protective sweep was not warranted in the Radel case, but was constitutionally justified in the Terres case. View "New Jersey v. Terres" on Justia Law

Defendants James Comer and James Zarate asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to find that a mandatory sentence of at least 30 years without parole was unconstitutional as applied to juveniles. Seventeen year old Comer was sentenced in 2004 to an aggregate term of 75 years in prison with 68.25 years of parole ineligibility for his participation in four armed robberies, one of which, an accomplice shot and killed a robbery victim. Zarate was convicted of participating in a brutal murder with his older brother. At the time of his offense in 2005, Zarate was 14 years old, less than one month shy of his 15th birthday. For the murder conviction, the court sentenced Zarate to life imprisonment, subject to an 85-percent period of parole ineligibility under the No Early Release Act (NERA), with consecutive sentences for two additional offenses. After weighing other statutory factors, Zarate was resentenced for murder to 50 years in prison. The Supreme Court reversed in both cases: "The statutory framework for sentencing juveniles, if not addressed, will contravene Article I, Paragraph 12 of the State Constitution. To remedy the concerns defendants raise and save the statute from constitutional infirmity, the Court will permit juvenile offenders convicted under the law to petition for a review of their sentence after they have served two decades in prison. At that time, judges will assess a series of factors the United States Supreme Court has set forth in Miller v. Alabama, which are designed to consider the 'mitigating qualities of youth.'" View "New Jersey v. Comer" on Justia Law

In July 2001, victim C.S. was sexually assaulted by an unknown assailant. The New Jersey State Police Lab (“Lab”) created a profile for the suspect’s DNA sample, Specimen 12A, retrieved from C.S.’s body. In 2002, the Lab entered the DNA profile into the national Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”). The DNA profile in CODIS did not include certain exclusionary data; without that data, it would have been impossible for Specimen 12A to generate a match with another DNA profile entered into CODIS. In 2004, defendant Bradley Thompson’s DNA sample was collected in an unrelated matter and his DNA profile entered into CODIS in 2006. In 2010, the FBI updated the National DNA Index System (“NDIS”) Operational Procedures Manual to explicitly allow the exclusionary data withheld from Specimen 12A to be entered into the system. In 2016, the Lab entered the exclusionary data for Specimen 12A into CODIS and was alerted that the specimen matched defendant’s DNA sample that had been entered into CODIS years earlier. Based on that match, defendant was indicted in May 2017 for offenses related to the July 2001 sexual assault. Defendant moved to dismiss, arguing that the five-year statute of limitations began to run in 2004, when the State possessed both the physical evidence from the crime and defendant’s DNA sample. The trial court denied his motion and concluded that the statute of limitations started running when the State had evidence of a match. Defendant was ultimately convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual contact and fourth-degree criminal trespass. The Appellate Division affirmed defendant’s conviction, finding that the statute of limitations began to run in 2016 when the State received a DNA match. The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, finding the statute of limitations began to run in 2010, when the FBI’s updated scientific guidance rendered the Lab capable of generating a match based on the DNA samples in its possession. View "New Jersey v. Thompson" on Justia Law

In this appeal, a detective administered Miranda warnings but repeatedly undermined them throughout an interrogation. The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded the detective here repeatedly contradicted and minimized the significance of the Miranda warnings -- starting at the outset of the interrogation and continuing throughout -- meaning the State could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently waived his rights. The Appellate Division concluded defendant's statement made to police in violation of his Miranda rights had to be suppressed, and the Supreme Court affirmed. View "New Jersey v. O.D.A.-C." on Justia Law