CRIMINAL LAW IN BERGEN AND PASSAIC COUNTIES: HABEAS CORPUS

Recently, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals firmed a federal court judge's decision to release a New Jersey inmate who was convicted of two murders where the inmate continued to maintain his innocence after eleven years of incarceration. The victims were part of a drug deal that went bad. Fortunately, for the defendant, this family owned a collection of funeral homes in New Jersey and had the resources to pay for two decades of litigation. The touchstone for the appellate panel's decision was grounded upon the state prosecutor's summation where the government's attorney said that he did not think that the inmate knew that the victims were to be killed. Notwithstanding, that startling concession, the inmate was convicted on a felony murder concept which allows liability for murder to be imposed upon an accomplice of the actual killer. Need to interject that this was the murder was part of a drug deal that went wrong.