As April nears its halfway point, the Supreme Court has granted review in five new appeals, according to announcements by the Court. One of those is an ethics matter in which the Court granted a petition for review. The other four are criminal appeals. The Court granted certification in two of those cases and leave to appeal in the other two.
The ethics case is In re Opinion No. 749 of the Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics. The question presented, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office, is “May an attorney concurrently serve as corporation counsel for a municipality and as general counsel for a regional fire and rescue organization that serves that same municipality and several neighboring municipalities?” The Committee’s decision held that a per se conflict arises in that circumstance, so that an attorney cannot concurrently hold those two positions.
State v. Bonora is one of the two cases in which the Supreme Court granted leave to appeal. (In fact, this was the second time that this matter came before the Court on leave to appeal). The question presented there is “In this matter in which the State alleges that defendant was under the influence of illegal substances and caused a crash resulting in a death and injuries, was the warrant – which authorized the State to search the entire contents of defendant’s cellular phone for the four-year period before the crash for evidence relevant to the State’s investigation– supported by probable cause and sufficiently particular?” The Law Division denied a suppression motion, but a two-judge panel of the Appellate Division reversed that ruling in an unpublished per curiam opinion.
The other leave to appeal case, State v. Missak, presents a similar question: “In this matter in which the State alleges that defendant used his cellular phone to communicate with an individual that he believed to be a fourteen-year-old girl over a two-day period to solicit her to meet him for a sexual encounter, and that defendant then traveled to an agreed upon location to perform sex acts with her, and defendant was arrested for second-degree attempted sexual assault and second-degree luring, was the warrant allowing the State to search the entire contents of defendant’s cellular phone supported by probable cause and sufficiently particular?” In this case, the Law Division quashed the warrant and the Appellate Division affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion by a three-judge panel.
Here is the question presented in State v. Otte, in which the Supreme Court granted certification: “If a defendant pleads guilty and the plea does not contemplate pretrial intervention (PTI), is the defendant precluded from admission to PTI?” In an unpublished per curiam opinion, a two-judge Appellate Division panel affirmed the decision of the Law Division that defendant was procedurally barred from the PTI program.
Finally, in State v. Bryant, the question presented is “Under the circumstances presented, did exigent circumstances justify the warrantless search of the backpack in which police officers found a firearm?” In a published opinion reported at 482 N.J. Super. 37 (App. Div. 2025) and discussed here, the Appellate Division reversed the Law Division’s denial of a suppression motion.
