Much of last week was consumed by a sojourn in Hershey, PA for the Third Circuit Judicial Conference, a very enjoyable and educational experience. As a result, it’s time for some catching up. Today’s is the first such post.
The Supreme Court announced last Friday that it granted review in three new cases. All are criminal appeals. One of the new appeals is before the Court on leave to appeal. In the other two, the Court granted certification.
The leave to appeal case is State v. Bryant. The question presented, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office, is “Were the tower dump warrants – under which law enforcement personnel obtained the records of all mobile devices that connected to one or more cellular towers during a specific time period – sufficiently particular under the State and Federal Constitutions, and do the inevitable discovery and/or the independent source doctrines apply under the circumstances?” As discussed here, in an opinion reported at 483 N.J. Super. 13 (App. Div. 2025), the Appellate Division affirmed a ruling of the Law Division that had denied defendants’ motion to suppress evidence, though on different grounds than the Law Division had cited.
In Blackmon v. New Jersey State Parole Bd., the question presented is “Is this matter moot, and if not, under the circumstances presented here – namely, a defendant convicted before 1997 and subject to the 1979 version of N.J.S.A. 30:4-123.56 – should the defendant’s commutation credits be based on the length of time the defendant has served, or the length of the defendant’s additional future parole eligibility term?” A three-judge panel of the Appellate Division, in an unpublished per curiam opinion, dismissed defendant’s appeal as moot, since he had been paroled while the appeal was pending.
Finally, here is the question presented in State v. Edwards: “Is defendant entitled to jail credit for time spent pretrial on strict home detention with 24/7 GPS bracelet monitoring by the Hudson County Department of Corrections?” This appeal, which arises from its placement on a sentencing calendar under Rule 2:9-11, resulted in an Order of a two-judge Appellate Division panel that affirmed the sentence imposed by the Law Division and found that sentence not manifestly excessive, unduly punitive, or an abuse of discretion.
