The Filing of a New Trial Motion Based On Newly Discovered Evidence

Of course not all jury trials result in a not guilty verdict.  In fact, depending on the county in which the trial takes place, not guilty verdict as to all counts are rare.  In federal court the chances of an acquittal are even more rare.  Stating this truth is not meant to dissuade a defendant who decides to exercise his constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Even after a guilty verdict the sentence imposed by the judge at the time of sentencing might even be lower than the plea offer of the prosecutor.  This is often the case in counties in which there is an extremely high conviction rate, and the county prosecutors believe that they run the courtrooms with their draconian plea offers.  Unfortunately, in some cases they actual do.  In those cases there is less downside risk of going to trial and taking your chances in having the jury make the call as to whether the State or Government has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.  In a recent case in Ocean County the defendant actually received four years less than the plea offer by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office after losing at trial.

Another avenue for the defendant is the filing a new trial motion after the verdict based on newly discovered evidence.  Although this motion is rarely granted, the defendant and his/or her attorney must be cognizant of discovering, if possible, any new evidence, if presented to the jury during trial, would have likely altered the verdict if known to defense counsel prior to trial.

Today, AttorneySanzone was granted a new trial motion in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Gloucester County.  In that case, defendant’s prior attorney was unaware that an essential witness withheld important evidence from the parties.  After reviewing the transcripts for appeal, it became clear that this witness appeared to know more than she had disclosed.  After a tape recording of her conversation with the defendant’s wife it was clear that her testimony if known to the jury, and if believed, would have acquitted the defendant since her testimony was convincing evidence that the alleged victim and lied, and had a strong motive to do so in this case.

A new trial motion based on newly discovered evidence as no statutory time limits and can be filed at anytime.

If you are charged with a serious crime you owe it to yourself and family to retain the legal services of an experienced NJ criminal defense lawyer.

Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr.

P.O. Box 261

277 North Broad Street

Elizabeth, N.J. 07207

Office No. (908) 354-7006

Cell No.   (201) 240-5716

CriminalDefenseNJ.com

Dated: December 24, 2012

False Confessions and Police Misconduct.

It is astounding and sometimes hard for people to imagine or understand why someone would confess to a crime in which he or she did not commit.

Unfortunately the number of false confessions that are given each year in the United States is astounding.  Attorney Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project in New York has estimated that a quarter of the DNA exonerations involve cases in which people have given false confessions.

The most famous of the false confession cases is the infamous Norfolk Four.  United States Naval Officers, Tice, Williams, Dick and Wilson, stationed at the naval base in Norfolk Virginia were convicted of the brutal rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in 1997.  The only evidence against the sailors was the coerced confessions by a detective who was later charged and convicted for police misconduct (knowingly extracting false confessions).  In that case the detective, Detective Ford, fed to the sailors held back facts of the case that only the detective knew, and later typed those facts into the signed or taped confessions.  Even when the real killer, Omar Ballard, was charged and convicted based on DNA evidence, and his confession that he committed the crime alone, the police still refused to dismiss the charges against the Norfolk Four.  Detective Ford knew that Sailor Dick was innocent because navel logs showed that Sailor Dick was on the ship U.S. Saipan at the time of the murder.

The Norfolk four continued to maintain that their confessions, which were either signed or taped, were made on the basis that they were coerced with threats that included that they would receive the death penalty if they did not plead guilty. 

This was not the first time Detective Ford was accused of extracting false confessions from suspects.  In the Lafayette Grill case in 1990 he was also accused of similar misconduct.  Detective Ford was known to brag to fellow detectives that he could coerce a false confession out of anyone to solve a crime, regardless of person’s innocence, or lack of evidence against the accused.

All of the Norfolk Four defendants were sentenced to long prison sentences and in 2008 30 retired FBI agents asked the governor of Virginia to pardon the sailors.

After spending many years in prison the Norfolk Four were eventually pardoned over the objections of the State Attorney General who for years fought against their release knowing that the four were truly innocent.

Another infamous and troubling case was the false confession of Douglas Warney who spent nine years in prison for a murder which he did not commit.  At the time of his confession Mr. Warner was suffering from AIDS and AIDS dementia. In that case the police claimed that Mr. Warney confessed to the crime and with facts that only the murderer would know.  Unfortunately, the facts which they claimed he knew about the murder were facts which the facts also knew and which they fed to him.  In the Warney prosecution there were no witnesses, no physical evidence, or DNA evidence to link Mr. Warney to the crime.  Mr. Warney was eventually exonerated by DNA evidence and the arrest and conviction of the person who committed the crime whose DNA was at the crime scene.

The American Psychological Association has continually maintained in their studies that susceptible individuals subject to common police interrogation techniques will confess to anything.  Even less susceptible individuals often confess to crimes that they did not commit with the false and misleading information from the detective that “if you just tell me what I want to hear, we will wrap this up and you will be going home.”  Or, if “you admit to what you did, you will not be charged with a crime.”  Of course, all of these lies are done off the audio-visual camera. 

I am currently handling a pending case in Union County New Jersey in which I am representing an individual who was tricked into given a confession to a crime in which he did not commit.  A motion to suppress the statements is pending with the court, and it is likely that the confession will be thrown out.  In that case the detective interrogating my client asked my client what happened and when the facts did not conform to the facts of the crime, the detective told him what to say.  Fortunately, in that case all of the promises and lies were off camera.  However, the feeding of the facts to my client was captured on video and will make the difference in suppressing the statement as being a product of a coerced false confession.

Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr.

CriminalDefenseNJ.com

Elizabeth, New Jersey

(908) 354-7006

Dated: June 22, 2011

New Jersey Victims of Crime Compensation Office and the Defendant’s Right to Know.

The New Jersey Victims of Crime Compensation Office pays millions of dollars a year to victims and sometimes fraudulent victims who claimed that they have been injured by defendants.

The VCCO pays a maximum claim of $25,000.00 for various bills and expenses incurred by a crime victim, such as medical expenses, child care, and loss of earnings, and another possible $35,000.00 for rehabilitative services for victims claiming catastrophic injuries. In New Jersey this amounted to approximately 9.5 million in 2010.

The New Jersey Rules of Criminal Procedure require that every presentence report state the amount that the alleged victim has been paid from the VCCO.

N.J.S.A. 2C:44-6(3) provides that every presentence report shall include a report on any compensation paid by the VCCO, in my practice of criminal law for over 21 years, not one presentence report has contained that mandatory information.

The question arises as to why the VCCO payment or application information is not automatically made discoverable to the defense for purposes of cross-examination as to a possible motive in why the alleged victim made the charges against the defendant?

Therefore, in every applicable case it is mandatory that defense counsel request the information through a court order, if the prosecuting attorney is not willing to provide that information voluntarily. Even if the information is not helpful during trial, it nevertheless needs to be disclosed on the presentence report.

The criminal defense attorney who is involved in such a case and suspects that the victim might be falsely pursing the charges for a monetary gain must be diligent in being aware of that issue, for purposes of impeaching the credibility of the alleged victim.

Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr., has been involved in many criminal cases in which the credibility of the alleged victim revolved around a monetary motive for bring the false charges against the defendant. In a number of cases this information led to the ultimate dismissal of the charges by the prosecutor’s office, through pretrial disposition, or after a verdict of acquittal by the jury.

Sanzone Firm

Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr., Esq.

P.O. Box 261

277 North Broad Street

Elizabeth, N.J. 07207

CriminalDefenseNJ.com

YourCivilRights@gmail.com

(908) 354-7006

New Jersey Drug Court Program Its Pitfalls and Benefits.

There is no argument in the medical community that drug addition is a medical malady, no different than any other serious medical condition that takes sustained and prolonged medical treatment.

Often in the struggle to overcome addition the addict has periods of sometimes many months in which he is cured of his addiction. However, more often than not, the person addicted relapses into his drug dependency.

In New Jersey the Drug Court Program or “special probation”, requires the defendant to remain drug free throughout the program which can last up to five years. Ascertaining whether the defendant is drug free is done by having the defendant give weekly urine samples which are tested by a State approved lab.

The defendant who tests positive on a second or subsequent test is subject to the revocation of the special probation drug court program and a sentence to jail.

N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14(g) states that a person in special who is subject to drug court revocation can be sentenced by the judge to a limited time of incarcerated from 30 days to 6 months. However, to often judges facing a defendant with more than one positive test are too quick to discharge the defendant from the program and immediately send the defendant to a state prison sentence.

In deciding whether to discharge the defendant from the drug court program the judge must take into account any recommendations of the defendant’s medical or treatment providers. It is imperative that drug court judges understand the great difficulty that defendants with drug addictions have and understand that his is a life time struggle of each defendant who often falls, before the final cure.

There is no argument that a key component of the drug court program is accountability. However, accountability component must be measured with the reality that in most cases there will be slips in the process, and that a quick decision to terminate and jail the defendant does not serve the interest of justice.

In the event that the defendant is terminate from special probation he or she is entitled jail credit for all the time that he or she spent in any impatient facility.

If you are facing the prospects of entering or being terminated for the drug court program you are strongly advised to contact the Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr. who has over 21 years in the practice of criminal law in the State of New Jersey, and has handled and counseled many defendants in the New Jersey Drug Court Program.

April 29, 2011

Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr., Esq.

(908) 354-7006

CriminalDefenseNJ.com

YourCivilRights@gmail.com

Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr.

277 North Broad Street

P.O. Box 261

Elizabeth, N.J. 07207