The Supreme Court Civil Practice Committee just issued its 2020 report about proposed (and rejected) amendments to the New Jersey Court Rules. The full report is available here. Comments on that report are due by March 20, 2020. There are many substantive changes in the proposed rules, which make this report required reading. But there is only one such change proposed in the Part 2 appellate rules, and it affects only criminal matters, and only a limited subset of those. There are also a few “housekeeping amendments” proposed, including changes to Rules 2:2-3, 2:9-3, and 2:9-10....

The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted certification in three cases. All are criminal appeals, one of which involved a published opinion of the Appellate Division. State v. Williams, where the Appellate Division published an opinion that is reported at 461 N.J. Super. 1 (App. Div. 2019), presents the following question, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office: “Does a resident of a rooming or boarding house have a reasonable expectation of privacy in areas beyond his or her bedroom door, e.g., in common areas?” The three-judge Appellate Division panel...

State v. Faulcon, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Judge Koblitz did not leave readers in suspense about the outcome of her opinion for the Appellate Division today. Her first sentence says “We hold that defense counsel who represented a State witness who was questioned in the investigation of a murder may not then represent the defendant in the same case.” The Appellate Division’s ruling today reversed a decision of the Law Division that had found that defense counsel’s former representation of the witness was not directly adverse and did not materially limit...