While many took advantage of the fact that July 4 fell on Thursday of last week to close early on July 3 and/or remain closed on July 5, the Appellate Division issued published opinions on both of those days. Here are summaries:
State v. Matrongolo, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2024). Judge Natali’s opinion in this case dealt with access to the Recovery Court, formerly known as the Drug Court. As he stated, Recovery Court is a program created by the judiciary that “combats the hopelessness of addiction with the hopefulness of treatment” through a team process in which “the Recovery Court judge, attorneys, probation representatives, and treatment professionals work together to support and monitor a participant’s recovery.” Defendant, who died while this matter was on appeal, sought admission to Recovery Court after having been convicted of a petty disorderly persons (“PDP”) offense. The Law Division denied her application, holding that Recovery Court was available only to persons convicted of a “crime,” and PDP and disorderly persons (“DP”) offenses are not treated as crimes under the Criminal Code. After first determining that defendant’s death did not render the appeal moot because the issue presented is “likely to recur whenever an individual with only a DP or PDP conviction seeks to enter Recovery Court,” the panel applied de novo review and reversed the Law Division. As Judge Natali went on to detail, there was “no support for the judge’s decision in the historical development of Recovery Court as conveyed in statute, the [N.J. Statewide Recovery Court] Manual [which governs eligibility for Recovery Court], and court decisions interpreting both.”
State v. Mellody, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2024). This was an appeal from a DWI and careless driving convictions. The police did not see defendant actually driving, but received a 911 call about a vehicle proceeding erratically, a report that included a description of the color and make of the vehicle and its license plate number. The police looked up the vehicle’s registration address and went there, where they saw defendant pulling the vehicle into the garage of that residence. They heard a loud “bang” as the vehicle entered the garage. The police entered the garage and performed field sobriety tests. Defendant unsuccessfully sought to suppress the results of those tests, and on appeal she renewed that effort. In an opinion by Judge Susswein, the Appellate Division reversed the DWI conviction and ruled that the sobriety tests should have been suppressed because there were no exigent circumstances that permitted the police to enter the garage. The panel remanded for further proceedings, directing the Law Division to decide whether the careless driving conviction, which was predicated on the way defendant drove into her garage, could be sustained based solely on evidence from the time before police entered the garage.