Yesterday, Justice Fernandez-Vina turned seventy years old. That is the mandatory retirement age for judges, which Justice O’Hern, for whom I clerked, referred to as “the age of constitutional senility.” ...

To date, 2022 has not been kind to this blog. Down for a period of time due to malware, and then only partially restored, the blog is now fully ready ...

State v. Lodzinski, ___ N.J. ___ (2021). Today, the Supreme Court voted 4-3 to reverse the murder conviction of Michelle Lodzinski. Previously, as discussed here, the Court had split 3-3 ...

Due to my fifteen-year service on the Supreme Court of New Jersey Committee on Character, the date of any Supreme Court decision that implicates the Committee on Character is a ...

State v. Lodzinski, 248 N.J. 451 (2021). In an extraordinary development, the Supreme Court has granted defendant’s motion for reconsideration in this long-running, closely-watched murder case. Since Chief Justice Rabner ...

After this post about the Supreme Court’s busy August, that Court decided two more cases. Both were criminal appeals. Here are summaries: State v. Hannah, ___ N.J. ___ (2021). This ...

August is often a busy month for the Supreme Court, as the Justices count down to the new Term by deciding most if not all of the remaining cases from ...

As discussed here, Justice LaVecchia announced on March 8 that she intended to retire from the Supreme Court as of August 31 of this year. In the ordinary course, that ...

State v. Szemple, ___ N.J ___ (2021); J.K. v. New Jersey State Parole Bd., ___ N.J. ___ (2021). The Court decided these two criminal appeals in the last two days. ...

Pareja v. Princeton International Properties, ___ N.J. ___ (2021). This 5-2 decision addressed the “ongoing storm rule,” which Justice Fernandez-Vina’s majority opinion defined as a doctrine “under which a landowner ...