With anti-vaccine protesters chanting loudly outside the Statehouse, the New Jersey Senate confirmed the reappointment of Associate Justice Lee Solomon of the New Jersey Supreme Court, as well as 17 current sitting Superior Court judges and a new commissioner for the Department of Environmental Protection.
In its July 5 decision in State v. Goldsmith, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that evidence of guns and drugs should have been suppressed because the police officers lacked a sufficient basis to detain the defendant. A key issue was whether the officers were “blocking [defendant’s] way” and the only testimony at the suppression hearing came from one of the officers, who testified that they approached the defendant as he was walking out of an “alleyway” or “walkway” adjacent to a vacant house.
A photograph of the house and walkway went into evidence, and the testifying officer marked the officers’ “exact location” on the photograph. According to the dissent, the photograph was “critical” but, “for reasons unknown,” it was “missing from the record on appeal.”
