New Jersey’s Compassionate Release Act is supposed to do one thing well. It exists to ensure incarceration does not become a death sentence for someone who is seriously ill, medically vulnerable, or otherwise unable to be safely housed. The New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Celestine Payne is a reminder,…
The New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Ebenezer Byrd is about something most people don’t think about until it happens: what a judge has to do when there is a credible report that a juror may be breaking the rules in the middle of a criminal trial. At its core, the…
The New Jersey Supreme Court’s December 4, 2025 decision in State v. Caneiro is a big reminder that “exigent circumstances” is not a slogan courts apply in hindsight, but an objective, fact-sensitive test grounded in what officers reasonably knew in the moment. Here, the Court focused on whether the exigent-circumstances exception applied during an…