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Firm members Bruce Castor and Kaitlin McCaffrey recently achieved a victory in the Appellate Division of Burlington County New Jersey Superior Court for a firm criminal client.
Bruce Castor and Kaitlin McCaffrey Secure Precedent-Setting Win for Client’s Freedom
The Appeals Court reversed a suppression ruling of the lower court leading to firm’s client being released from jail, though only after the Prosecutor’s Office fought for over a year to keep him locked up by fighting Bruce and Kaitlin from the lower courts multiple times up to the Supreme Court of New Jersey twice, and even in the federal district court. Bruce and Kaitlin doggedly protested their client’s detention from the start because the search warrant that yielded the so-called incriminating evidence was obviously defective. The State used the evidence gained from this defective warrant to continually justify detaining the client in court after court. This is a man who had no criminal record accused of threatening his wife, but his wife completely backed her husband, and told prosecutors she was not, and never was a victim, even going so far as to hire a lawyer to tell the court she was not victimized.
The State misused its power and ignored the presumption of innocence to punish the firm’s client by skipping a trial altogether and going right to “sentencing” by holding him in custody for 14 months despite the defective warrant and an unwilling witness. Bruce and Kaitlin argued the State knew the search warrant was defective, but used its fruits anyway to improperly detain the client. Astoundingly, a lower court judge agreed. Just as astoundingly, the Appellate Division at once granted the client a rare pre-trial appeal of the adverse suppression ruling, and without even requiring oral argument, reversed the lower court judge, and suppressed the alleged incriminating evidence illegally taken from the client’s wife’s cellphone leading to the client’s release.
New Jersey Appeals Court Ruling Strengthens Rights Against Unlawful Cellphone Searches
Moreover, the Appellate Court’s opinion vindicated Bruce and Kaitlin’s arguments they had made all along, and in doing so deterred future prosecutorial over-reach into the contents of cellphones in all cases throughout New Jersey.
