In Radel, the police executed a controlled arrest in the driveway — a distance from the home’s entrance — with watchful eyes on the front and rear doors of the house. The officers did not face a discernible threat. The officers had no specific information that another person was in the house, nor was there […]

Justice Albin continued in relevant part: The Court finds that, in balancing the fundamental privacy rights afforded to the home under the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution and the unquestionable need to ensure officer safety when an arrest is made in the area immediately outside a home, the […]

Justice Albin continued in relevant part: The Court set forth a two-tiered standard governing the scope of a protective search of a residence during an in-home arrest: (1) “Officers could, as a precautionary matter and without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, look in closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which […]

The New Jersey Supreme Court continued in relevant part: The next day, a search warrant was issued, and multiple weapons were seized from Terres’s trailer. The trial court denied Terres’s motion to suppress the evidence, and the Appellate Division affirmed. After initially denying certification, 244 N.J. 309 (2020), the Court granted both Terres’s motion for […]

Justice Albin continued in relevant part: In the bedroom, which was littered with loose bullets and shell casings, Detective Petrosky struggled with Boston and eventually handcuffed him. A computer check revealed that both Boston and Willis had outstanding warrants for their arrest. Willis identified a photograph of Fuller shown to him and indicated that Fuller […]

The New Jersey Supreme Court continued in relevant part: The police transported Radel to headquarters and secured the residence. After obtaining a search warrant, the police found multiple weapons, drugs and related paraphernalia, and over $8,000 in cash. The trial court denied Radel’s motion to suppress the evidence, and the Appellate Division reversed, finding “no […]

Within ten minutes of the start of the surveillance, a sergeant heard a very loud metallic bang coming from the backyard of 81 Browertown and, almost simultaneously, saw a person “wearing something blue” enter the rear door of the residence. Less than ten minutes after the sergeant’s sighting of a blue-clad person in the backyard, […]

On January 20, 2022, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided the companion Union and Salem County cases of State v. Terres and State v. Radel. The principal issues were whether the police have a right to conduct a protective sweep of a home when an arrest is made outside the home and, if so, the […]

Justice Pierre-Louis concluded with the following in relevant part: Applying those principles, the Court does not find that the information Sergeant Horan possessed at the time of the motor-vehicle stop constituted reasonable and articulable suspicion. Certainly, race and sex — when taken together with other, discrete factors — can support reasonable and articulable suspicion. But […]

The unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court continued in relevant part: The only information the officer possessed at the time of the stop was the race and sex of the suspects, with no further descriptors. That information, which effectively placed every single Black male in the area under the veil of suspicion, was insufficient to justify […]