The New Jersey Supreme Court made two critical constitutional rulings in one case. First, the Court ruled that the defendant’s right to confrontation was violated when the State introduced an affidavit of non-licensure that attested to a non-testifying witness’s search of the state database and conclusion that the defendant did not have a license to carry. Second, the Court ruled that the trial court should have suppressed the defendant’s incriminating statement because, in the two-step, unwarned-then-warned interrogation setting, the Miranda warnings issued to the defendant before his second statement were insufficient. The Court vacated the defendant’s conviction and remanded for a new trial.
