State v. Timmendequas, 2011 WL 2326967 (App. Div. June 14, 2011). Talk radio personalities and others whose job it is to create controversy or to enhance the public’s fears have seized on this decision, issued yesterday by Judges Rodriguez, Grall and Miniman. The spin being put on this not for publication, six-page per curiam opinion is that it unwarrantably gives defendant, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Megan Kanka, after whom “Megan’s Law” is named, a chance to escape his life sentence and walk free.
In fact, the decision is a rather ordinary one. It primarily holds that defendant can pursue certain longstanding claims for post-conviction relief (“PCR”). A number of his PCR claims had been rendered moot by the repeal of the death penalty, to which defendant was originally sentenced. But other PCR claims were not moot, and the panel merely stated that and reversed the decision of the Law Division to preclude defendant from asserting those non-moot PCR claims. The Appellate Division did not give defendant any rights that he did not already have under the United States or New Jersey Constitutions. Nor did the court say, or even hint, that defendant’s remaining PCR claims have merit.
The remaining PCR claims relate primarily, though not exclusively, to alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. Prevailing on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim is a steep hill to climb. The applicable legal standards make it highly unlikely that defendant would prevail on his claims. Regardless, the panel did not change the law, but merely remanded non-moot claims for further consideration.
In fact, on the only legal issue presented, a challenge to the legality of the sentence, the Appellate Division considered the matter de novo and rejected defendant’s argument. The judges had no trouble doing so in a terse ruling. No one should believe any demagogic charges that the panel’s decision means that Megan Kanka’s killer will go free. The judges applied one aspect of the law against defendant and remanded his PCR claims to the Law Division for that court to apply the existing law that governs those PCR claims.