State v. Lodzinski, 248 N.J. 451 (2021). In an extraordinary development, the Supreme Court has granted defendant’s motion for reconsideration in this long-running, closely-watched murder case. Since Chief Justice Rabner was not participating, only six Justices considered the appeal originally. They split 3-3, resulting in an affirmance of defendant’s conviction.
Defendant sought reconsideration, asserting that the result deprived her of due process and calling for a seventh jurist to be brought up from the Appellate Division. As the Presiding Justice, Justice LaVecchia called upon Judge Fuentes, the senior judge in the Appellate Division, to act in the matter going forward. He and the three Justices who had dissented when the Court originally decided the case (Justices LaVecchia, Albin, and Pierre-Louis) voted to grant reconsideration and to schedule a new oral argument on October 25 or 26. The three Justices who had voted to affirm the conviction (Justices Patterson, Fernandez-Vina, and Solomon) filed a dissent.
The competing opinions contain a fascinating discussion of the meaning and applicability of court rules governing reconsideration, Rule 2:11-6, and permitting the Chief Justice or the Presiding Justice (in the Chief Justice’s absence) to call up an Appellate Division judge in certain circumstances, Rule 2:13-2. The 4-3 split on this reconsideration motion was unusually fraught, with the dissent labeling the majority’s ruling “nonsensical.” There is much to think about in those opinions on the procedural issues. But now the Court, augmented by Judge Fuentes, will again address the merits and seek to break the previous tie.