State v. Allen, 254 N.J. 530 (2023)

Raymond Brown argued before the New Jersey Supreme Court on behalf of amicus curiae ACDL-NJ that the detective's narration of a surveillance video deprived the defendant of a fair trial. The Supreme Court agreed that certain portions of the video narration were improper, but found that the evidence was so overwhelming that this error was harmless. Justice Pierre-Louis's dissent, however, agreed with our position that the error was harmful to the defendant. Moreover, we argued that a jury charge would be necessary in cases where video narration was permitted. In Watson, decided the same day as Allen, the Court agreed with this argument, instructing the Criminal Practice Committee to draft a jury instruction to apply when video narration is utilized. CJ Griffin co-authored the brief.

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