No. 21-6620

Tormu Prall v. Andrew J. Bruck, Acting Attorney General of New Jersey, et al.

Lower Court: Third Circuit
Docketed: 2021-12-15
Status: Denied
Type: IFP
Response WaivedIFP
Tags: chain-of-custody criminal-procedure due-process evidence evidence-tampering fundamental-fairness prosecutorial-misconduct witness-testimony
Latest Conference: 2022-02-18
Question Presented (from Petition)

1). While incarcerated at the county jail between October 2008
and February 04, 2010, state witnesses Jeneya Richardson and
Kimberly Meadows wrote the petitioner to disclose being under
duress to frame him as the guilty party. They warned of the
perjured testimony the prosecution would have them suborn
against him, if he did not cop out to the twenty nine years plea
that the government would offer. Upon learning the letters were
in his possession,, agents of the county jail did not let the
petitioner to travel with his belongings nor shipped them to the
institution he was transferred to on February 05, 2010. Months
later, the petitioner filed a civil lawsuit in state court
asking the government to turn over his documents ..In a April 12,
2010 certification, the First Assistant Prosecutor Janetta D.
Marbrey repudiated the county jail and her office having access
to the letters .
Three weeks before the criminal trial, defense counsel moved to
compel. In response, the Assistant Prosecutor Lewis J. Korngut
took the position that the belongings were at the county jail
and defense counsel could go get them. Skeptical that the
letters had been removed, hidden, and would be nowhere to be
found, the petitioner and his attorney, requested the state
trial judge to have the prosecution and/or its agents bring the
belongings to the courtroom so that they could be inventoried in
front of the judge. This way, there would be a 'chain of custody
and the petitioner and defense counsel could put it on the
record if the letters were missing. The state judge wanted the
petitioner to trust that the prosecution didn't tamper with his
belongings, even as state witness Jeneya Richardson, attempted
to introduce a letter other than the one she wrote the
petitioner in the county jail. Whether the steps the petitioner
proposed for regaining access to those letters are a "watershed
rule implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the
criminal proceeding" Whorton v. Bockting, 548 U.S. 406, 416
(2007)?

2). None of the state witnesses was there when the deceased was
buried. In the absence of any testimony to that effect, the
prosecutor, in summation, declared that the petitioner did not
attend the funeral for his brother and asked what innocent
person acts like this. Not only did the remark inflame the
passion of the jurors, it assured them that his belief was based
upon something he knew from outside the record. Was this
fundamentally unfair prosecutorial conduct within the meaning of
Parker v. Mathews, 567 U.S. 37, 45 (2012)?

3). On September 25, 2007, there was an arson at 206 Wayne
Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey, with the victims inside. State
witness Jessie Harley testified that when she went to her
residence on Klagg Avenue a few days later to see if the
petitioner was there, she found the shirt he had been wearing
the night before the fire. This time, the shirt had dried blood
and skin smeared across the front. She threw the shirt away
because she was scared of him. Being that a scary person would
not have, after receiving news of the fire, went looking for the
petitioner without any law enforcement escort and assistance,
was it a due process violation for the prosecutor to present or
fail to correct the factual impossibility Jessie

Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether the steps the petitioner proposed for regaining access to those letters are a 'watershed rule implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding'

Docket Entries

2022-02-22
Petition DENIED.
2022-01-13
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/18/2022.
2022-01-11
Waiver of right of respondent Andrew J. Bruck, Acting A.G. of N.J., et al. to respond filed.
2021-11-30
Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due January 14, 2022)

Attorneys

Andrew J. Bruck, Acting A.G. of N.J., et al.
Jennifer Erin KmieciakN.J. A.G. - Division of Criminal Justice, Respondent
Tormu E. Prall
Tormu E. Prall — Petitioner