Case ID: nj-super_107/html/0588-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Pee Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT, v. CLAUDE HAMMOND, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.
    Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division
    Submitted December 8, 1969
    Decided December 18, 1969.
    
      Before Judges Confoed, Collestee and Kolovsky.
    
      Mr. Samuel B. De Luca for defendant (Messrs. Krivit & Krivit, attorneys).
    
      Mr. Edward G. Megill, Assistant Prosecutor, for plaintiff (Mr. James A. Tumulty, Jr., Hudson County Prosecutor, attorney).
   Pee Curiam.

The trial court erred in limiting the six defendants, including appellant, to ten peremptory challenges collectively, rather than allowing them ten each. N. J. 8. 2A :78-7; B. B. 3:7-2(c) (now B. l:8-3(d)). See State v. Bogers, 19 N. J. 218, 227 (1955). Common legal representation at trial does not affect the right.

Defendants exhausted the ten peremptory challenges allowed by the court. Denial of the right to the specified number of peremptory challenges is prejudicial per se. See Wright v. Bernstein, 23 N. J. 284, 295 (1957).

There was no error in the other grounds of appeal argued, but for the reason stated the conviction must be and is Reversed.