Case Title: New Jersey v. Ahmad

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 2021-06-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
SYLLABUS

This syllabus is not part of the Court’s opinion. It has been prepared by the Office of the
Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the
Court. In the interest of brevity, portions of an opinion may not have been summarized.

                    State v. Zakariyya Ahmad (A-54-19) (083736)

Argued October 27, 2020 -- Decided June 15, 2021

PIERRE-LOUIS, J., writing for a unanimous Court.

       In this case, the Court considers whether defendant Zakariyya Ahmad’s statement
to police -- which occurred when defendant was 17 years old and without his being
advised of his Miranda rights -- was properly admitted at his trial for multiple offenses
related to the murder of a café owner in Newark.

        On October 27, 2013, defendant, who had turned seventeen just two months
earlier, arrived at the Emergency Room at University Hospital in Newark at 11:20 a.m.
He had been shot in his left arm and leg. A detective and two other officers from the
Newark Police Department (Newark PD) arrived at the hospital shortly after defendant.
The detective asked defendant where he was shot and how he got to the hospital. While
medical professionals were tending to defendant, his mother, father, and other family
members arrived. Defendant was discharged at 2:30 p.m.

       Upon discharge, instead of being allowed to go home with his family, defendant
was advised by Newark Police officers that he had to report to the Newark PD.
According to defendant’s testimony at the evidentiary hearing, officers told him he had
no choice in the matter. Officers escorted defendant from the hospital to a marked police
car, put him in the back seat, and drove him to Newark PD’s Major Crimes Unit.
Defendant’s mother testified that officers told her she could not take defendant home or
drive him to the police station from the hospital.

        Eventually, Detective Rashaan Johnson of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office
(ECPO) told defendant and his father to drive to the ECPO for further questioning.
Defendant rode with his father to the ECPO, but they were escorted there by Detective
Johnson. Earlier in the day, Detective Johnson had been dispatched to investigate a
homicide. Joseph Flagg, the owner of Zakkiyah’s Café (the Café), had been shot and
killed in an apparent robbery attempt. When Detective Johnson arrived at the Café, he
learned that a gunshot victim at University Hospital had reported being shot about four
blocks away from the Café earlier that morning. Upon leaving the Café, Detective
Johnson went to Newark PD, where he met defendant and his father and then escorted
them to the ECPO for questioning.

                                            1
        At the ECPO, Detective Johnson placed defendant in an interview room apart
from his parents. Defendant was told that the interview was being recorded but was not
advised of his Miranda rights. According to Detective Johnson, he did not suspect
defendant of killing Flagg or robbing the Café at that time. Defendant narrated his
version of the events of the day, stating that he was shot while walking on the street and
that he flagged down Steffon Byrd, who drove defendant to the hospital along with two
other men. Defendant stated that he recognized the two other passengers but did not
know their names. The interview concluded after twenty-seven minutes. Defendant’s
mother testified that she asked for the interview to cease because she saw an officer enter
the interview room holding what she believed to be a forensic kit.

       Detective Johnson later matched the bullet removed from defendant’s ankle and
blood swabbed from defendant’s pants to physical evidence found at the Café.
According to Detective Johnson, it was at that point that defendant became a suspect in
Flagg’s murder. Detective Johnson also reviewed surveillance footage from the morning
of the murder; it captured defendant, Ja-Ki Crawford, and Daryl Cline exiting the Café.
Crawford gave a statement to the ECPO incriminating defendant and Cline, stating Cline
had shot and killed Flagg and inadvertently shot defendant in the course of an attempted
robbery of the Café. Crawford reached an agreement with the ECPO pursuant to which
he would cooperate and plead guilty in exchange for being sentenced as a juvenile.

       Defendant was indicted, and a pretrial evidentiary hearing was held to address the
State’s motion to admit defendant’s videotaped statement at trial. The court granted the
motion, finding that defendant was interrogated as a shooting victim, not a suspect.

        At trial, Byrd testified that defendant was running down the street with Crawford
and Cline when the trio asked Byrd to drive defendant to the hospital. Crawford recanted
the version of events he gave earlier, testifying instead that he was at the Café when an
argument erupted between Cline and Flagg and that defendant, his close friend at the
time, was trying to deescalate the argument when Flagg attacked him. The State played
defendant’s statement, which was inconsistent with Crawford’s and Byrd’s testimonies
and did not account for the physical evidence obtained at the Café. Defendant did not
testify. The jury convicted defendant on all charges except first-degree murder.

       The Appellate Division affirmed, agreeing that defendant was questioned as “part
of an investigatory procedure rather than a custodial interrogation” and that Miranda was
therefore not implicated. The Court granted certification, “limited to the issue of whether
defendant’s statement was obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona,