SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-4688-16T2

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

ALAMEEN F. ADAMS,

Defendant-Appellant.

_________________________________

Submitted June 4, 2018 – Decided

Before Judges Sabatino and Firko.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, 

Law Division, Essex County, Indictment No. 10-

07-1735.

Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney 

for appellant (Steven M. Gilson, Designated 

Counsel, of counsel and on the brief).

Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney 

for respondent (Jenny M. Hsu, Deputy Attorney 

General, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Defendant Alameen F. Adams appeals the trial court's February 

14, 2017 order denying his motion for post-conviction relief 

("PCR") without an evidentiary hearing. We affirm.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." 

Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the 

parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

June 15, 2018
2 A-4688-16T2

After a jury trial in 2011, defendant was found guilty of 

murder, first-degree robbery, and other offenses. The court

sentenced him to a thirty-five-year custodial term on the murder 

count with a thirty-year parole disqualifier, along with other 

concurrent sentences. In March 2013, we issued an unpublished 

opinion affirming defendant's convictions and sentence, rejecting 

arguments different from the ones he now makes in the present PCR 

appeal. State v. Adams, No. A-0727-11 (App. Div. Mar. 26, 2013). 

The Supreme Court denied defendant's petition for certification. 

State v. Adams, 216 N.J. 7 (2013).

As described in our prior opinion, this homicide concerned 

the shooting of the victim, Ian Morris (also known as "Steve"),

in an apartment building in East Orange. The State's proofs showed

that defendant and two other individuals named Michael Potts and 

Abdul Simpkins had been on the nearby street on March 24, 2010. 

Potts was looking for someone to sell him marijuana. Simpkins, a 

friend of Potts, suggested that he could ask his supplier, Morris, 

who lived down the street, to sell Potts the drugs. Defendant 

approached Simpkins and Potts and conversed with Simpkins out of 

Potts' earshot. 

Defendant, Simpkins, and Potts then went to Morris'

residence. A surveillance camera showed that defendant entered 

the building with Morris at 5:47 p.m. and left the building nine
3 A-4688-16T2

minutes later at 5:56 p.m. Around 6:00 p.m., Morris was found 

dead in the fifth-floor stairwell with a single gunshot wound to 

his head. There were no eyewitnesses to the actual shooting, 

although Potts described defendant's jacket as having a noticeable 

bulge in the stomach area, as if he seemed to be trying to hide

something. No gun was ever recovered or any forensic evidence 

tying defendant to the shooting. 

On direct appeal, defendant argued that the jury was tainted 

because they may have overheard defense counsel's discussion about 

trial strategy in the courthouse hallway. He also argued that the 

court should have charged the jury on the defense of voluntary 

intoxication. We rejected both of those points. State v. Adams, 

No. A-0727-11, slip op. at 5-11.

In his present PCR petition, defendant contends that his 

trial attorney was ineffective in not arguing a theory of thirdparty guilt. Defendant claims in this regard that his counsel 

should have invoked the excited utterance hearsay exception, 

N.J.R.E. 803(c)(2), to attempt to get admitted a statement that 

the decedent allegedly made to his friend Kelly Weekes an 

unspecified number of days before the shooting. In that statement,

the decedent, allegedly in an excited fashion, told Weekes that a 

"Dominican" person had pulled a gun on him, that he was "pissed 

off" that it had occurred, and that the Dominican would not get 
4 A-4688-16T2

away with it. After conducting a Rule 104 hearing, the trial 

judge decided this hearsay statement was too unreliable to be 

presented to the jury.

After considering the arguments presented in defendant's PCR 

petition, Judge Marysol Rosero rejected defendant's claims and 

found no necessity for an evidentiary hearing. She concluded that 

the excited utterance rule requires that the utterance be made 

"without an opportunity to deliberate or fabricate." See N.J.R.E. 

803(c)(2). Because of the unspecified time interval between the 

statement and the operative events, Judge Rosero ruled that such 

an argument for admissibility, even if it had been made, would 

have been unavailing. Judge Rosero also agreed with the trial 

judge that, even if the hearsay problem somehow could be

surmounted, the alleged statement was not reliable. Defendant now 

contests the judge's analysis.

On appeal, defendant raises the following sole point for our 

consideration: 

THIS MATTER MUST BE REMANDED FOR AN 

EVIDENTIARY HEARING BECAUSE DEFENDANT 

ESTABLISHED A PRIMA FACIE CASE OF TRIAL 

COUNSEL'S INEFFECTIVENESS FOR FAILING TO 

ESTABLISH THIRD-PARTY GUILT PURSUANT TO THE 

EXCITED UTTERANCE EXCEPTION TO THE HEARSAY 

RULE. 

Our review of this PCR appeal is guided by well-established 

principles. Under the Sixth Amendment of the United States 
5 A-4688-16T2

Constitution, a person accused of crimes is guaranteed the 

effective assistance of legal counsel in his defense. Strickland 

v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). To establish a 

deprivation of that right, a convicted defendant must satisfy the 

two-part test enunciated in Strickland by demonstrating that: (1) 

counsel's performance was deficient, and (2) the deficient 

performance actually prejudiced the accused's defense. Ibid.; see 

also State v. Fritz, 105 N.J. 42, 58 (1987) (adopting the 

Strickland two-part test in New Jersey). In reviewing such claims, 

courts apply a strong presumption that defense counsel "rendered 

adequate assistance and made all significant decisions in the 

exercise of reasonable professional judgment." Strickland, 466 

U.S. at 690. "[C]omplaints 'merely of matters of trial strategy' 

will not serve to ground a constitutional claim of inadequacy 

. . . ." Fritz, 105 N.J. at 54 (quoting State v. Williams, 39 

N.J. 471, 489 (1963), overruled on other grounds by, State v. 

Czachor, 82 N.J. 392 (1980)).

In order to obtain an evidentiary hearing on a PCR application 

based upon ineffective assistance claims, a defendant must make a 

prima facie showing of deficient performance and actual prejudice. 

State v. Preciose, 129 N.J. 451, 462-64 (1992). "When determining 

the propriety of conducting an evidentiary hearing, the PCR court 

should view the facts in the light most favorable to the 
6 A-4688-16T2

defendant." State v. Jones, 219 N.J. 298, 311 (2014) (citing 

State v. Marshall, 148 N.J. 89, 158 (1997)); see also Preciose, 

129 N.J. at 462-63.

We have considered defendant's appeal in light of these legal 

standards and the record. Having done so, we affirm the trial 

court's dismissal of defendant's PCR petition, substantially for 

the cogent reasons set forth in Judge Rosero's February 14, 2017 

oral opinion. We only add a few amplifying comments.

We fully agree with Judge Rosero that the victim's alleged 

statement to Weekes about the alleged prior incident with the 

Dominican was not an admissible excited utterance. The victim 

appears to have had an opportunity to deliberate or fabricate 

before making the statement. See, e.g., State v. Cotto, 182 N.J. 

316, 323-29 (2005) (ruling that a time interval of thirty-five to 

forty-five minutes was too lengthy in the context provided to meet 

the requirements of the rule). Moreover, we agree with the court 

that the probative value of the statement was minimal at best. 

Moreover, given the timing of defendant entering the building 

with the victim and hurriedly leaving ten minutes later, the jury 

reasonably made a circumstantial inference that defendant was the

victim's shooter. Although defendant argues that one of the other 

people, such as Potts or Simpkins, might have been the trigger 

person, or that some unidentified third party in the area might 
7 A-4688-16T2

have entered the building without being caught on camera, that

claim is highly speculative. 

We accordingly concur with Judge Rosero that defendant failed 

to present a prima facie case of ineffectiveness of his former

trial counsel. Because of that failure, an evidentiary hearing 

on defendant's petition was unnecessary. Preciose, 129 N.J. at 

462.

Affirmed.