SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION DOCKET NO. A-0951- 22 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent,

v. RICHARD A. SAYAD, Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Submitted January 22, 2024

– Decided February 2, 2024 Before Judges Marczyk and Chase. On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Hudson County, Municipal Appeal No. 09

- 22. Richard A. Sayad, appellant pro se. Esther Suarez, Hudson County Prosecutor, attorney f or respondent (Meagan E. Free, Assistant Prosecutor, o n the brief).
PER CURIAM NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court.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 parti es in the case and its use in other cases is limite d. R. 1:36- 3.2 A- 0951

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Defendant Richard A. Sayad appeals pro se from the Law Division's September 8, 2022 order upholding, on de novo revie w, the municipal court's judgment convicting him of driving with an expired inspe ction sticker, N.J.S.A. 39:8 -9

. We affirm

. I. This matter was heard over Zoom before the Weehawke n Municipal Court. Defendant appeared pro se, and the State wa s represented by a municipal prosecutor. At trial , Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department Officer Romel DeLeon, a fourteen-year of ficer, testified as the State's only witness

. Officer DeLeon testified that on November 3, 2021, at 5:00 p.m., he was assigned to traffic duty at the New Jersey Toll Plaza in Weehawken

. He was positioned on the curb between the toll lane s . The officer testified he observed an expired inspection sticker displayed on defendant 's car. He testified that his observations of the color and printed numb er on the sticker led him to determine that it had expired in January 2021, more than ten months earlier. Defendant chose to testify on his own behalf

. He acknowledged he was "driving in peak traffic conditions," and when he a pproached the toll plaza, an officer "jumped out at me," and "almost caused an a ccident." Th e officer instructed him to pull over onto the shoulder where another police vehic le was3 A- 0951

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positioned . Although defendant testified the sticker could n ot have expired because he just bought the vehicle less than two ye ars prior, he admitted that it had an expired date on it. He attested the ticket had a creas e in it, so he thought that it was not expired. He stated, "[a] fter I to ok the car in for an inspection the next day, the inspector told me that they put the w rong sticker on the vehicle, that the sticker was supposed to be for a different vehicle . . . ." He further testified he had obtained a new sticker from Motor Vehicle s since he had gotten the ticket. Moreover, he testified he believed the d ealer he brought the car from was being investigated by the Attorney General's Of fice and the dealer must have put a sticker from another car on his. The Municipal Court Judge found defendant guilty of the violation and imposed a fine of $200 plus costs. The judge stated:

I find the testimony of Officer DeLeon to be credible. There is not much difference between the testimony of either [party] in this case. The

-- . . . officer testified that the vehicle's inspection sti cker was expired for several months, making it a refusal cha rge, that he failed or refused to have the motor vehicle examined within the time period prescribed by the director. The defense is that he did not know that he had to have it inspected. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. It also appears that this was not the righ t sticker on the car. So the defendant is very lucky that he was not charged with having a fraudulent inspection sti cker,4 A- 0951

- 22 which would have been under section C, which would have had a minimum fine of $500. So based upon the testimony of Officer DeLeon that I find very credible, I find that under [N.J.S .A.] 39:8 -9 this defendant failed to or refused to have his motor vehicle examined within the time period of th e director. I find that this inspection sticker had been expired for more than [ten] months. The Judge imposed a $207 fine and assessed $33 in c osts, and defendant appealed to the Law Division. After a de novo trial, the Law Division also found defendant guilty and imposed the same penalty on September 8, 2022. The Law Division Judge
rendered a detailed opinion, both oral and written, setting forth detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law on all the matters a t issue, ultimately finding the State proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Moreover, Officer DeLeon was found to be credible and defendant less than cr edible. On appeal, defendant presents the following points for our consideration: 1
I. HARASSMENT THAT OCCURRED OFF THE RECORD DURING [Municipal] COURTROOM SESSION.
II. IMPROPER BEHAVIOR OF WITNESS CALLING THE DEFENDANT DIRECTLY ON HIS CELL PHONE DURING ZOOM.

1 For the sake of discussion, the points have been re numbered from defendant's brief.5 A- 0951

- 22 III. TRIAL BY AMBUSH-THE UNANNOU NC ED WITNESS.
IV. WITNESS WITH A CRIMINAL HISTORY.
V. WITNESS WITH SELECTIVE MEMORY.
VI. PROSECUTOR PROVIDED INCORRECT FACTS REGARDING THE CARS ORIGINAL INSPECTION STICKER DATE OR [EXPIRATION].
VII. INCORRECT INSPECTION STICKER PLACED ON THE CAR FOR ANOTHER VEHICLE. VIII. BIASES AND [Municipal] JUDGE SUGGESTING NEW CRIMES NOT BROUGHT FORWARD BY PROSECUTOR.
IX. JUDGING BEFORE HEARING THE DEFENDANT'S TESTIMONY AND BIAS.
X. MUNICIPAL TRANSCRIPT MISSING IMPORTANT INFORMATION THAT WAS IMPORTANT FOR AN APPEAL.
II.
We affirm, substantially for the reasons stated in the Law Division judge's detailed oral and written opinion s. However, we add the following brief

comments. Pro se litigants are expected to follow the Court R ules. See, e.g., Tr ocki Plastic Surgery Ctr. v. Bartkowski, 344 N.J. Super. 399, 405 (App. Div. 2001)6 A- 0951

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(pro se litigants are regarded as lawyers for the p urposes of frivolous litigation under Rule 1:4 -8(f) ); Venner v. Allstate, 306 N.J. Super. 106, 110 (App. Div.
1 997) (noting that a "plaintiff's status as a pro se lit igant in no way relieves her of her obligation to comply with the court rules"); City of Clifton v. Cresthaven Cemetery Ass'n, 17 N.J. Super. 362, 364 (App. Div. 1952) (observing that compliance with a particular court rule should not be dispensed with when a

non -lawyer appears pro se). Many of the points on appeal argued by defendant come from a misunderstanding of bo th the municipal court and trial process. For example, because of the Zoom format, phone calls were made to defendan t from the Prosecutor and Officer DeLeon , which were pre-trial plea negotiations

. This had no impact on the findings by the judge.
In a trial de novo, the Law Division is oblig ated to "determine the case completely anew on the record made in the Municipal Court, giving due, although not necessarily controlling, regard to the opportunity of the [municipal court judge] to judge the credibility of the witnesses." State v. Johnson , 42 N.J. 146, 157 (1964). In a trial de novo, the Law Division :

does not affirm or reverse what occurred in the municipal court. Rather, the

. . . judge reviews the transcript and makes an independent determination of the sufficiency of the evidence presented, giving appropriate deference to any credibility assessments that the municipal court judge may have made . . . .7 A- 0951

- 22 "A trial de novo by definition requires the trier to make his own findings of fact." [State v. Kashi, 360 N.J. Super. 538, 545, (App. Div. 2003) (quoting State v. Ross, 189 N.J. Super. 67, 75 (App. Div. 1983)).] Moreover, the Law Division proceeding is not an app ellate one. The judge determines anew, based on the municipal court record, whether the State proved the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Ibid. Our own standard of review on appeal from a trial de novo in the Law Division is markedly different from that applied by the Law Division judge. Unlike the Law Division, we do

not make our own findings of fact , and our standard of review is deferential.
State v. Locurto, 157 N.J. 463, 474 (1999). We focus our review on "whether there is 'sufficient credible evidence . . . in the record' to support the trial court's findings." State v. Robertson, 228 N.J. 138, 148, (2017) (alteration in original) (quoting Johnson , 42 N.J. at 162 ). Deference is especially appropriate when, as in this case, two judges have
examined the facts and reached the same conclusion. As the Supreme Court made clear in Locurto, "[u]nder the two -court rule, appellate courts ordinarily should not undertake to alter concurrent findings of facts and credibility determinations made by two lower courts absent a very obvious and exceptional showing of

error." 157 N.J. at 474 (citing Midler v. Hei nowitz , 10 N.J. 123,8 A- 0951

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128

- 29 (1952) ). Therefore, our review of the factual and credibility findings of the municipal court and the Law Division "is exceedingly narrow." State v. Reece, 222 N.J. 154, 167 (2015) (quoting Locurto, 157 N.J. at 470 ). However,

we are not bound by a trial court's interpretations of either the law or the legal consequences that flow from established facts. See Manalapan Realty L.P. v. Twp. Comm. of

Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995); State v. Harris, 457 N.J. Super. 34, 43

- 44 (App. Div. 2018)

. Applying this deferential standard of review, we conclude the Law Division Judge properly found that defendant violated the ap plicable statute beyond a reasonable doubt

. As the court aptly stated when ruling on defendant 's testimony, "the evidence

– the substance of that evidence is evidentially problematic. The essence of the defense is that ot hers . . . were responsible for the display of the expired sticker

. Exclusive evidence and reliance is placed on those representations with no corroborating evidence tha t was presented . . . ." We add that the trial record clearly shows that def endant was in violation of the applicable statute. To the extent we have not addressed them, any remai ning arguments raised by defendant lack sufficient merit to warran t consideration in this opinion.
R. 2:11 -3(e)(2).9 A- 0951

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Affirmed.