SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-4809-18T4

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

RASHON JONES,

Defendant-Appellant.

Submitted May 12, 2020 - Decided June 9, 2020

Before Judges Fisher and Accurso.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, 

Law Division, Essex County, Indictment No. 95-06-

2283.

Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for 

appellant (Alyssa A. Aiello, Assistant Deputy Public 

Defender, of counsel and on the brief).

Theodore N. Stevens II, Acting Essex County 

Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (Frank J. Ducoat, 

Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Assistant 

Prosecutor, of counsel and on the briefs).

Appellant filed a pro se supplemental brief.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE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.
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PER CURIAM

Defendant Rashon Jones appeals from the denial of his motion for 

resentencing on his 1995 convictions for murder and aggravated assault based 

on "newly discovered evidence." That evidence in defendant's view was the 

"new scientific information" on adolescent brain development that prompted 

the United States Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 480 

(2012), to declare that "children are different" when it comes to sentencing,

and that "mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the 

time of their crimes" violates the Eighth Amendment, and prompted our own 

Supreme Court to require that a sentencing court take into account the "Miller

factors," that is, a defendant's "'immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to 

appreciate risks and consequences'; 'family and home environment'; family and 

peer pressures; 'inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors' or his own 

attorney; and 'the possibility of rehabilitation,'" whenever sentencing "a 

juvenile to a lengthy period of parole ineligibility for a single offense," or 

"multiple offenses at different times," or in deciding "whether to run counts 

consecutively," and in determining "the length of the aggregate sentence," 

State v. Zuber, 227 N.J. 422, 447, 453 (2017) (quoting Miller, 567 U.S. at 477-

78).
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Defendant was three weeks shy of his twentieth birthday when he 

savagely bludgeoned to death his sixteen-year-old former girlfriend over 

several hours while she cried and begged him to stop hitting her. The trauma 

surgeon who attended to her testified she had massive contusions to her face 

and head and that the swelling in her brain was so great it irreparably damaged 

her neurological centers, leading to cardiovascular collapse. State v. Jones, 

No. A-1165-96 (App. Div. May 28, 1999) (slip op. 7). At the time of her 

death, the victim's lower jaw was still immobilized by a steel rod used to repair 

the two fractures defendant had caused two months earlier when he repeatedly 

punched her in the face in the course of dropping her off at school. Id. at 2-3.

The jury convicted defendant of knowing and purposeful murder and 

second-degree aggravated assault, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison 

with a thirty-year period of parole ineligibility for the murder and to a 

consecutive ten-year term with five years of parole ineligibility on the 

aggravated assault. Id. at 1-2. We affirmed defendant's conviction and 

sentence, finding no error. Ibid. We specifically noted that we did not find the 

aggregate sentence and parole ineligibility term imposed, including for "an 

especially depraved purposeful or knowing murder," to be "in the least 
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shocking," and certainly not an abuse of the sentencing judge's discretion. Id.

at 23-24. 

Judge Cronin denied defendant's motion for resentencing. In a cogent 

statement of reasons, the judge determined the "new scientific information" 

defendant cited failed to meet the criteria for newly discovered evidence under 

State v. Carter, 85 N.J. 300, 314 (1981). The judge further determined 

defendant's "reliance on Zuber and Miller [was] misplaced" because those 

cases are limited to juvenile defendants, and defendant was almost two years 

beyond the age of majority when he committed his crimes. Judge Cronin also 

found that even were Zuber extended to nineteen-year-olds, "it still would not

apply" as defendant will become eligible for parole in 2030, at which time he 

will be fifty-four years old.

Defendant appeals, raising a single issue through counsel:

THE CONSECUTIVE MAXIMUM PRISON TERMS 

IMPOSED ON DEFENDANT FOR OFFENSES HE 

COMMITTED WHEN HE WAS 19 YEARS OLD 

WAS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT 

BECAUSE THE SENTENCING COURT DID NOT 

CONSIDER THAT NEUROSCIENCE STRONGLY 

COUNSELS AGAINST IMPOSING SUCH A 

LENGTHY PRISON TERM ON PERSON OF THAT 

AGE. U.S. CONST. AMEND VIII, XIV; N.J. 

CONST. ART. I, ¶ 12. THEREFORE, THE TRIAL 

COURT ERRED IN DENYING DEFENDANT'S 

MOTION FOR A ZUBER RESENTENCING.
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A. As Zuber Instructs, Jones Received the Type 

of "Very Lengthy" Prison Sentence That Should Not 

Be Imposed unless Proper Consideration has been 

Given to Defendant's Youth at the Time of the 

Offense.

B. The Neuroscience Underlying Miller, 

Graham and Roper Applies with Equal Force to a 

Nineteen-Year-Old Offender.

Defendant raises two points in his pro se supplemental brief:

POINT I

THE MOTION JUDGE ERRED IN DENYING 

DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL 

BASED ON NEW SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE ABOUT 

BRAIN DEVELOPMENT OF ADOLESCENTS 

OVER THE AGE OF 18 THAT WOULD SUPPORT 

A JURY INSTRUCTION ON PASSION/ 

PROVOCATION MANSLAUGHTER THAT WAS 

PREVIOUSLY UNAVAILABLE TO DEFENDANT.

POINT II

THE MOTION JUDGE ERRED IN FAILING TO 

APPOINT COUNSEL TO REPRESENT 

DEFENDANT AND TO GRANT DEFENDANT AN 

EVIDENTIARY HEARING.

We reject those arguments as without sufficient merit to warrant 

discussion in a written opinion, R. 2:11-3(e)(2), and affirm, essentially for the 

reasons expressed by Judge Cronin in his opinion of April 15, 2019. As Judge 

Cronin noted, Miller and Zuber, which apply only to juvenile defendants, have 
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no applicability here as defendant was not a juvenile but a nearly twenty-yearold man when he committed the murder and aggravated assault for which he 

was sentenced. Further, defendant's aggregate thirty-five year mandatory 

minimum sentence, which will make him eligible for parole at age fifty-four, is 

not the functional equivalent of a life sentence without parole in any event.

Affirmed.