Man serving 60 years for murder gets conviction overturned – NJ.com

A state appellate panel this week overturned the murder conviction of a man accused of fatally shooting a 35-year-old father in East Orange about four years ago due to “harmful errors” in the case that made the trial “unfair.”

A jury in 2018 convicted Akeeme Thompson, who is now 29, of murder and weapons charges in the 2017 killing of Pierre Collins. Superior Court Judge Verna Leath sentenced him to 60 years in prison and he’s been incarcerated at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.

The appellate court overturned the conviction since there was no recorded evidence that Newark Police Detective Murad Muhammad, who has since retired, informed Thompson that he had been charged before interrogating him. The appellate panel judges also ruled that Leath, the judge on the case, incorrectly allowed Muhammad to narrate footage of Thompson to the jury during the trial.

Attempts to reach the family of Collins by phone and social media were unsuccessful, and it was unclear if the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office intended to re-try Thompson or re-open Collins’ case.

“We are aware of the ruling,” Essex County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Katherine Carter said when asked about the future of the case. “We will be reviewing it to determine our legal options.”

Assistant Deputy Public Defender Zachary Markarian, who represented Thompson on appeal, said his client would be remanded to county jail, where an assessment will be made of his eligibility for pre-trial release.

“Mr. Thompson is gratified that the Appellate Division recognized that the trial court’s serious errors deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial,” Markarian said in a statement.

Collins on the night of the shooting called the mother of his two children, who lived in another state, and told her that “‘Mack just pulled a gun’” on him. She responded, “‘Mack? Mack who?’” to which Collins responded “our Mack” and then stopped responding.

Muhammad, the detective, traveled to the mother’s home and showed her a photo array. The mother of Collins’ children identified Thompson as the person who was referred to as Mack in the phone call and then he was charged and arrested, according to court records.

Police recovered 12 forty-caliber cartridge casings from the area of the shooting, the appellate court wrote. Authorities also found a forty-caliber Glock handgun magazine in an apartment Thompson routinely visited, court documents said, but it could not be determined if the magazine had been fired.

Although Thompson told investigators that he knew Collins, the victim, he did not admit to the crime when Essex County Prosector’s Office Detective Hervey Cherilien and Muhammad interrogated him. Attorneys for the state and Thompson disputed over whether detectives told Thompson he was charged in Collins’s murder before asking him to waive his Miranda rights.

Muhammad — who was on loan from the police department to the prosecutor’s office — testified at an evidentiary hearing he informed Thompson that he was charged with murder before the interrogation began. The judge found that it was captured in a recording of the interrogation and allowed it to be used during the trial.

However, the appellate panel found that the recording did not show that. In the recording, the appellate panel wrote, Muhammad only states that “‘I am going to ask you certain questions regarding H number 22-17, a homicide.’”

The appellate panel wrote that Thompson refused to sign a Miranda waiver, but Muhammad asked him if he understood his rights and he replied that he did.

The shooting occurred shortly after 1 a.m. on Ashland Avenue in East Orange, according to court documents. Investigators also obtained surveillance footage of an affordable apartment building three blocks away on North Arlington Avenue, where Thompson would routinely stay.

During the interrogation, detectives showed Thompson a still image of a person entering the North Arlington Avenue building around 1:26 a.m. He identified the person as himself.

They also showed him a second photo from the same day, claiming the person in that photo was wearing the same clothes as the person in the first photo. Thompson only said the photo was blurry and he could not make out identifying details in it.

Assistant Prosecutor Timothy P. Shaughnessy, who tried the case in Superior Court, said the case was circumstantial and there was no cooperating eyewitness at the scene.

“Justice was certainly done in this case,” Shaughnessy said in a statement after the verdict was handed down in 2018. “With no cooperating eyewitness at the scene, it could’ve been a difficult case, but the investigating detectives from the Homicide Task Force built a solid circumstantial case that led to this conviction.”

During the trial, Muhammad and Cherilien narrated surveillance video taken at both the shooting location and where Thompson would stay, identifying people and clothes that were worn at each location.

The defense attorney objected to allowing that since it was up to the jury to make the determination as to what the video showed. Leath overruled the objection and told the defense attorney to “wait until…something that you object to is actually before me, and then I can rule on it without predicting what the State is going to ask next,” the appellate judges wrote.

The appellate panel said Muhammad should not have been able to narrate and identify people or clothing in the video during trial since they were not present for the events in the footage, nor was the arresting officer. Muhammad merely compared video footage to other video footage, so his testimony was not rationally based on his perception, the appellate panel ruled.

“Although we might not conclude that Muhammad’s testimony identifying defendant in the video itself constitutes harmful error, we are convinced that the cumulative effect of its admission with the erroneous admission of defendant’s statement rendered his trial unfair,” the appellate judges wrote.

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Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.