Court Rejects Appeal By Lakewood Officer's Murderer

TRENTON, NJ -- A state court has rejected an appeal by the man convicted of killing Lakewood Officer Christopher Matlosz to get his conviction overturned, according to the court decision.

The state Appellate Court upheld the conviction of Jahmell W. Crockam in the Jan. 14, 2011 shooting death of Matlosz as the officer sat in his police car on a Lakewood street in the decision, released Wednesday.

Crockam’s public defenders argued his conviction should be overturned on grounds that testimony about statements he made to two witnesses about killing a police officer and about outstanding warrants tainted the jury, according to the court ruling. The public defenders also argued that a text message with Crockam’s photo that identified him as the suspect unfairly swayed a witness had identified Crockam as the shooter.

The appellate panel ruled that the testimony from two witnesses about statements he made about killing a police officer to avoid going to jail and about arrest warrants were proof of Crockam’s state of mind and of his motive.

“... both witnesses testified unequivocally that defendant expressed a willingness if not an intention to kill a police officer. The trial judge noted, even if there was a possibility that a jury would draw an improper inference from testimony as to outstanding warrants, any potential risk can be addressed with a limiting instruction. Further, the judge noted that in criminal cases, the fact that a warrant was issued might be put before a jury in order to establish that the police acted properly,” the appellate panel’s ruling said.

The second issue was a photo of Crockam that was circulated via text messages identifying Crockam as the suspect in Matlosz’s murder. One of the witnesses to the shooting who identified Crockam via a photo lineup a couple hours after the shooting received the text messages, according to the documents.

The public defenders tried to argue that the text messages could have led the witness to pick out Crockam as the shooter. But the state argued that the witness received the text message more than three hours after he had picked Crockam out of a photo lineup and had said he was 95 percent certain it was Crockam.

The appeals court rejected that argument, saying the timing of the text message -- and the witness’s reciept of it as part of a mass text -- occurred well after the identification and could not be considered prejudicial.