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Charles M. Grant, 37, has been serving a life sentence for the shooting death more than three years earlier of Isaac "Blaze" Tucker, a 40-year-old father of six.
Grant had eluded authorities for more than 2½ years after the February 2015 killing before U.S. Marshals tracked him nearly 150 miles to a small northeast Maryland town.
No motive was established and no eyewitnesses were presented during his five-week murder trial in Superior Court in Paterson in late 2018.
Prosecutors contended that Grant shot Tucker at close range in the face, chest and back on East 16th Street, after they'd walked a few blocks from Alto Rango Liquor Store on 12th Avenue before dawn.
Tucker was planning to open a restaurant with an insurance inheritance at the time, they said.
Grant, meanwhile, was being sought for another shooting two months earlier in the area of 12th Avenue and East 16th Street. The 26-year-old victim in that incident survived his injuries.
Grant insisted that he and Tucker had split before Tucker was found dead.
Jurors nonetheless were convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt based on surveillance videos and the word of an acquaintance facing a possible 10-year prison sentence for a weapons arrest who testified that Grant admitted killing Tucker.
They were also shown an unedited video of Grant being interrogated by a detective who insisted he was guilty and was clearly seen on surveillance video carrying a gun.
The jury convicted Grant of murder and weapons possession, for which a judge later handed down a prison term that didn't make him eligible for parole until 2079 -- if Grant lived to be 91, that is.
The Appellate Division of New Jersey Superior Court ruled that the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office shouldn't have presented the interrogation video.
Detective James Maldonado repeatedly told Grant he was "100%" certain he killed Tucker in retaliation for a previous killing. Surveillance video also showed him carrying a gun the night before the shooting, the detective told Grant during the interrogation.
Such conclusions are up to juries, not law enforcement authorities, the appeals judges said.
“Although police may use psychological methods such as trickery and deception in attempting to obtain a confession, to be admissible at trial, statements by an interrogating detective must still comply with the rules of evidence and not deny the defendant a right to a fair trial," they wrote.
The appellate court tossed the case, sending it back to Paterson for another crack.
Although Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes didn't immediately comment on the ruling, a spokesperson said her staff was considering its next move.
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