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Jurors in Paterson originally convicted Charles Grant four years ago of gunning down Isaac "Blaze" Tucker, a 40-year-old father of six, after they’d walked a few blocks together from a city liquor store.
Grant was serving a life sentence for the killing when a state appeals court overturned the verdict -- ruling that certain evidence shouldn't have been presented at his trial -- and sent the case back to Paterson earlier this year.
Jurors this time deliberated for roughly a day and a half before returning guilty first-degree murder and weapons possession verdicts.
Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed will set a sentencing date for Grant, who will be returned to state prison.
Prosecutors said Grant shot Tucker at close range in the face, chest and back on East 16th Street as they walked from Alto Rango Liquor Store on 12th Avenue before dawn on Feb. 23, 2015.
Tucker was planning to open a restaurant with an insurance inheritance at the time, they said.
Grant, who was already wanted for another shooting two months earlier, high-tailed it after Tucker was slain. U.S. Marshals tracked him nearly 150 miles to a small northeast Maryland town, where they captured him more than 2½ years later.
Grant insisted that he and Tucker had split up before the victim was killed.
Jurors at the time were nonetheless convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt based on surveillance videos and the word of a defendant in another case who testified that Grant admitted killing Tucker.
They were also shown unedited footage of a detective telling Grant during an interrogation that he was “100%” certain that he gunned down Tucker in retaliation for a previous killing and that “no jury” would acquit him.
The jurors, in turn, convicted Grant of murder and weapons possession.
The Appellate Division of New Jersey Superior Court ruled that the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office denied Grant his right to a fair trial by presenting the interrogation video, however.
The appeals judges tossed the case, sending it back to Paterson for another crack.
Passaic County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Evan Mongiardo took it from there.
Grant faces a minimum 30-year stretch in state prison before he can be eligible for parole solely on the murder conviction. The gun conviction carries a mandatory minimum of 42 months.
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