reopening a suppression issue and granting defendant
post-conviction relief in order to apply a retroactive
holding of the Supreme Court on a warrant requirement
for a luggage search. The Appellate Division held that the
trial judge’s decision to reopen the suppression issue was
not an abuse of discretion. The Appellate Division,
however, held that its own earlier determination to
suppress evidence found in the passenger compartment
of defendant’s vehicle, a determination which both the
New Jersey Supreme Court and the United States
Supreme Court refused to review, remained the law of the
case, which the Law Division was bound to follow. Even
if the issue raised is of constitutional dimension, it may
not be relitigated it if was decided on the merits in a prior
appeal. State v. Smith, 43 N.J. 67, 74 (1964), cert. denied,
379 U.S. 1005 (1965); State v. Tomaras, 184 N.J. Super.
551, 553 (App. Div. 1982); State v. Cusick, 116 N.J.
Super. 482, 485 (App. Div. 1971).
Demonstrating that the doctrine is applied in a less
stringent manner to a decision of the trial court is the case
of State v. Hale, 127 N.J. Super. 408 (App. Div. 1974).
At defendant’s first trial, the court conducted a Miranda
hearing and excluded defendant’s confession because the
State had failed to satisfy the Court beyond a reasonable
doubt that the statement was given voluntarily. The first
trial ended in a mistrial by virtue of the inability of the
jurors to agree upon a verdict. The Appellate Division
subsequently ruled that the trial court’s initial ruling as
to the inadmissibility of the confession was not the “law
of the case” binding the court at the second trial. See also
State v. Powell, 176 N.J. Super. 333 (1981) (allowed
relitigation of admissibility of a confession implicating
the defendant in five separate crimes); State v. Cooper, 165
N.J. Super. 57 (App. Div.), certif. dismissed, 81 N.J. 261
(1979) (determination in Wade proceeding not law of the
case); cf. Texas Co. v. DiGaetano, 71 N.J. Super. 413, 423
(App. Div. 1962), aff’d 39 N.J. 120, 123-4 (1963)
(ruling regarding propriety of injunction not law of the
case because of public interest in subject matter; State v.
Roccascca, 130 N.J. Super. 585 (Law Div. 1974); U.S.
Pipe, etc. v. United Steelworkers of America, 37 N.J. 343,
352 (1962); Deverman v. Stevens Builders, Inc., 35 N.J.
Super. 300, 302 (App. Div. 1955) (further demonstrat-
ing application of the law of the case doctrine).
In State in the Interest of G.W., 206 N.J. Super. 50
(App. Div. 1985), defendants contended that the trial
court misapplied the law of the case doctrine in refusing
to conduct a second probable cause evidentiary hearing as
part of the waiver proceedings, even though probable
cause had already been established nine months earlier as
an adjunct to the detention hearing held in juvenile
court. The court noted the procedural differences
between the two probable cause hearings, as well as the
markedly different consequences to the juvenile, and
found that the law of the case doctrine should not be
applied to bar careful reconsideration of probable cause at
a waiver hearing. A second evidentiary hearing was not
required, however. In this case, the trial judge made an
independent determination of probable cause based
upon the evidence in the transcript of the earlier hearing
and the introduction of evidence that would minimize
defendant’s involvement in the offense in order to
enhance his chances of being found amenable to
rehabilitation. Since an independent search for the truth
had been conducted, the denial of defendants’ request for
a second hearing was upheld.