STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. SALADIN THOMPSON
A-1375-11T4/A-2154-11T4 (CONSOLIDATED)
In this appeal, we set aside defendant's convictions for murder and weapons offenses, after our earlier remand to the trial court to conduct a hearing pursuant to State v. Gilmore, 103 N.J. 508 (1986). Based upon our review of the remand record, we determined that we were unable to determine whether
the State's exercise of seven of its nine peremptory challenges to excuse African-Americans was the product of impermissible discrimination as opposed to situation-specific bias, because the court failed to engage in the requisite "third-step" analysis established in Gilmore.
