An appellate court has agreed that his defense attorney had failed to file a motion in the case that would have allowed Meekins to claim that he had obtained the property legally.
Charles Meekins
TRENTON — Thirteen years ago Charles Meekins told a jury the contraband he was caught with on Hobart Avenue had come from a garbage can and that the owner had attacked him with a screwdriver, not the other way around.
The jury didn’t buy it. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Now, Meekins, convicted in 1999 of burglary and armed robbery, will get another chance to prove his innocence. An appellate court has agreed that his defense attorney had failed to file a motion in the case that would have allowed Meekins to claim that he had obtained the property legally.
Meekins, 68, was granted a new trial in Superior Court this month in the case where he was charged with breaking into the Hobart Avenue home in 1997 and attacking the homeowner with a screwdriver.
The homeowner, John Nalbone, a sports writer for The Times, told investigators he had come home from a picnic with his wife and spotted Meekins walking down his driveway with Nalbone’s CD player and other goods. The two men got into a scuffle and Nalbone claimed he was stabbed in the neck and arm with the screwdriver.
Police who arrived at the scene found evidence Nalbone’s home had been forcibly entered.
In his defense, Meekins said Nalbone attacked him, and that he was just using Nalbone’s property as a shortcut.
In the fresh trial, Meekins will have to defend himself against charges of robbery, burglary, theft, aggravated assault and weapons offenses.
After the guilty verdict in 1999, Meekins was sentenced later that year to life in prison. Prosecutors argued for the long prison term because Meekins had an extensive criminal history that included 10 prior convictions, most of which were for robbery, burglary or theft charges.
Meekins then appealed his lengthy sentence, but an appellate court ruled that he would be ineligible for parole for 20 years, but he persisted, proclaiming he should be acquitted and insisting on a new trial.
Meekins continued to fight his conviction and in 2010, in another appellate court decision, the case was remanded back to Superior Court, saying that Meekins could have used a “claim of right” defense, which would have enabled him to say he didn’t know the property belonged to someone else.
At a hearing yesterday, Judge Robert Billmeier set a trial date for Feb. 4.
At the same hearing, Meekins declined a plea offer from Assistant Prosecutor Tom Meidt that would have reduced his sentence to just four more years before parole eligibility.
Billmeier set Meekins’ bail at $250,000, giving him the ability to leave jail if he is able to post it. If he is released, Meekins is not to have any contact with the Nalbone family.
Meekins, who was homeless when he was last out of prison, will be represented in the trial by Anthony Cowell, an attorney with the office of the public defender.