STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. SANTOS L. VARGAS(15-03-0194, UNION COUNTY AND STATEWIDE), A-4081-15T1

Defendant Santos L. Vargas was convicted by a jury of second-degree robbery and sentenced to a 13-year extended term subject to NERA.
Robbery occurred in public; victim and eyewitness (Anagbo) observed the event; security-camera video recorded the robbery.
Anagbo followed Vargas to a nearby gas station, called 911, and while still on the call pointed out Vargas to arriving police.
Police brought the victim to the gas station about 10–15 minutes after the robbery for a show-up; she immediately and confidently identified Vargas.
Officer Munoz spoke to the Spanish-speaking victim in Spanish during the short drive and told her police had detained a "possible suspect;" on-scene identification forms were not in the patrol car and were completed the next day.
Defendant moved to exclude the show-up identification (Wade hearing) and later challenged denial of Drug Court and sentence as excessive.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of show-up identification	Identification was contemporaneous, not unfairly suggestive, and reliable	Show-up was suggestive and lacked required documentation and Henderson analysis	Court affirmed admission: judge credited witnesses, found identification reliable and no need for extended Henderson hearing
Compliance with Delgado recordkeeping	State acknowledged forms missing in patrol car but contends no prejudice; identification reliable	Failure to keep on-scene forms violated Delgado and undermines review	Court noted forms were completed later; defendant failed to supply forms on appeal; no reversible error shown
Use of extrinsic evidence to bolster ID (Jones)	State relied on victim's in-court ID and circumstances, not extrinsic guilt evidence	Defendant argued judge improperly relied on eyewitness Anagbo to support victim ID	Court rejected defendant's claim that judge relied on Anagbo to bolster victim ID and found no Jones violation
Denial of Drug Court / sentencing	State/ sentencing court considered risk factors and prior history in denying Drug Court and imposing sentence	Vargas argued court penalized him for going to trial and misweighed prior history; requested Drug Court evaluation	Remanded for resentencing: court erred by negatively weighing Vargas's exercise of trial right; ordered new sentencing and TASC evaluation

State v. Henderson, 208 N.J. 208 (2011) (framework for assessing reliability of eyewitness identifications)
State v. Jones, 224 N.J. 70 (2016) (limits on using extrinsic evidence of guilt when evaluating identification reliability)
State v. Delgado, 188 N.J. 48 (2006) (on-scene identification recordkeeping requirements)
United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967) (right to pretrial identification hearing)
State v. Randolph, 210 N.J. 330 (2012) (resentencing considerations and evaluating defendant at time of resentencing)
State v. Jimenez, 266 N.J. Super. 560 (App. Div. 1993) (prohibition on imposing a penalty for exercising right to trial)
Cipala v. Lincoln Technical Institute, 179 N.J. 45 (2004) (appellate review limits when record or documents not provided by appellant)