STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. LIONEL D. BROWNÂ (09-08-0689, ATLANTIC COUNTY AND STATEWIDE), A-0629-14T3

Lionel D. Brown was charged with murder and weapons offenses; he pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter under a plea agreement and received a 20-year NERA sentence.
Brown later filed a pro se PCR petition alleging ineffective assistance of plea counsel, including failure to move to suppress custodial statements after he invoked his right to remain silent.
The trial interrogation spanned ~11 hours on day one and resumed two days later; during the first session Brown twice said he wanted to stop and be taken to the county jail and said, "I don't even wanna talk about this shit no more. It's over."
Police continued questioning after those statements and later obtained detailed admissions; the second interrogation built on the first and produced further incriminating details.
The PCR court denied relief without an evidentiary hearing because PCR counsel had not submitted interrogation recordings/transcripts; appellate counsel later supplied the recordings and a transcript.
The Appellate Division reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing, concluding plea counsel likely was deficient for not moving to suppress and that Brown made a prima facie showing of prejudice warranting a hearing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether plea counsel was ineffective for failing to move to suppress custodial statements after invocation of right to remain silent	State: counsel reasonably declined to litigate; other evidence madegoing to trial irrational	Brown: counsel failed to move to suppress despite unambiguous requests to stop; recordings would have shown a Miranda violation	Court: Counsel likely deficient; failure to file suppression motion warrants an evidentiary hearing
Whether Brown invoked his Miranda right to remain silent during interrogation	State: statements were equivocal/upset talk, not invocation	Brown: he unambiguously asked to stop and to be taken to jail and said he didn’t want to talk anymore	Court: Brown unambiguously invoked his right; police continued unlawfully
Whether statements from second interrogation are admissible given alleged prior Miranda violation	State: later statements were voluntary and independent	Brown: second session was fruit of the initial violation	Court: Second session was intertwined with the first and likely tainted; would have been suppressed
Whether Brown was prejudiced such that he would have rationally rejected the plea and gone to trial	State: strong independent proof made going to trial irrational	Brown: would have insisted on trial but-for counsel’s failures	Court: Prejudice disputed and fact-intensive; remand for evidentiary hearing to assess credibility and rationality

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (Miranda warnings and invocation of right to remain silent require cessation of questioning)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (standard for ineffective assistance of counsel)
Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52 (prejudice standard for counsel errors in guilty-plea context)
Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (rationality standard for rejecting plea bargains)
State v. Johnson, 120 N.J. 263 (Miranda invocation must be scrupulously honored; unlawful follow-up questioning)
State v. S.S., 229 N.J. 360 (stating that saying one has nothing else to say constitutes invocation of right to remain silent)