STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. CARL GOODING

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

CARL GOODING,

Defendant-Appellant.

_________________________________

SubmittedMay 13, 2015 Decided June22, 2015

Before Judges Fuentes and Ashrafi.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, Indictment No. 87-09-1997 and 87-12-2539.

Carl Gooding, appellant pro se.

Mary Eva Colalillo, Camden County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (Patrick D. Isbill, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Defendant Carl Gooding was convicted by a jury in 1988 for attempted murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, weapons offenses, and other charges that arose from the shooting of two persons. At the same time, he was convicted of a separate indictment charging an armed robbery. Because of defendant's record of three prior criminal convictions, the court granted the State's motion to sentence him as a persistent offender under N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7(a) and 2C:44-3(a). Defendant was sentenced to an extended term of life imprisonment on the charges from the shooting incident and to a consecutive term of twenty years for the armed robbery charge. The sentences included a parole ineligibility term of thirty-five years in the aggregate.

Between the time of his conviction and this appeal, defendant has unsuccessfully pursued a direct appeal to this court in 1991, State v. Gooding, A-4537-87 (App. Div. Nov. 4, 1991), certif. denied, 127 N.J. 559 (1992); a petition for post-conviction relief in 1993, which was also appealed to this court and the Supreme Court of New Jersey; a federal habeas corpus petition in 1999, followed by an attempted appeal through the federal courts; and a prior motion in 2008 to set aside his sentence. We heard the appeal of the 2008 matter on our excessive sentence oral argument calendar pursuant to Rule 2:9-11, and we denied it by order filed on June 30, 2010. The following month, we denied defendant's motion for reconsideration of the June 30, 2010 order.

Defendant now appeals from yet another attempt filed in 2013 to vacate his sentence, claiming that the sentencing court in 1988 did not have adequate proof of his prior criminal record to warrant imposition of an extended term sentence. The trial court rejected defendant's application by an August 6, 2013 letter-decision that referenced the resolution of the same issue in our June 30, 2010 order.

Defendant argues on appeal

THE DEFENDANT'S SENTENCE FELL WELL BELOW JUDICIAL STANDARDS, THEREFORE, REQUIRING VACATING AND REMAND FOR RESENTENCING.

We reject defendant's contentions and again affirm his sentence, as we did in the prior two direct appeals before us.

At the time of his sentencing in 1988, the trial court reviewed defendant's three prior convictions in Pennsylvania: in 1983 for robbery and conspiracy, for which he was sentenced to six months in custody; in 1985 for attempted theft, for which he was sentenced to one to two years in custody; and again in 1985 for burglary and conspiracy, for which he was sentenced to one-and-a-half to seven years in prison. Defendant did not challenge the accuracy of his criminal record at the time of his 1988 sentencing or on direct appeal. Our 1991 decision considered and affirmed defendant's sentence. State v. Gooding, supra, slip op. at 9-10.

Although we do not have the record of defendant's 2008 appeal of his sentence, our June 30, 2010 order also indicates that we considered and rejected defendant's argument that "the foreign convictions" did not qualify for purposes of imposing an extended term sentence. However, we also stated that our decision was "without prejudice to renewal when any further information is revealed about the foreign convictions."

In the renewed 2013 motion before the trial court, defendant alleged that evidence of the prior convictions was legally insufficient to prove that he was the person convicted of the crimes in Pennsylvania or that the crimes met the requirements of our Criminal Code for imposition of an extended term sentence. However, he did not present "any further information" about the prior convictions. He merely argued the law as to the adequacy of the evidence that was necessary to prove the prior convictions.

Having reviewed the record, we conclude that the prior convictions were adequately proven, without a contemporaneous objection or argument on the direct appeal. Defendant's renewed arguments do not warrant further discussion in a written opinion in this repetitious appeal raising again issues that have previously been decided. R. 2:11-3(e)(2).