Nguyen v. Att'y Gen. of NJ, No. 15-3902 (3d Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseIn 2002, at a New Jersey wedding reception, Nguyen shot another guest eight times, killing him. Nguyen shot at another guest, but missed. The bullet lodged in the wall. Several eye witnesses, each of whom knew Nguyen, identified him to the police as the shooter and stated that Nguyen fled the scene in a 1996 Honda with Alabama license plates. They provided Nguyen’s Brooklyn address. When officers arrived at his residence, Nguyen barricaded himself inside with his two-year-old son, and stated that he would shoot his son and the officers if they attempted to enter. After a four-hour standoff, Nguyen was taken into custody. Nguyen pleaded guilty to New York indictments and was sentenced to five-to-15 years. A gun found hidden in Nguyen’s car was confirmed to be the weapon used in the wedding shootings. A New Jersey grand jury indicted him for the shootings. After extensive motion practice and three years pursuing an insanity defense, he pleaded guilty, in 2009, to aggravated manslaughter and attempted murder. Nguyen was sentenced to 20 years, to run concurrently with his New York sentence from the date of his New Jersey guilty pleas. The Third Circuit affirmed denial of his habeas petition, in which Nguyen argued ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to raise a Sixth Amendment speedy trial violation and concerning the trial court’s ruling on the admissibility of his post-arrest statements. Counsel had, in fact, raised the speedy trial issue.
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