STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. WISE ALLAH

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-1218-06T51218-06T5

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

WISE ALLAH,

Defendant-Appellant.

__________________________________

 

Submitted September 24, 2007 - Decided

Before Judges Lintner and Sabatino.

On appeal from the Superior Court of

New Jersey, Law Division, Essex County,

92-05-01832.

Wise Allah, appellant pro se.

No brief was filed on behalf of respondent.

PER CURIAM

Defendant, Wise Allah, was convicted on two counts of first-degree robbery, N.J.S.A. 2C:15-1, on October 5, 1992, and sentenced to a fifty-year term with twenty years of parole ineligibility. The sentence on the October 1992 conviction was run concurrent with a prior fifteen-year sentence imposed in June of the same year. On May 11, 2006, defendant filed a motion for post conviction relief (PCR), challenging the sentence on his October 1992 conviction, claiming (1) he should not have been sentenced under the Graves Act and (2) the imposition of a mandatory extended term was improper.

On July 25, 2006, Judge Ravin denied defendant's motion, noting that he had raised the same issues in a previous PCR motion denied by the Law Division on June 22, 1997, and affirmed by the Appellate Division on November 10, 1999. He also pointed out that the Law Division had denied similar motions challenging his sentence on July 21, 2005, and February 2, 2006.

Defendant appeals, raising the same arguments, specifically:

POINT I

DEFENDANT WAS GIVEN A GRAVES ACT, EXTENDED TERM SENTENCE BUT NOT CONVICTED OF WEAPON, THUS ILLEGAL

POINT II

THE TRIAL COURT SHOULD NOT HAVE IMPOSED AN EXTENDED TERM BECAUSE THE STATE FAILED TO GIVE NOTICE.

PCR is precluded where the issue is substantially equivalent to that previously decided. R. 3:22-5; State v. Afanador, 151 N.J. 41, 51 (1997). These same issues have been previously raised by defendant and decided by our courts at the trial and appellate levels in both his direct appeal and previous PCR application. R. 3:22-5. His arguments lack sufficient merit to warrant further discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(2). We affirm substantially for the reasons expressed by Judge Ravin in his letter opinion of July 25, 2006.

Affirmed.

N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6c.

(continued)

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A-1218-06T5

October 4, 2007