7-30-09 State v.Taccetta (A-13-08)

Defendant cannot demonstrate that he suffered prejudice. Even
if he had been offered a plea agreement, and
regardless of any deficient advice from his attorney about his
potential sentencing exposure following a trial, based on his
protestation of innocence at the PCR hearing, defendant could
not have given a truthful factual basis in entering a guilty
plea to the State’s purported plea offer. A trial court cannot
be complicit in a defendant’s plan to commit perjury, and a PCR
court cannot vacate a jury verdict following a fair trial on
the ground that defendant would have pled guilty if he had been
given the opportunity to lie under oath.

Chase Smith assistant editor