Jersey City man's conviction overturned in alleged Facebook revenge killing
A New Jersey man's conviction for allegedly killing another man in revenge over a Facebook video was overturned Thursday by an appeals court.
Darius Bolden, now 39, had been sentenced to 45 years behind bars for the murder of Jason Dunbar on Aug. 27, 2019, in Jersey City.
Dunbar, 35, was killed shortly after a video of him fighting Bolden and knocking him down circulated on Facebook, according to prosecutors. Investigators said Bolden killed Dunbar in retaliation.
However, a state appeals court determined police interrogation footage was improperly used at Bolden's trial. The judges additionally ruled the trial included improper remarks from the prosecutor and unauthenticated video evidence.
The appeal centered around police officers' statements in recorded interrogations of Bolden, in which they spoke authoritatively about disputed information.
'Although the disputed statements may be viewed as proper interrogation techniques, they are not proper statements for presentation to the jury in an unredacted statement,' the appeals judges wrote.
The court reversed Bolden's convictions on first-degree murder and two second-degree weapons charges. However, a separate conviction for a third-degree drug charge remains in place, and was not part of the appeal, according to NJ.com.
While prosecutors could decide to retry the case, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office has not publicly commented on the court's decision.
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