Jimenez v. Commonwealth

In this appeal, a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence and the granting of a jury instruction, notwithstanding his failure properly to preserve the alleged errors at trial. Consequently, we must decide whether to invoke Rule 5:25, the so-called contemporaneous objection rule, or to apply the rule’s exception, in order “to attain the ends of justice.”

Eddie Allen Jimenez was tried by a jury on a felony indictment charging that he “did obtain from James O. Simpkins and Sandra D. Simpkins . . . advances of money, with fraudulent intent, upon a promise to perform construction of a…