State v. Burgess

Defendant seeks post-conviction relief from his 1990 conviction as a “leader of a narcotics trafficking network” under N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3, which has come to be known as the drug kingpin statute. The trial court sentenced defendant on that count to life imprisonment with twenty-five years of parole ineligibility. Defendant was also convicted on two counts of second-degree and six counts of third-degree drug distribution. The trial court sentenced him to seven years on each of the second-degree convictions and four years on each of the third-degree convictions. All sentences were ordered to run…