State v. Bess

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Pkoctok, J.

Defendant Calvin Bess was convicted of murder in the second degree for the fatal shooting of James W. Grunden. He was sentenced to ten to fifteen years in State Prison. He appealed directly to this Court challenging his conviction and sentence.

The objective facts of the homicide are virtually undisputed. The defendant, age eighteen, was employed as a bartender at the Club Supreme, a tavern in Elizabeth. On December 11, 1966, in midafternoon, the decedent Grunden was a patron sitting at the bar. Two men and a woman employee were also sitting…