New Jersey Appeals & Post-Conviction Relief
A conviction isn't always the end. But the clock is already running.
New Jersey gives you 20 days to appeal a municipal court conviction and 45 days to appeal from Superior Court. Beyond appeals, post-conviction relief can reopen cases lost to bad lawyering. Every one of those doors closes on a deadline.
Municipal Appeals — R. 3:23
Lost in municipal court? You get a second judge.
Convictions in New Jersey's municipal courts — DWI, disorderly persons offenses, serious traffic matters — are appealed to the Law Division of the Superior Court, where the case is heard de novo on the record: a new judge reviews the municipal transcript and evidence and decides guilt anew, owing deference to the municipal judge's credibility findings but not to his legal conclusions.
The deadline is 20 days from the conviction. Municipal appeals are a genuinely useful tool. Legal errors like a flawed suppression ruling, inadmissible Alcotest foundations or a mistaken reading of a statute get a fresh look from a judge who wasn't part of the original proceeding. And because the appeal rides on the record, how the municipal case was tried matters enormously; a well-preserved objection below becomes the winning argument above. Sentences, including jail and license loss, can often be stayed while the appeal is heard, if a stay is requested in time. This is a frequent path in DWI cases, where the technical issues that win appeals are common.
Appellate Division — 45 Days
Appealing a Superior Court conviction
Indictable convictions and sentences from the Superior Court are appealed to the Appellate Division within 45 days of the judgment of conviction. The appeal is a review for legal error. It doesn't retry the facts or hear new evidence.
What an appeal can do is reverse convictions infected by legal error: wrongly admitted evidence, denied suppression motions, flawed jury instructions, insufficient evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, sentencing mistakes. Remedies include reversal, a new trial or resentencing. What it can't do is introduce new witnesses or evidence, re-argue credibility, or substitute the appellate court's view of the facts for the jury's. Issues not raised at trial face the steeper "plain error" standard, which is one more way trial-level lawyering shapes appellate outcomes.
Appeals are won on the briefs. The work is transcript mastery and precise written argument, sometimes followed by oral argument, and it's a different craft from trial work. It rewards the lawyer who reads the record more carefully than anyone else in the room.
Guilty pleas narrow but don't eliminate appellate options. Sentencing issues and rulings expressly preserved for appeal (like denied suppression motions in certain cases) survive a plea. If you're weighing a plea and want to preserve an issue, that has to be structured before the plea is entered.
Post-Conviction Relief — R. 3:22
PCR: when the problem was your own lawyer
Post-conviction relief is New Jersey's mechanism for attacking a conviction on grounds outside the trial record, most often ineffective assistance of counsel. A first petition must generally be filed within 5 years of the judgment of conviction, with narrow exceptions.
Classic PCR grounds
A lawyer who failed to investigate witnesses or defenses, gave wrong advice about a plea's consequences (including immigration consequences like deportation), never communicated a plea offer, or labored under a conflict of interest. Constitutional violations that couldn't reasonably have been raised earlier also qualify. PCR petitions are filed in the trial court, can include evidence outside the record, and may earn an evidentiary hearing where trial counsel's performance is examined under oath.
Why PCR matters
For defendants who pleaded guilty on bad advice, PCR is often the only door back into the case. Appeals review the record, and the record of a plea usually looks clean. A successful petition can vacate the conviction or the plea and restore the case to where it stood before the error. The 5-year window is unforgiving, and building a PCR case takes months of record-gathering. Start early.
Appeals Questions
What people ask after a conviction
How long do I have to appeal?
The clocks are short and strict. A municipal court conviction is appealed to the Law Division within 20 days. A Superior Court conviction is appealed to the Appellate Division within 45 days of the judgment of conviction. Extensions are limited and never guaranteed. If you are considering an appeal, the time to call is the week of sentencing, not after the deadline has come and gone.
If I win the appeal, do I get a whole new trial?
An appeal itself is a review of the record for legal error: no new witnesses, no new evidence. A municipal appeal is a "trial de novo on the record," where a Law Division judge re-decides the case from the municipal transcript, giving deference to the municipal judge’s credibility findings. An Appellate Division appeal reviews the trial court’s legal rulings. If an appeal succeeds, the usual remedies are reversal, a new trial or resentencing.
My trial lawyer blew it. Is there anything I can do now?
That is what post-conviction relief (PCR) exists for. PCR is New Jersey’s version of a collateral attack on a conviction: a petition filed in the trial court raising issues that generally couldn’t be raised on direct appeal, most commonly ineffective assistance of counsel — a lawyer who failed to investigate, gave bad advice about a plea or immigration consequences, or missed a defense entirely. A first PCR petition must ordinarily be filed within 5 years of the judgment, with narrow exceptions for excusable neglect and fundamental injustice.
Do I have to start serving my sentence while the appeal is pending?
Not always. New Jersey courts can stay a sentence, including jail time and license suspensions in municipal appeals, while an appeal is pending. But a stay must be requested and argued; it is not automatic. This is a major reason to have appellate counsel involved immediately at sentencing, when a stay application can be made before the sentence begins.
If your conviction is final and served, the remaining fight may be clearing it: see expungement. On supervision and accused of a violation? See probation & parole violations.
How We Handle Appeals
From transcript to argument
- Protect the deadline. Notice of appeal filed, stay of sentence sought where appropriate, transcripts ordered. Nothing else matters if the window closes.
- Mine the record. Every ruling, objection and instruction gets reviewed against the law. Most records contain more error than the people in the courtroom realized at the time.
- Brief it to win. Appellate judges decide on the writing. We brief the two or three issues that can actually change the outcome, not ten that can't.
- Argue and follow through. Oral argument, supplemental submissions, and if we win, the remand fight that follows. A reversal is the start of the endgame, not the end.
20 days. 45 days. 5 years.
Every remedy has a deadline.
Bring us the judgment and the story. We'll tell you honestly whether there's a fight worth having, and exactly how long you have to start it.
Legal information on this page reviewed July 2026 against current New Jersey statutes. Laws change; nothing here is legal advice for your specific case.