NJ man’s conviction reinstated for murdering girlfriend’s dealer
A New Jersey man who fatally shot his girlfriend’s drug dealer had his murder conviction reinstated Tuesday by the state’s highest court.
The New Jersey Supreme Court voted 7-0 to reinstate the conviction of Michael Owens, who was behind bars for the July 2020 murder of Luis Gonzalez in Trenton.
Owens, now 32, was first convicted in 2022, after a jury agreed with investigators that he choked his girlfriend in a rage, then went to Gonzalez’s home and shot him.
Owens was angry with Gonzalez and his girlfriend because Gonzalez was selling his heroin, authorities said. On appeal, Owens argued that he should have been eligible for a conviction for manslaughter, not murder, because it was a case of “passion/provocation.”
The first appeals court agreed with Owens’ argument, throwing out his murder conviction in 2024. However, he remained in prison for the aggravated assault against his girlfriend, and Morris County prosecutors appealed the case to New Jersey’s highest court.
On Tuesday, the state Supreme Court overturned the decision, ruling that Owens was not entitled to the lower standard for involuntary manslaughter because his defense attorneys never mentioned it during his trial.
“No charge of involuntary manslaughter with passion/provocation was requested because ‘Gonzalez did not provoke the accused’ [and] The defendant “had ample time to calm down before shooting Gonzalez,'” the high court wrote, citing Justice Robert Gilson’s dissenting opinion on the initial appeal.
Owens also appealed his conviction, which will be tried in a lower court. He was initially sentenced to 45 years in prison.
