On February 23, 2007, Dion Miller, was convicted at a second trial of felony murder, robbery, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon stemming from the assault and robbery of a 74-year-old man. Mr. Miller was sentenced to an aggregate term of 30 years in prison, without eligibility for parole.
On January 5, 2003, Romeo Cavero, the victim, was robbed of cash and hit numerous times in the head, outside a senior citizens’ building on Van Nostrand Avenue, in Jersey City. After being transported to Jersey City Medical Center, Mr. Cavero’s health deteriorated and he passed away shortly thereafter, on January 9, 2003.
Mr. Miller submitted a request to the Conviction Review Unit (CRU) for the matter to be reopened. The CRU conducted a re-investigation of the facts and review of new evidence relevant to Mr. Miller’s conviction, that had previously not been available to the jury, and concluded that there was clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Miller should not have been convicted.
The victim never identified Mr. Miller as his attacker. After the assault, Mr. Cavero told family members and an arriving officer that he had been assaulted from behind and robbed of money. The study also discovered that Mr. Miller was only implicated in the crime by three fabricated confessions, which lacked credibility for a number of reasons. Police obtained three false confessions from Mr. Miller, each of which featured a number of discrepancies in the specifics and descriptions of the incidents. Additionally, none of the confessions matched the description of the crime provided by the victim.
The investigation turned up proof that Mr. Miller was given information by the cops throughout the 17 hours of his questioning, which he subsequently repeated back to them in his false confessions. This procedure changed Mr. Miller’s testimony to meet the investigators’ perception of the truth. Additionally, the information obtained throughout the investigation showed that Mr. Miller was questioned by one officer alone, away from the other officers participating in his questioning, just after giving the three prior false admissions. Mr. Miller claimed that he did not commit the crime, and that he merely admitted to it out of fear of retaliation from the detective who came up with the evidence during the CRU’s re-investigation. Mr. Miller already spent approximately 16 years in New Jersey State Prison.
On July 27, 2023, attorneys for the CRU and Mr. Miller appeared in court in Hudson County before Superior Court Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez, P.J.S.C. Laura Cohen and Nyssa Taylor from the Rutgers University New Jersey Innocence Project were Mr. Miller’s representatives. Professor Laura Cohen and attorney Nyssa Taylor are in charge of the inter-disciplinary, law school-based New Jersey Innocence Project, which works to liberate those who have been unfairly imprisoned in the state.
The CRU will keep pushing for an accurate, fair, and evidence-based judicial system in New Jersey because innocent people shouldn’t suffer or linger in jail. The CRU is also currently conducting a new investigation into the robbery, assault, and murder of Mr. Cavero.
