NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3. SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION DOCKET NO. A-0097-18T2 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. ROBERT H. RAMGEET, a/k/a CHARLES D. DAVIS, and ROBERT H. RAMJEET, Defendant-Appellant. _____________________________ Submitted January 28, 2020 – Decided February 7, 2020 Before Judges Fisher and Gilson. On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Union County, Indictment No. 04-08-0958. Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Monique D. Moyse, Designated Counsel, on the brief). Lyndsay V. Ruotolo, Union County Acting Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (Michele C. Buckley, Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief). PER CURIAM Defendant, a Jamaican citizen, was indicted and charged in 2004 with various offenses. In 2006, pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, defendant pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit kidnapping, N.J.S.A. 2C:5-2(a)(2), and first-degree carjacking, N.J.S.A. 2C:15-2. He was sentenced, on April 13, 2007, to an aggregate twelve-year prison term with an eighty-five percent period of parole ineligibility. Defendant did not file a direct appeal. Instead, in May 2016, more than nine years after sentencing, defendant filed a post-conviction relief (PCR) petition, arguing his trial attorney misadvised him about the deportation consequences of the guilty plea. Without conducting an evidentiary hearing, the PCR judge denied relief, finding the PCR petition was both time-barred and without merit. Defendant appeals, arguing in three points that he was "entitled to an evidentiary hearing," that his guilty plea was defective because the deportation consequences were not adequately explained, and that the PCR judge erred by finding the PCR petition untimely. We find insufficient merit in these arguments to warrant further discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(2). We add only the following comments. A-0097-18T2 2 In his PCR petition, defendant asserted that: he was not a United States citizen; he told this to his trial attorney; he asked his attorney about the deportation consequences of a guilty plea; his attorney never gave him "any straight answers"; and the attorney said defendant "would be able to fight that afterwards in immigration court." Defendant also claimed that he learned after his release from prison that his crimes were aggravated felonies and that deportation was "mandatory." Defendant asserts that had he known this in 2006, he would not have pleaded guilty, but he has not asserted that he did not commit the crimes to which he admitted when he pleaded guilty. In 2006, when defendant pleaded guilty, applicable professional norms did not require that attorneys representing non-citizen criminal defendants give immigration advice, but, if they did, they could not give "wrong advice" or "false or misleading information" about the possibility of deportation. See State v. Gaitan, 209 N.J. 339, 373 (2012). The professional norm recognized ...
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