The state Supreme Court has upheld the right of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office to subpoena the contents of phone calls made by inmates in county jails.

The decision sustains an appellate court decision that reversed a Superior Court ruling to suppress the contents of the phone calls made by inmates at the Middlesex County Adult Correctional Facility and the Essex County Correctional Facility that led to additional charges against them.

In one case, Jamie Monroe was being held at the Middlesex facility after he was charged with drug distribution. The prosecutor's office served a grand jury subpoena on the facility for recordings of calls made to Monroe's number. The recordings found that Monroe had called that number and several others to obtain help in laundering money to post bail, court papers said.

The others were charged with a variety of charges, including conspiracy to commit financial facilitation of criminal activity and perjury.

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In the other case, Mark Jackson was being held at the Essex County facility after his mother notified police he had brought $2,600 in stolen coins to her home. Months after he was arrested, Jackson's attorney told prosecutors that his mother would not testify who left the coins at her home.

A grand jury subpoena asked for recordings of all calls Jackson made to his mother from the jail. That resulted in Jackson being charged with witness tampering.

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision cites the appellate court decision that the inmates had no reasonable expectation of privacy in their phone calls, except those calls to their lawyers or Internal Affairs.

The court agreed with the appellate decision that found "the correctional facilities' interest in maintaining institutional security and public safety outweighs the right to privacy."

The American Civil Liberties Union joined the case on the side of the inmates. The Office of Attorney General joined the case on the side of the prosecutor's office.

Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com

Mike Deak is a reporter for MyCentralJersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.