N.J. man's life sentence reinstated

The state Supreme Court this week reinstated the life sentence of a New Jersey man who was convicted in 2005 of killing his Widener University roommate, Abdul Sesay, a former football star at West Catholic High School.

The unanimous ruling overturns the Superior Court's 2007 decision that granted Curtis Jones, 27, a retrial on the grounds that Chester police illegally searched the collegians' dorm room, where police found Sesay's bloody clothes.

Sesay, 19, was shot and killed in April 2002. His body was found in a ditch at the edge of Widener's campus.

Delaware County Deputy District Attorney John F.X. Reilly, who had appealed the lower court's decision, said yesterday that he was "very relieved" by Wednesday's ruling reinstating Jones' first-degree murder conviction.

"It ensures that Curtis Jones will be in jail for the rest of his life," Reilly said. "But it also emphasized the fact that it's not a court's job to second-guess police investigators when they use a search warrant."

Jones has been incarcerated at a state prison in central Pennsylvania since his conviction.