Darrick Hudson, now 26, is not eligible for parole until July 1, 2028.
Basir Biggins, who Salaam claimed was the killer, admitted only to providing the gun. He is eligible for parole May 20 of this year.
A confession an Atlantic City man gave to police could lead to a new trial in a deadly 2007 gas station robbery.
Nasir Salaam was 17 when he and other teens robbed the AAR Gas station on Route 30 in Atlantic City on March 7, 2007. In a videotaped statement that was shown at his trial, Salaam laid out the planned robbery and admitted to wounding a gas station attendant outside while gas station owner Makhan Singh was fatally shot inside the station's market.
Salaam was convicted in 2009 of armed robbery and assault, but the jury could not agree on the charge of felony murder, which is a death that happens during the commission of another crime. Rather than face another trial, he took a plea deal of 40 years.
But the confession could prove Salaam's defense attorney was ineffective,
an appellate panel ruled Tuesday.
"Little more than a month after his arrest, defendant gave an incriminating statement to law enforcement pursuant to the advice of his privately retained attorney, who had secured no plea agreement nor any agreement not to use the statement against defendant," the judges wrote in their decision.
Now, Salaam will get a full hearing to determine what he was told before giving a statement and to resolve what the judges said was conflicting testimony by attorney Robert Gamburg, Salaam and Salaam's mother.
Three teens went to the gas station hoping to get money for drugs, Deputy Attorney General Brent Hopkins told the jury at trial.
Salaam's statement was played at the trial. He said he had been outside robbing the attendant and accidentally shot him when he heard what was happening inside the market. He told police that his best friend, Darrick Hudson, then-16, was inside the market with Singh and co-defendant Basir Biggins, who was 17 at the time.
Biggins, according to Salaam's statement, went crazy inside and shot the owner, who stumbled out the door, slumped over the rail and died.
While all three teens admitted to parts in the crime, none has ever admitted to being the shooter. Biggins, according to his plea, was not even at the crime scene, but loaned Salaam and Hudson a gun.
Salaam, who turned 27 on Monday, is currently serving his sentence in East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, Middlesex County. He is eligible for parole March 10, 2037.
But first he will get a hearing on the counsel he received prior to his conviction.
The hearing should determine what was explained to defendant regarding what he would receive in return for giving a statement" so that the court can "analyze whether counsel was in effective," the panel wrote.
"Regardless of the nature of defense counsel's advice, the court must also determine at the hearing whether counsel's production of his juvenile client to give a self-incriminating statement under these circumstances — after conferring only with a co-defendant's counsel and prior to the completion of discovery — was a fundamental deprivation of counsel," the judges said.
Gamburg could not comment on the case.
A date for the hearing has not yet been set.
