A Mays Landing man's dying call to 911 after he had been shot can be played at his alleged killer's trial, a judge ruled Friday.
"I've just been shot," Michael Black told a 911 operator at about 7:30 p.m. Nov. 9, 2015.
He told her he had been hit in the back.
"Please hurry," he tells her in the recording played during a motion by the defense to keep the recording out.
Black's wife cried as she heard her husband's voice.
The operator asks if he knows who shot him.
"Yes, I know exactly who shot me," he replies. "His name is Wolf."
Wolf, according to the prosecution, is the nickname of Dennis J. Munoz, the man charged with murder in the case.
In court Friday, attorney Nellie Marquez argued that the statement should not be admissible. The dispatcher, she told Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury, "went beyond the scope of an emergency" in asking who shot Black, and said it was not the victim "spontaneously giving information to someone."
But Assistant Prosecutor Rick McKelvey said it should be allowed since it was an "excited utterance" made by someone "under the believe of eminent death."
DeLury agreed that Black's words were a "dying declaration" made by a man in shock over what had just happened.
"It's clear he believed his death to be eminent," DeLury said. "(Black) insisted on urgency, that the response be hurried."
Munoz, who is being held in the Cape May County Jail, appeared in court with co-defendant Edwin Velazquez, who is accused of helping Munoz.
The hearing started out with an issue, when Munoz greeted DeLury, wishing him a good day and to his lovely family and his home, whose town the defendant named.
At that, DeLury told the sheriff's officers, "Take the defendants out.""
He then put Munoz's actions on the record.
"I take it that his intent was not to wish me a good day," DeLury said. "I believe it was an attempt to communicate a threat to the court.
"I do not feel threatened. I do not find myself threatened," he added.
But DeLury did take a break to allow Marquez to speak to her client.
"My apologies to the court," Marquez said when the hearing resumed.
"I remain fair, impartial, detached," the judge said, asking if McKelvey, Marquez or attorney Lou Barbone — who represents Velazquez — had any issues to raise.
None of them did.
"I am fair, I am impartial and I can remain so in this case," DeLury said.
A final pre-trial conference is set for Oct. 25.
