Case Title: New Jersey v. Hedgespeth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 2021-12-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
SYLLABUS

This syllabus is not part of the Court’s opinion. It has been prepared by the Office of the
Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the
Court. In the interest of brevity, portions of an opinion may not have been summarized.

                   State v. Tywaun S. Hedgespeth (A-22-20) (084892)

Argued October 13, 2021 -- Decided December 27, 2021

LaVECCHIA, J., writing for a unanimous Court.

        The Court addresses two alleged evidentiary errors. One relates to the issue
resolved today in the companion appeal of State v. Carrion, ___ N.J. ___ (2021):
whether admission of an affidavit from the New Jersey State Police, affirming that a
defendant does not appear in the State’s firearm permit database, violates the
Confrontation Clause when the affiant does not testify at trial. The other issue is whether
the trial court committed harmful error when it permitted the State to impeach defendant
with a prior conviction under N.J.R.E. 609, even though that conviction occurred more
than ten years before the trial.

        While surveilling a street corner in Newark, two detectives observed several men
loitering in the area. A detective testified that one of the individuals, later identified as
defendant Tywaun S. Hedgespeth, adjusted his clothes, at which point officers saw what
looked like the butt of a gun. Backup units were told to apprehend the men and to be
cautious with defendant. A detective apprehended defendant, ordered him to show his
hands, took him to the ground, and then alerted fellow officers that he found a weapon.
Another detective recovered the weapon. A third detective read defendant his rights.
Defendant was searched by the arresting officers who discovered crack cocaine on his
person. No fingerprints were found on the gun.

        In August 2017, defendant went to trial on a drug possession charge and an
unlawful possession of a weapon charge. To address an element of the unlawful
possession charge -- the lack of a firearm permit -- the State produced a witness who
testified she oversaw a search of the Essex County gun records performed by her
secretary, which returned no firearm permit for defendant.

        At the close of the State’s case, defense counsel advised the court that, to help
defendant reach a decision on whether to testify, he required a ruling as to the
admissibility of defendant’s prior convictions, both of which involved drug offenses.
Defense counsel contested their admissibility, citing remoteness under N.J.R.E. 609 and
noting that the offenses dated back to 2001 and 2005. The trial court permitted the State
to introduce the convictions for impeachment purposes, reasoning that the probationary
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term for the 2005 conviction extended to within ten years of the trial and the 2001
conviction represented a continuing course of conduct. Defendant declined to testify.

       Following defendant’s decision not to testify, and over his objection, the State
introduced testimony from Detective John Cosgrove of the Essex County Prosecutor’s
Office. Cosgrove was permitted to testify to the contents of an affidavit, sworn to by
Detective Sergeant Brett Bloom of the Firearms Investigation Unit of the New Jersey
State Police, which stated that defendant does not have a firearm permit on record with
the State. Notably, the search was not conducted by Detective Cosgrove, and neither
Bloom nor anyone else with responsibility for the State’s database or search testified.

      The jury found defendant guilty on both counts, and he pleaded guilty to a certain-
persons offense the same day. The Appellate Division affirmed defendant’s convictions.
 464 N.J. Super. 421, 427 (App. Div. 2020). The Court granted certification,  244 N.J. 362
(2020), on the two issues identified by defendant: (1) whether the trial court committed
harmful error in permitting impeachment of defendant by his prior convictions; and (2)
whether the trial court erred in admitting an affidavit by a non-testifying officer.

HELD: A violation occurred when the State was allowed to enter into evidence
information set forth in the affidavit of a non-testifying officer concerning the no-permit
results from a search of the State firearm registry, and that violation was not cured by
testimony concerning the search of an Essex County firearm database. Further, the trial
court’s incorrect N.J.R.E. 609 ruling constituted harmful error requiring reversal of the
conviction. However, the Court declines to adopt the position that an evidentiary ruling
that results in a defendant’s decision not to testify can never be harmless.

1. The Court’s decision in Carrion controls in this matter. When used in a criminal
prosecution, an affidavit setting forth the results of a search of the State’s firearm permit
registry -- as evidence that a defendant lacks a firearm permit -- is testimonial for
purposes of the Confrontation Clause. As such, if the right to confrontation is raised by
the defendant, the person who conducted the search and created the affidavit must be
produced unless a suitable substitute witness, such as one who witnessed or re-conducted
the same search, is presented. See Carrion, ___ N.J. at ___ (slip op. at 17-20). (pp. 10-11)

2. Here, the affiant, Bloom, was not produced. Cosgrove was not a suitable replacement
witness and could not fulfill the cross-examination requirement that the Confrontation
Clause protects. The objections lodged by defense counsel were sufficient to preserve the
issue, and the witness who requested the search of the County database could not address
or eliminate the possibility that defendant had sought a permit in another county. Only
the search of the State’s database -- admitted in violation of the Confrontation Clause --
could eliminate that possibility; thus, the evidence from the county search cannot render
that violation harmless. (pp. 11-12)

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3. As for the error concerning the allowed impeachment based on defendant’s prior
convictions, the State agreed during oral argument that the prior convictions should not
have been permitted to be introduced for impeachment purposes under N.J.R.E. 609. The
focus in this appeal is whether that error can be harmless. (p. 13)

4. In Luce v. United States, the United States Supreme Court decided, under federal
appellate procedure, that a defendant who does not testify is not entitled to appellate
review of a ruling denying a motion to forbid the use of a prior conviction for
impeachment.