Case Title: State v. Randolph White

Citation: 

Docket Number: a-182-97

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 1999-05-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. 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 Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). HANDLER, J., writing for a unanimous Court. The issue in this appeal is whether portions of an incriminating statement by a declarant that exculpate the defendant constitute admissible statements against interest and whether omission of such exculpatory evidence in this case, if error, was capable of producing an unjust result. On the morning of September 24, 1994, Terrence Morris was assaulted at gunpoint and robbed by a group of men whom he recognized from the neighborhood. During the assault, one of the men placed Morris in a choke-hold from behind. Another put a silver gun in his face and struck him across the nose with it. A third went through Morris's pockets. Following the assault, Morris called the police. The responding Jersey City police officers took Morris for a ride through the neighborhood in an attempt to find the assailants. When Morris recognized his attackers within a group of six or seven men in front of a house in the neighborhood, the officers stopped the squad car and pursued members of the dispersing crowd. The officers found defendant Randolph White hiding in a nearby lot. Morris identified White as the man who had choked him. Frank Williams and Sharone Smith were discovered under the porch of nearby house. A silver gun, which Morris identified as being the one used in the robbery, was nearby. Morris was able to identify Williams as the man who held the gun to him, but was not able to identify Smith. Consequently, only White and Williams were arrested. Smith was released. On November 29, 1995, prior to trial but more than one year after the crime, Sharone Smith confessed his involvement in the robbery. In his written confession, Smith not only admitted his own involvement in the robbery and assault, but also he stated that White had nothing to do with the crime and that Morris's identification of White as one of the assailants was a mistake. Smith acknowledged that he was making the statement because [White] should not get in trouble for something he did not do. White and Williams were tried together. The State's case relied on testimony by Morris and the responding officers, which was inconsistent in many respects. In addition, Morris's identification testimony of White and Williams fluctuated. White presented an alibi in defense. Specifically, he claimed that at the time of the robbery and assault, he and three other friends had driven to Brooklyn to purchase marijuana and did not return until shortly after the attack on Morris occurred. On their return, they ran into Smith and another acquaintance, who bragged to White and his other friends about the robbery they had just committed. He claimed that he ran when he spotted the officers because he was carrying marijuana. White's account was corroborated by two of the men who had accompanied him to Brooklyn. White sought to further substantiate his account by introducing Sharone Smith's confession into evidence. Smith did not testify. Therefore, the statement, which was considered hearsay, was offered as a declaration against penal interest. However, the trial court admitted only those portions of the confession that explained Smith's own involvement in the crime. It excluded those portions of the statement that explicitly disclaimed White's involvement. The trial court viewed the admitted portions of the statement as the nucleus of [the] inculpating statement, and reasoned that all other things in the statement were superfluous. White and Williams were found guilty of armed robbery; aggravated assault; unlawful possession of a handgun; and possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose. The court denied White's post-verdict motion for judgment of acquittal. White was sentenced to an aggregate term of twenty-six years imprisonment with nine years of parole ineligibility. White appealed, arguing that the redaction of portions of Smith's out-of-court confession exculpating White from involvement in the crime was reversible error. White also challenged the adequacy of the identification evidence presented at trial, and the court's jury instruction with regard to that evidence, as well as the length of his prison term. The Appellate Division affirmed White's conviction, holding any error in the trial court's redaction of Smith's statement to be harmless. The appellate court further indicated its belief that the redacted portions of the statement were properly excluded as a matter of sound discretion. The Appellate Division further dismissed White's challenges to the identification testimony, the jury charge, and his sentence as without merit. The Supreme Court granted White's petition for certification. HELD: A declarant's statements exculpating a defendant should be admitted as evidence under the statement-against-interest exception to the hearsay rule if, when considered in the light of surrounding circumstances, they subject the declarant to criminal liability or if, as related part of a self-inculpatory statement, they strengthen or bolster the incriminatory effect of the declarant's exposure to criminal liability; exclusion of such evidence in this case was capable of producing an unjust result, and therefore constituted reversible error. 1. While the law of evidence recognizes that a statement in which a party confesses to having committed a crime subjects the declarant to criminal liability, and therefore constitutes a statement against, interest, the extent to which statements or portions of statements that are not explicitly incriminating may fall within the statement-against-interest hearsay exception has been the subject of substantial debate. (pp. 10-14) 2. Defendant-exculpatory statements such as those at issue in this case are not only relevant, but also they bear the indicia of reliability necessary to be admitted as statements against the declarant's penal interest. (pp. 14-18) 3. Although the language of N.J.R.E. 803(c)(25) does not expressly address the admissibility of statements exculpating a defendant from criminal liability, the legislative history of that rule leads to the conclusion that such statements are admissible. (pp. 18-20) 4. A declarant's statements exculpating a defendant should be admitted as evidence under the statement-against-interest exception to the hearsay rule if, when considered in the light of surrounding circumstances, they subject the declarant to criminal liability or if, as a related part of a self-inculpatory statement, they strengthen or bolster the incriminatory effect of the declarant's exposure to criminal liability. (pp. 20-21) 5. In the context of Smith's admission that he participated in the Morris robbery and assault, Smith's attendant statement that White was not involved in the crime strengthens the incriminatory effect of his confession. Therefore, the exculpatory portions of the statement were not extricable or marginal, and it was error not to admit those portions. (p. 22) 6. Once a declarant's out-of-court incriminating statement is admitted into evidence, the jury must determine the statement's probative worth and should disregard the statement or any portion of it if it finds the statement not credible. (pp. 22-24) 7. Because it cannot be certain that introduction of the defendant-exculpatory material would not have altered the outcome in this case, redaction of that material was not harmless error. (pp. 25-26) 8. The identification procedures in this case were not so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Moreover, the trial court's jury instructions in that regard were not clearly capable of producing an unjust result. (pp. 26-28) Judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK, O'HERN, GARIBALDI, STEIN and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE HANDLER's opinion. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. RANDOLPH WHITE, a/k/a KEVIN GREEN, Defendant-Appellant. Argued November 10, 1998 -- Decided May 26, 1999 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Alan I. Smith, Designated Counsel, argued the cause for appellant (Ivelisse Torres, Public Defender, attorney). Daniel I. Bornstein, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Peter Verniero, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney). The opinion of the Court was delivered by HANDLER, J. The defendant in this case was convicted on charges arising from an armed robbery and assault committed by several persons. Prior to trial, one of the perpetrators confessed to participating in the crimes and contemporaneously stated that the defendant was not involved. At trial, portions of the perpetrator's confession exculpating the defendant from the crime were excluded from evidence, while the balance of the confession, which directly incriminated the declarant, was admitted. The Appellate Division affirmed the defendant's conviction. We granted certification. 153 N.J. 217 (1998). We consider the main issue on appeal to be whether portions of an incriminating statement by a declarant that exculpate the defendant constitute admissible statements against interest. Closely related to that issue, and the basis for the Appellate Division's holding, is whether omission of the exculpatory evidence in this case, if error, was capable of producing an unjust result. As here, the trial court admitted the self-inculpatory portion of the statement as a declaration against penal interest, but redacted the portion of the statement that expressly absolved the defendant from criminal liability. The Appellate Division reversed, and explained: The portion of [the] declaration which is exculpatory of Abrams suggests that [the declarant] was not merely his agent or partner in the drug sale; it intensifies [the declarant's] personal criminal responsibility for the transaction. . . . The appropriate test for admissibility is whether, in the context of the whole statement, the particular remark was plausibly against the declarant's penal interest, even though it might be neutral or even self-serving if considered alone. We affirmed on the basis of the appellate court's reasoning. Abrams, supra, 72 N.J. at 342. In State v. Gaines, 147 N.J. Super. 84 (App. Div. 1975), aff'd o.b. sub nom., State v. Powers, 72 N.J. 346 (1977), we considered the admissibility of a statement exculpating a defendant that accompanied a less direct admission of guilt by the declarant. Powers and co-defendants Gaines and Phillips were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by a state trooper. Gaines, supra, 147 N.J. at 87. The officer found guns on the rear floor of defendants' car and arrested them for unlawful possession of firearms. Id. at 89. Contemporaneous to the arrest, Phillips stated that Powers was unaware of the guns. Ibid. Phillips also stated, when asked if there was anything else in the vehicle, that there was another gun in the car. Ibid. The Appellate Division held that the police officer's testimony as to Phillips's remarks was admissible because both statements were against interest. Id. at 98. "The probative value in exonerating Powers may be questioned," the court noted, "but the incriminatory significance as to Phillips is very clear." Ibid. As in Abrams, this Court affirmed the opinion below. Powers, supra, 72 N.J. at 346. More recently, in State v. Norman, 151 N.J. 5 (1997), the Court found a defendant's statement to his brother that he, not the co-defendant, shot the victim to be admissible under hearsay exception N.J.R.E. 803(c)(25). We reiterated: "Statements by a declarant that exculpate another inferentially indicate[] his own involvement and are considered sufficiently against declarant's penal interests to be admissible." Id. at 31 (citation omitted). The Court relied on State v. Davis, 50 N.J. 16 (1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1054, 88 S. Ct. 805, 19 L. Ed. 2d 852 (1968), which upheld the admissibility of a statement by the defendant, given shortly after being arrested for murder, that a suspected accomplice "didn't have anything to do with it," id. at 18-19, on the ground that the declaration exculpating the suspected accomplice "inferentially indicated [defendant's] own involvement," id. at 29. In Norman, we noted our continued approval of Abrams. 151 N.J. at 31. Other precedent accords. See State v. Jamison, 64 N.J. 363, 374 (1974) (holding perpetrator's statement that he was guilty of crime and accompanying statement that defendant was innocent were "clearly admissible" as declarations against penal interest); State v. Bell, 249 N.J. Super. 506, 512 (App. Div. 1991) (admitting co-defendant's statement that he robbed victim of headphones and gave headphones to defendant, as well as statement that defendant was standing half a block away during the incident, as statements against penal interest); State v. Barry, supra, 171 N.J. Super. 543, 548-49 (App. Div. 1979) (holding accomplices' statements that they drove robbery getaway car, along with statement that no one else was present, admissible as statements against penal interest), rev'd, 86 N.J. 80 (noting statements admissible as against interest but reinstating conviction based on finding of harmless error), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1017, 102 S. Ct. 553, 70 L. Ed. 2d 415 (1981); see also State v. Sejuelas, 94 N.J. Super. 576, 582 (App. Div. 1967) (admitting statement by witness that several days prior to arrest defendant's companion told others he was going to frame defendant as statement against penal interest). We note further that the number of participants in a crime has no bearing upon the admissibility of a defendant-exculpatory statement. Our affirmance of Abrams effectively overruled State v. Sease, 138 N.J. Super. 80, 84 (App. Div. 1975), which held that, in a crime known to have been committed by more than one person, a declarant's admission of guilt was not probative of another's innocence. Abrams took the position that "nothing could be more relevant to the issue of the defendant's guilt than competent statements that she did not participate." Abrams, supra, 140 N.J. Super. at 236. Indeed, defendant-exculpatory statements such as those at issue in this case are not only relevant, they bear the indicia of reliability necessary to be admitted as statements against the declarant's penal interest. Although the language of N.J.R.E. 803(c)(25) does not expressly address the admissibility of statements exculpating a defendant from criminal liability, accord Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3), the legislative history of N.J.R.E. 803(c)(25) and Evid. R. 63(10) help to guide us to the conclusion that such statements are admissible. Accord Williamson, supra, 512 U.S. at 614, 114 S. Ct. at 2442, 129 L. Ed. 2d at 492 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (interpreting Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3) by looking to "the Advisory Committee's Note, the common law of the hearsay exception for statements against interest, and the general presumption that Congress does not enact statutes that have almost no effect"). The Report of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Evidence (Mar. 1963) ("1963 Report"), which "was the foundation for the 1967 rules," see Report of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on the Rules of Evidence (1991), reprinted in 129 N.J.L.J. 1 (Oct. 10, 1991) ("1991 Report"), explicitly provides that out-of-court statements exculpating an accused are to be admitted as statements against interest. The Committee wrote, regarding Evid. R. 63(10): [A] statement against penal interest should be admissible if it exculpates a defendant on trial and for the same policy reason which prevents it from being used against him, namely, to protect an innocent person. While it is true that a guilty defendant might suborn such a statement, nevertheless criminal defendants as a class should be able to use such statements on the basis that an innocent man would otherwise be denied the necessary evidence of a statement which clears him of the crime. [1963 Report, supra, at 171 (emphasis added).]See footnote 3 Thus, the history of our current evidence law, including that of N.J.R.E. 803(c)(25) and its predecessor, Evid. R. 63(10), strongly supports the rule. In sum, we hold that a declarant's statements exculpating a defendant should be admitted as evidence under the statement against-interest exception to the hearsay rule if, when considered in the light of surrounding circumstances, they subject the declarant to criminal liability or if, as a related part of a self-inculpatory statement, they strengthen or bolster the incriminatory effect of the declarant's exposure to criminal liability. The circumstances that indicate that a defendant-exculpatory statement may enhance a declarant's self-inculpatory statement will necessarily vary. In this case, we recognize that although a statement by a declarant that another suspected of an offense is innocent may not on its face inculpate the declarant, the statement takes on inculpatory character and subjects the declarant to criminal liability when the declarant is a suspect in connection with the same crime. See Norman, supra, 151 N.J. at 31; Davis, supra,50 N.J. at 29. This is particularly true if the declarant has admitted his involvement in the crime either directly, see Abrams, supra, 72 N.J. at 342, aff'g o.b. 140 N.J. Super. at 235-36, or indirectly, see Powers, supra, 72 N.J. at 346, aff'g o.b. sub nom. Gaines, supra, 147 N.J. Super. at 98. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK, O'HERN, GARIBALDI, STEIN and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE HANDLER'S opinion. NO. A-182 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. RANDOLPH WHITE, a/k/a KEVIN GREEN Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED Q. In your own words can you tell me what if anything occurred on September 24, 1994? A. Yes, on September 24, 1994, me and Tavonne McMillan were walking on Lexington when we seen this man sleeping on a porch. Tavonne McMillan and some young boys walked up to the man and cut his pockets and robbed him. There was a bag by the man, and Tavonne took the man's hockey jersey and one of the others took the man's polo jacket. Q. What were you doing when this happened? A. When Tavonne and the others were robbing the man, I stood on the corner as the lookout. Q. After robbing the man what did the group do? A. Well we went over to Bramhall and started smoking weed. Me and Tavonne saw Randolph White, Frank Williams, and some others and we started talking with them about what we had just done. Q. What happened to the items that were stolen from the man? A. Tavonne put on the man's hockey jersey which he just stole and was wearing it around while we were smoking. Q. What happened next. A. Well, while we were standing on Bramhall, the guy we robbed walked past us and headed towards Jackson. A little while [sic] he came back with police and we all ran. I ran behind 622 Bramhall with Frank Smith [sic] but the police caught Frank and then Frank told me to come out which I did . . . A. . . . We were all brought down to the police station including Randolph White who had nothing to do with the robbery. I know cause he had just come back from New York. When I was in the police station the man who was robbed was arguing with me thinking I was with Tavonne because me and Tavonne were both wearing dredlocks (indicating hairstyle). The police never caught Tavonne. When I opened my jacket and showed the man that I wasn't wearing any of his clothes he thought I wasn't involved and I was able to get released. Me and Tavonne were never charged even though we did it. Q. What if any was Randolph White's involvement? A. Like I said, Randolph had just come back from New York and he had nothing at all to do with the robbery. He was just picked up by the police because he ran. --------------- FOOTNOTES --------------- Q. Why is it that you are giving this statement? A. I'm giving this statement because Randolph shouldn't get in trouble for something he did not do. Q. How is it that you know Randolph and how long have you known him? A. I've known him from the streets for a long time. Q. Is there anything else that you would like to add to this statement? A. No. Q. Did anyone force, threaten, coerce or intimidate you into giving this statement and are you doing so voluntarily and of your own free will? A. No one forced or threatened me and I am doing this of my own free will. Also, Randolph has kids and it's a shame that he can't be with them because of this.