Title: State v. Horace Branch

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

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). O'HERN, J., writing for a unanimous Court. The primary issue on appeal is whether a defendant may be convicted of a felony murder on the basis of an uncharged predicate felony. On November 4, 1993, Randolph Mosley was shot and killed in the foyer of a building at 260 Prince Street in Newark. The shooting was drug-related. The police investigation led to three individuals in the drug trade, Dortch, Murphy and Pettie, who implicated Branch in the shooting. At trial, Dortch, Murphy and Pettie testified to the events surrounding the shooting of Mosley. Pettie testified that while she was waiting for a drug "pick-up," Branch robbed her at gunpoint. She shot at Branch as he was leaving. Branch fired two shots back at Pettie. Pettie stated that she initially believed she had shot Mosley. Branch testified that he had been sold inferior drugs and that he returned to the building to get his money back. He said that Pettie pulled a gun on him and that in an ensuing struggle, her gun went off accidentally. The State charged Branch with, among other things, armed robbery of Mosley, felony murder of Mosley, intentional murder of Mosley, armed robbery of Dortch, armed robbery of Murphy, and various weapons and hindering offenses. The felony-murder count specifically charged Branch with felony murder of Mosley in the course of robbing Mosley. The same indictment charged Pettie with two offenses, unauthorized possession of a handgun and possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose of using it against another. In its initial jury charge, the trial court instructed the jury on the felony-murder offense, but restricted the predicate felony to the robbery of Mosley. During its deliberations, the jury posed several written questions to the court. One question seemed to ask, in part, why Branch was not charged with armed robbery of Pettie. In response to the jury's question "To be convicted of felony murder must [defendant] be charged or guilty of one of the other felony charges on the list[?]," the court told the jury that Branch was not charged with the robbery of Pettie. The court later informed the jury that to constitute felony murder, if a murder takes place during the commission of any crime, it becomes felony murder. The jury found Branch guilty of felony murder, aggravated manslaughter, and various weapons charges. Branch moved to set aside the felony-murder conviction as inconsistent with the jury's verdict of acquittal on the charged robberies. The State consented and the felony-murder conviction was vacated. Branch was sentenced on the remaining counts to an aggregate term of life plus fourteen and one-half years with a thirty-year parole disqualifier. Both the State and Branch appealed. The Appellate Division reversed the vacation of Branch's felony-murder conviction, finding that the jury was justified in basing that conviction on the robbery of Pettie. The Supreme Court granted certification. HELD: A defendant may not be convicted of felony murder without fair notice, at the time of trial, of the predicate felony used to satisfy the requirements of the felony-murder statute. 1. An indictment charging a defendant with the commission of a crime must identify and explain the criminal offense so that the accused may prepare an adequate defense. That principle is sufficiently flexible to permit a defendant to be found guilty of an offense not charged in the indictment. Had Branch been given fair notice that the State intended to use the robbery of Pettie as a predicate to the felony-murder charge, his felony-murder conviction would stand. On the jury's specific inquiry, the trial court took the possibility of the Pettie robbery as a predicate out of the hand's of the jury by informing them that Branch had not been charged with that crime. That the jury based its verdict on the Pettie robbery is belied by the record; the jury was told it could base the felony-murder conviction on any of the felony charges on the list they had before them and the Pettie robbery was not on that list. (pp. 7-11) 2. The Essex County Prosecutor relies on the patchwork verdict theory, arguing that the verdict should be sustained because it is immaterial whether the underlying robbery was of Pettie, Dortch, Murphy or Mosley. The Code requires only that a jury unanimously agree that a murder has occurred in the course of a felony. Further, there was more than enough evidence to support two or more alternative theories to sustain a felony-murder conviction. However, a felony-murder conviction based on the uncharged robbery of Pettie is invalid on constitutional grounds because Branch had no notice of it. Moreover, the jury returned unanimous verdicts of acquittal on the underlying robberies charged. Thus, the verdict is evidence that the jurors were not divided among the various robbery charges. (pp. 11-13) 3. The Office of the Attorney General relies on the inconsistent verdict theory, arguing that the jury unanimously agreed that Branch was guilty of felony murder based on one of the underlying charged predicate felonies, but for reasons of lenity or mistake, did not convict Branch of any of the robberies. That theory could sustain the conviction had the jury not been misdirected by the trial court. This verdict is not inconsistent, it is illegal. (pp. 13-16) 4. The remaining issues in this case concern the instructions to the jury on self-defense and on passion/provocation manslaughter. The Court leaves undisturbed the Appellate Division's disposition of these issues. Defense counsel failed to request a passion/provocation manslaughter charge. Whether that was a strategic decision or a failure to perceive the existence of that defense is an issue best left for post-conviction review. (Pp.16-17) Judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED insofar as it reinstated the felony-murder conviction. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES HANDLER, POLLOCK, GARIBALDI, STEIN and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE O'HERN'S opinion. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. HORACE BRANCH, a/k/a BENJAMIN BRANCH, a/k/a HORACE S. BRANCH, a/k/a TONY BROWN, a/k/a TONY HUFF, a/k/a PHIL BLEVINS, Defendant-Appellant. Argued March 3, 1998 -- Decided July 28, 1998 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 301 N.J. Super. 307 (1997). Mark H. Friedman, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Ivelisse Torres, Public Defender, attorney). Raymond W. Hoffman, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Patricia A. Hurt, Essex County Prosecutor, attorney). Kevin H. Marino argued the cause for amicus curiae The Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (Mr. Marino, attorney; Mr. Marino, Richard E. Shapiro and Roseann Bassler, on the brief. Marcy H. Geraci, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey (Peter Verniero, Attorney General, attorney). Horach Branch submitted a supplemental letter brief, pro se. The opinion of the Court was delivered by O'HERN, J. We granted certification primarily to consider whether a defendant may be convicted of felony murder on the basis of an uncharged predicate felony. A jury convicted defendant, Horace Branch, of the felony murder of a man caught in the cross-fire of a drug-related shootout. Defendant was charged with three separate acts of robbery that could have served as predicates to the felony-murder conviction under N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3. He was acquitted of each of these robbery charges. The Appellate Division concluded that the jury could have found that defendant was guilty of robbing a fourth victim, who was present at the time of the shooting but was not listed in the indictment as the victim of a robbery. On that basis, the Appellate Division upheld the felony-murder conviction. 301 N.J. Super. 307, 332-33 (1997). We disagree that a defendant may be convicted of felony murder without fair notice, at the time of trial, of the predicate felony used to satisfy the requirements of the felony-murder statute. We find no other basis to sustain that conviction. Accordingly, we reinstate the judgment of the trial court, which set aside the felony-murder conviction. We leave undisturbed defendant's convictions for aggravated manslaughter and various weapons offenses and the sentences imposed thereon by the trial court. [State v. Schmidt, 110 N.J. 258, 265 (1988) (citations omitted).] In addition, both LeFurge, supra, 101 N.J. at 415-16, and Talley, supra, 94 N.J. at 392-93, emphasized that the defendants had adequate notice to permit a defense against the charge not stated in the indictment. Not only is it unfair to require defendant to prepare a defense to a crime that he did not have notice of, but here the trial court instructed the jury that it should not consider the uncharged offense. Hence, we are unable to agree with the theory of the uncharged predicate felony as a basis to sustain this conviction. Obviously struggling with a cast of characters that included three drug pushers, one of whom was armed with a gun, and a disgruntled drug buyer, who was also said to be armed, the jury was trying to determine what could be the basis for the felony-murder charge. The last question that the jury asked the court after having been told that it could not consider the Pettie robbery was whether it could consider "one of the other felony charges on the list." All parties agree that the jury's reference to a list was a reference to the indictment that was in its possession in the jury room and to the verdict sheet. Consistent with the charge, the jury found defendant guilty of at least one of the charges "on the list," a weapons offense, and consequently found defendant guilty of felony murder. But for misdirection of the jury, we might have been able to sustain the conviction under Grey and Powell. However, this is not a case of an inconsistent verdict but of an illegal verdict. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES HANDLER, POLLOCK, GARIBALDI, STEIN, and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE O'HERN's opinion. NO. A-112 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. HORACE BRANCH, etc., Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED --------------- FOOTNOTES ---------------