Title: State v. Naseem Abdul Muhammad

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). Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NASEEM ABDUL MUHAMMAD, Defendant-Respondent. Argued October 12, 2004 Decided March 15, 2005 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 366 N.J. Super. 185 (2004). Leslie-Ann M. Justus, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for appellant (Peter C. Harvey, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney; Ms. Justus and Terry S. Bogorad, Senior Assistant Passaic County Prosecutor, on the briefs). Gregory R. Mueller, Designated Counsel, argued the cause for respondent (Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney). JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court. A suspect has a right to remain silent while in police custody or under official interrogation, in accordance with his state law privilege against self-incrimination. In this case, we reaffirm that a suspect s silence while in custody, under interrogation, or at or near the time of his arrest cannot be used against him in a criminal trial. We agree with the Appellate Division that the prosecutor s improper use of defendant s pre-arrest silence as evidence of guilt requires the reversal of his conviction of criminal sexual contact. We disagree, however, with the appellate panel s conclusion that the trial court did not have a rational basis to instruct the jury on the charged offense of aggravated criminal sexual contact and the lesser-included offense of sexual contact. Because defendant s conviction was supported by sufficient evidence in the record, we also reject defendant s argument that any seeming inconsistency between the verdict acquitting him of the sexual assault charges and convicting him of sexual contact warranted a dismissal. We, therefore, vacate the panel s entry of a judgment of acquittal on the sexual contact charge. In light of the prosecutor s improper use of defendant s pre-arrest silence, we remand for a new trial. The court overruled defendant s objection to those comments and denied his motion for a mistrial. Then, in his examination of Sergeant DeLuccia, the prosecutor focused in on defendant s silence at the police station: Q: In addition to telling you that he picked up [M.M.] in order to scare her because she had been bothering his brother or sister, did [defendant] say anything to you about having sex with [M.M.]? A: No. Nothing. Q: Did the subject of her being a prostitute ever come up? A: No sir. [(Emphasis added).] The prosecutor followed up by asking: Q: From the moment that you first saw [defendant] to the time that you went off duty that morning, did the subject ever come up concerning prostitution . . . ? The court sustained a defense objection because the breadth of the question possibly encompassed the time after defendant s formal arrest and, therefore, touch[ed] on [d]efendant s exercise of his Fifth Amendment privilege. The prosecutor then rephrased the question: Q: Sergeant, from the moment that you first laid eyes on [defendant and M.M.], from the time that you saw them coming in that clear door, to the time that [M.M.] was taken to the front of the Police Department and [defendant] was escorted to another room and you lost sight of the two, from point A to point B as I ve just outlined it, did [defendant] ever say to you anything with regard to prostitution or allege that [M.M.] was a prostitute? A: No sir. Q: Did the subject of prostitution ever come up during that period of time? A: No sir. [(Emphasis added).] On direct examination of Officer DeLucca, the prosecutor continued to develop the theme of defendant s silence about prostitution: Q: Now, at some point after you, in the company of the Captain, meet with [defendant], after you get his name, after he produces a police badge Passaic police badge, after he produces the Passaic housing officer ID card, and after he identifies himself as a Passaic police officer, he was actually formally placed under arrest, correct? A: Correct. Q: Before that happened, from the time you first met him to the time that he was placed under arrest, did the subject of prostitution ever come up between you, the Captain or the Defendant? A: No. [(Emphasis added).] Over the objections of defense counsel, the prosecutor in summation continued to drive home defendant s failure to provide the Paterson police with his trial defense. On December 22, 1999, minutes after this incident occurs, the defendant goes into the Paterson Police Department with [M.M.] and he stakes out his position. In effect he says here I stand, this is my position, and he never said, in staking out his position, that [M.M.] was a prostitute. . . . . [Defendant] said he found [M.M.] around 27th Street and he said not that he picked her up as a prostitute, not that he had sex with her. He didn t say that. What he said was he picked her up and ordered her in the car. He ordered her into the car. Why? So he could scare her. Not so that he could have sex with her, not so that he could hire her as a prostitute . . . . He didn t say she was a prostitute. He didn t say [] he hired a prostitute. He didn t say he hired a prostitute. He didn t say he had sex with her during an act of, an act of prostitution. He didn t say any of that. . . . . And don t you think that if [defendant] were engaged in prostitution, that would be the time to say it? But he didn t. You know why? Because he wasn t. [(Emphasis added).] The court refused to grant defendant s motion for a mistrial at the completion of the prosecutor s closing or to give a curative or limiting instruction. The jury acquitted defendant of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree aggravated sexual assault, third-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact, and the lesser-included offense of second-degree sexual assault. The jury convicted defendant of the lesser-included offense of fourth-degree criminal sexual contact, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-3(b), and deadlocked on the lesser-included charge of second-degree kidnapping, N.J.S.A. 2C:13-1(c). On the State s motion, the trial court dismissed the second-degree kidnapping charge. On the criminal sexual contact conviction, the court sentenced defendant to an eighteen-month State Prison term and imposed appropriate fees and penalties. The Appellate Division, relying on State v. Deatore, 70 N.J. 100 (1976), and State v. Brown, 118 N.J. 595 (1990), reversed the conviction, holding that the prosecutor s repeated use of defendant s silence at or near the time of his arrest, as evidence of guilt, violated defendant s state privilege against self-incrimination. State v. Muhammed, 366 N.J. Super. 185, 197-99, 201-02 (App. Div. 2004). See footnote 2 The panel found that while in custody at headquarters, defendant was not required to provide the police with the defense that he presented a trial. Id. at 200-202. The panel noted that the State s repeated references to defendant s failure to disclose his consent defense impermissibly penalized defendant for legitimately exercising his constitutional and common law right to remain silent in the face of an accusation. Id. at 201, 202. The panel concluded that the trial judge committed reversible error in permitting the prosecutor to repeatedly comment on defendant s failure to disclose the version of events suggested for the first time at trial. Id. at 205. The Appellate Division also held that the trial court erred when it charged the jury on the lesser-included offense of criminal sexual contact. Id. at 208. According to the panel, the evidence of forced vaginal and oral penetration supported only the aggravated sexual assault charge and not the sexual contact charge, which was premised on a theory of intentional touching. Id. at 207-208. The panel, therefore, found that the proofs did not justify a conviction of sexual contact and remanded for the entry of a judgment of acquittal on that charge. Ibid. We granted the State s petition for certification. State v. Muhammed, 180 N.J. 151 (2004). Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NASEEM ABDUL MUHAMMAD, Defendant-Respondent. JUSTICE RIVERA-SOTO concurring in the result. To the extent the majority holds that a suspect s silence while in custody, under interrogation, or at or near the time of his arrest cannot be used against him in a criminal trial, ante, ___ N.J. ___, I concur. However, I cannot concur with the majority s application of that holding because, in my view, the majority falls prey to the same overbroad analysis that ultimately dooms the prosecutor s efforts in this case. The prosecution, through both testimony and argument, referenced the statements and conduct of defendant Naseem Abdul Muhammad during his stay at the Paterson Police Headquarters and repeatedly questioned whether defendant made any reference then to the defense he later advanced at trial. Significantly, defendant s statements at police headquarters fell within two discrete categories: those statements defendant made to the desk sergeant, Sergeant DeLuccia, when defendant entered police headquarters and accused the victim, M.M., of harassing defendant s brother and sister, and those statements - or, more accurately, defendant s silence -- after he was restrained in the captain s office and was interrogated by Officer DeLucca. The majority condemns both statements as impermissible comments on defendant s silence at or near the time of his arrest. There is, however, a fundamental difference between defendant s statement to Sergeant DeLuccia and defendant s post-custody silence in response to Officer DeLucca s questions. That difference is glossed over by the majority; yet it is a distinction that bears both acknowledgment and recognition in this context. Therefore, although I ultimately concur in the result reached by the majority, I write separately to highlight that difference. The reasons for the stated conclusion rest in two categories. The first derives from the privilege against self-incrimination which is enshrined in the common law; the second from basic principles of evidence law. [State v. Deatore, supra, 70 N.J. at 112-13 (citations and footnotes omitted).] As the majority aptly points out, the principles of State v. Deatore have been consistently reaffirmed. State v. Lyle, 73 N.J. 403 (1977); State v. Brown, 118 N.J. 595 (1990). The majority, however, ignores a distinction underscored in Deatore, Lyle and Brown: the prohibition against comment concerning a defendant s silence at or near the time of his arrest is limited to comments on the defendant s silence, and simply is not applicable when the defendant in fact has made a statement. State v. Deatore, supra, 70 N.J. at 108 (distinguishing its application from a situation where a defendant did make a statement at or near arrest, which is inconsistent with his trial testimony, or where conduct (as distinct from silence) at the time of the crime or thereafter is inconsistent with the story told at trial. ); State v. Lyle, supra, 73 N.J. at 421 (Conford, P.J.A.D, Temporarily Assigned, dissenting) ( Our unanimous holding in State v. Deatore, supra, forbidding comment by the State on defendant s silence was expressly confined to silence, the opinion noting that the ruling was not applicable when the defendant made a statement. ); State v. Brown, supra, 118 N.J. at 613 ( [E]vidence of pre-arrest silence, particularly in the absence of official interrogation, does not violate any right of the defendant involving self-incrimination and pre-arrest silence may be admitted for impeachment purposes provided no governmental compulsion is involved. ). Indeed, not only does State v. Deatore expressly exempt a defendant s statements from its reach, State v. Deatore tells us that cross-examination or rebuttal testimony with respect to prior statements inconsistent with the exculpatory story told at trial are proper. State v. Deatore, supra, 70 N.J. at 119 (citation omitted). A distillation of Ripa, Deatore, Lyle and Brown produces a straightforward and logical matrix: (1) a defendant may be impeached with his statements, be they either pre- or post-arrest; (2) a defendant may be impeached by his pre-arrest silence if there is no governmental compulsion involved; (3) a defendant may not be impeached with his silence at or near the time of his arrest whether or not governmental compulsion is involved; and (4) a defendant may never be impeached with his post-arrest silence. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NASEEM ABDUL MUHAMMAD, Defendant-Respondent. DECIDED March 15, 2005 Chief Justice Poritz PRESIDING OPINION BY Justice Albin CONCURRING OPINION BY Justice Rivera-Soto DISSENTING OPINION BY