Title: State v. Ambrose A. Harris
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: a-17-97
State: new-jersey
Issuer: new-jersey Supreme Court
Date: July 30, 1998

(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 majority of the Court. A jury convicted Ambrose Harris of raping and murdering Kristin Huggins and sentenced him to death. Harris appeals as of right, arguing that the trial court failed to take measures to assure that the trial was free from the outside influence of prejudicial publicity. The central issues raised are whether the trial court should have granted Harris' motion to transfer the case for trial outside the county where the crime was committed, and whether the court should have questioned jurors individually concerning their exposure to prejudicial midtrial publicity. Kristin Huggins disappeared while driving to paint a mural in downtown Trenton on the morning of December 17, 1992. Huggins' car was discovered on December 18, 1992, but police were unable to locate her. On February 18, 1993, Gloria Dunn went to the police with her sister and told police that she knew where Huggins' body was. Dunn led the police to Huggins' badly decomposed body and gave police a statement identifying Harris as the killer. She gave them several additional statements containing a number of inconsistencies and additions over the next year and a half. On June 8, 1994, Harris was indicted for purposeful or knowing murder by his own conduct, kidnapping, and robbery, among other charges. The State served a notice of aggravating factors as a basis for the death penalty, alleging that the murder was committed in the course of a felony, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(g), and for the purpose of escaping detection, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(f). One of defendant's pretrial motions, based on massive pretrial publicity in the Trenton area, was for a change of venue or, alternatively, empaneling a jury from a county other than Mercer. The trial court denied the motion for a change of venue but agreed to empanel a jury from Hunterdon County. The Appellate Division granted Harris' motion for leave to appeal and held that the trial court should consider the racial makeup of the county from which jurors would be drawn. It held that the trial court erred in choosing a pool of jurors from Hunterdon County, which has a small minority population. On remand, the trial court selected Burlington County as the county from which jurors would be selected, rejecting Harris' suggestion that Camden County be used. The guilt phase began on January 10, 1996. The jury reached a verdict on February 20, 1996. Dunn's testimony provided the only direct evidence linking Harris to the crime. Dunn testified that she was with Harris when he hijacked Huggins' car, forced Huggins into the trunk, and later raped and shot her in a deserted area along Route 1 in Trenton. Dunn claimed that Harris threatened he would come looking for her if she told anyone what had occurred. She also claimed that Harris' threats and her fear of being implicated in the crime prevented her from going to the police immediately. The gun that a ballistics expert later linked to the crime was seized from Harris during an unrelated arrest on December 27, 1992. Harris' nephew connected Harris to the gun, testifying that Harris had it on the night of the murder. Because Huggins' body was so badly decomposed, DNA and forensic evidence regarding the sexual assault was inconclusive. Harris did not testify during the trial. He attacked the credibility of the State's witnesses, seeking to convince the jury that those witnesses, not he, were actually responsible for the murder and were attempting to frame him. The defense pointed out the inconsistencies in Dunn's testimony and prior statements. It stressed Dunn's involvement in the crime, her failure to attempt to escape or seek help for Huggins, and her long delay in notifying police. The defense emphasized the reduction in charges that Dunn had received in exchange for her testimony (the felony murder charge was dismissed, leaving kidnapping and robbery with a maximum sentence of 30 years with 15 years of parole ineligibility). Finally, the defense emphasized Dunn's desire to get the $25,000 reward money as her motive to implicate Harris. At the conclusion of the guilt phase, the jury convicted Harris on all counts and found that he had killed Huggins by his own conduct. During the penalty phase, the State presented no new evidence to support the aggravating factors of escaping detection and felony murder. Harris sought to submit 180 mitigating factors to the jury, all related to various aspects of his childhood and the abuse that he had suffered during that period. The trial court consolidated those "factors" into one factor with "180 supporting points." The defense presented its evidence through three experts -- a mitigation expert, a child psychologist, and a psychiatrist. The evidence revealed that defendant came from a dysfunctional family, that his father abused Harris' mother and soon abandoned them, and that Harris was unwanted and neglected by his mother. Harris was diagnosed as mentally retarded, and one expert stated that he should not have been allowed to remain in his dysfunctional home. At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury found the existence of both aggravating factors and the sole consolidated mitigating factor. It concluded that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factor beyond a reasonable doubt and that Harris should be sentenced to death. HELD: The selection of a jury composed of out-of-county residents and the trial court's general questioning of the jurors during trial concerning any exposure to trial publicity sufficiently ensured that Harris' trial was free of extraneous influences. The Court finds no other errors that tainted Harris' trial. 1. There was no error in the trial court's decision to empanel a foreign jury rather than to transfer venue. In future capital cases, however, a court should change the venue if there is a realistic likelihood that presumptively prejudicial publicity will continue during trial. The trial court's decision to select a jury from Burlington County instead of Camden County made little difference, given that the racial demographics of the counties were similar and the trial court took firm steps to ensure that potential jurors had not been exposed to the prejudicial publicity. The trial court's general questioning of the jurors about exposure to prejudicial publicity during the trial was adequate. Individualized questioning is not required absent some evidence of exposure to the publicity. Because the overnight activities of the jurors did not pose a threat of taint and because there was no indication of actual exposure, it was not necessary to sequester the jury. (Pp. 14-36) 2. The other trial errors complained of by Harris do not warrant reversal. (Pp. 36-96) The convictions and sentence of death are AFFIRMED. JUSTICE STEIN filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, expressing the view that the midtrial publicity compromised Harris' right to a fair penalty phase of the trial. He would affirm the convictions but would remand for a new penalty phase. JUSTICE HANDLER filed a separate dissenting opinion expressing the view that Harris' claims of error are valid, their prejudicial impacts thwarted a fair trial, and Harris' convictions should be reversed and the death sentence vacated. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK and GARIBALDI join in JUSTICE O'HERN's opinion. JUSTICE STEIN filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which JUSTICE COLEMAN joins. JUSTICE HANDLER filed a separate dissenting opinion which JUSTICES STEIN and COLEMAN join as to part IC. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. AMBROSE A. HARRIS, Defendant-Appellant. Argued September 23, 1997 -- Decided July 30, 1998 On appeal from the Superior Court, Law Division, Mercer County. Frank J. Pugliese and Donald T. Thelander, Assistant Deputies Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Ivelisse Torres, Public Defender, attorney). Nancy A. Hulett, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Peter Verniero, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney). The opinion of the Court was delivered by O'HERN, J. In his concurring opinion in State v. Allen, 73 N.J. 132, 146 (1977), Justice Pashman described a similar case as one involving "the interplay between two of our most basic constitutional guarantees -- free speech and fair trial -- which are also, as Mr. Justice Black correctly noted, `two of the most cherished policies of our civilization.'" Id. at 146 (quoting Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 260, 62 S. Ct. 190, 192, 86 L. Ed. 192, 201 (1941)). In this capital case a jury has convicted defendant of the murder of Kristin Huggins and recommended that he be sentenced to death. Pervasive media publicity surrounded the conduct of the trial. In Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 86 S. Ct. 1507, 16 L. Ed. 2d 600 (1966), the Supreme Court held that [d]ue process requires that the accused receive a trial by an impartial jury free from outside influences. Given the pervasiveness of modern communications and the difficulty of effacing prejudicial publicity from the minds of the jurors, the trial courts must take strong measures to ensure that the balance is never weighed against the accused. And appellate tribunals have the duty to make an independent evaluation of the circumstances. [Id. at 362, 86 S. Ct. at 1522, 16 L. Ed. at 620.] Defendant contends that he was denied a fair trial because the court did not "take strong measures" to assure that his trial was free from the outside influence of prejudicial publicity. Central issues raised in his appeal are (1) whether the trial court should have granted defendant's motion for a change of venue, that is, whether it should have transferred the case for trial outside the county where the crime was committed, and (2) whether, because of recurring prejudicial publicity during the course of the trial, the court should have questioned jurors individually concerning their exposure to such midtrial publicity. We find that the measures taken by the trial court, the selection of a jury composed of out-of-county residents, and its general questioning of the jurors during the trial concerning any exposure to trial publicity sufficiently ensured that defendant's trial was free of extraneous influences. We find no other errors that tainted his trial. We affirm the convictions for murder and other crimes found and affirm the sentence of death. Proportionality review will take place in later proceedings. Because in cases involving the death penalty a trial court's responsibility under both the federal and state constitutions is to "minimize the danger that prejudice will infiltrate the adjudicatory process," State v. Williams, 93 N.J. 39, 63 (1983) (Williams I), we hold that when hereafter there is a reasonable likelihood that the trial of a capital case will be surrounded by presumptively prejudicial media publicity (as that phrase is understood in the law) the court should transfer the case to another county. Other devices, such as restraints against the publication of material concerning the trial or the sequestration of jurors, have proven either to be unavailable to counter the effects of continuing prejudicial publicity or to produce a contrary effect than desired. In some cases a court may conclude that an initial tide of inherently prejudicial publicity will have subsided at time of trial and will not require a change of venue if the jury selection process yields an impartial jury. E.g., State v. Koedatich, 112 N.J. 225, 273-82 (1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1017, 109 S. Ct. 813, 102 L. Ed. 2d 803 (1989) (Koedatich I). When, however, a court is satisfied that there is a reasonable likelihood of the continuing recurrence at a capital trial of presumptively prejudicial publicity that might infiltrate the trial, a change of venue is required. Defendant challenges his conviction on the ground that prejudicial pretrial and midtrial publicity in Mercer County undermined his right to trial by a fair and impartial jury, a right guaranteed to criminal defendants by the state and federal constitutions. U.S. Const. amend. 14; N.J. Const. art. 1, 10; see Williams I, supra, 93 N.J. at 59-62. Justice Stein set forth a concise account of the relevant principles in State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 45 (1988) (Bey I): "The securing and preservation of an impartial jury goes to the very essence of a fair trial. * * * [This right] is of exceptional significance. * * * [T]riers of fact must be as nearly impartial `as the lot of humanity will admit.'" "It is axiomatic that a criminal defendant's right to a fair trial requires that he be tried before a jury panel not tainted by prejudice." "[F]ailure to accord an accused a fair hearing violates even the minimal standards of due process." Of particular significance here is that aspect of impartiality mandating "that the jury's verdict be based on evidence received in open court, not from outside sources." As expressed by Justice Holmes, "[t]he theory of our system is that the conclusions to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether of private talk or public print." . . . The Court has consistently required trial courts to protect both jurors and their deliberations from illegitimate influences that threaten to taint the verdict. [T]rial judges must "seek out and expose outside factors impinging upon the jury's freedom of action and its impartiality and essential integrity." [Bey I, supra, 112 N.J. at 75 (citations omitted).] Before applying these principles, we digress to examine important differences in four related concepts: (1) media publicity that is inherently prejudicial; (2) media publicity that is presumed to prejudice a fair trial; (3) the federal standard for reversing a state court conviction, and (4) the state standard for ordering a change of venue. Obviously, not all publicity about a crime is prejudicial to an accused. Some news accounts may simply report that charges have been made and include an outline of facts alleged in the indictment. Other types of media publicity, however, are prejudicial to fair trial rights because the publicity is inherently prejudicial or inflammatory. Several types of publicity fall into this category. The [perfect example] is a report of a confession or of other significant evidence that is suppressed or otherwise inadmissible. Closely related are reports of important factual details that the defendant will actively seek to dispute at trial. Also included are emotionally charged editorials. This category [of inherently prejudicial publicity] further encompasses prejudicial accounts of the defendant's criminal history, particularly when such accounts are inaccurate. [Newcomb v. State, 800 P.2d 935, 939 (Alaska Ct. App. 1990).] [Id. at 799, 95 S. Ct. at 2035-36, 44 L. Ed. 2d at 594.] Cases of presumed prejudice due to pretrial publicity are "relatively rare and arise out of the most extreme circumstances." Koedatich I, supra, 112 N.J. at 269. Coleman v. Kemp, 778 F.2d 1487 (11th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1164, 106 S. Ct. 2289, 90 L. Ed. 2d 730 (1986) offers an example of the analysis that is required to reach the conclusion that the "presumed prejudice" standard may be invoked. In Coleman, the community had been saturated with prejudicial and inflammatory pretrial publicity and an insufficient effort had been made to root out jurors exposed to the publicity. The doctrine of "presumed prejudice" arising from massive and pervasive publicity is one of two tests currently prescribed by the federal courts to demonstrate that fair trial rights have been infringed. The other is a test for "actual prejudice." If prejudicial pretrial publicity makes it impossible to seat an impartial jury, then the trial judge must grant the defendant's motion for a change of venue. The prejudice requirement will be satisfied by a finding of: (1) presumed prejudice; or (2) actual prejudice. "Prejudice is presumed when the record demonstrates that the community where the trial was held was saturated with prejudicial and inflammatory media publicity about the crime." Courts rarely find presumed prejudice because "saturation" defines conditions found only in extreme situations. Actual prejudice exists if the jurors demonstrated actual partiality or hostility that cannot be laid aside. "[J]urors need not, however, be totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved." [Jeffries v. Blodgett, 5 F.3d 1180, 1189 (9th Cir. 1993) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1191, 114 S. Ct. 1294, 127 L. Ed. 2d 647 (1994).] According to the Ninth Circuit, trial courts must grant a defendant's motion for a change in venue if either test is met. Ibid. And federal habeas corpus relief is warranted if a state trial court has failed to comply with the rule. See ibid. The federal standard for reversal of a state court conviction should not, however, be confused with the state standard for granting a change of venue. See United States v. Houlihan, 926 F. Supp. 14, 16 n.3 (D. Mass. 1996) (observing that "the [supervisory] threshold for unacceptable prejudicial publicity triggering a change in venue may well be lower than the constitutional standard"). New Jersey Rule 3:14-2 authorizes a change of venue or trial by a foreign jury "if the court finds that a fair and impartial trial cannot otherwise be had." Our law respecting motions for a change of venue in capital cases was initially considered in Williams I, supra, 93 N.J. 39. It was further developed in Biegenwald II, supra, 106 N.J. 13, and in Bey I, supra, 112 N.J. 45. In Biegenwald II the Court observed that under the former test set forth in State v. Wise, 19 N.J. 59, 73-74 (1955), which required clear and convincing proof that an impartial jury could not be obtained in the county where the indictment took place, few defendants succeeded in obtaining a change of venue. Biegenwald II, supra, 106 N.J. at 33. Accordingly, in Williams I, the Court modified the defendant's burden, conferring on trial courts the discretion to change venue when it is "necessary to overcome the realistic likelihood of prejudice from pretrial publicity." Williams I, supra, 93 N.J. at 67 n.13. [Biegenwald II, supra, 106 N.J. at 32 (emphasis added).] In fact, the empanelment of foreign jurors was the first trial management technique that Williams I suggested to combat the effects of preexisting prejudicial pretrial publicity. The Court said: "The court should explore the feasibility of augmenting the pool of eligible jurors in the vicinage, and should consider the practicability of using citizens from beyond the particular vicinage to serve as potential jurors, the use of so-called `foreign jurors.' Similarly, a change of trial venue may help to overcome the risk of prejudice." Williams I, supra, 93 N.J. at 67 (emphasis added). In the footnote to its opinion, the Williams I Court observed that "a change of venue has the same benefits and drawbacks as the impanelling of a foreign jury since both methods utilize jurors from communities where publicity may be less intense." Id. at 67 n.13. In order to "facilitate" the empanelment of foreign juries, the court held that the number of peremptory challenges should not be reduced if a foreign jury was chosen by the court in the exercise of its sound discretion. Id. at 67 n. 12. In short, every intendment of our law was that the empanelment of a foreign jury be an adequate response to the realistic likelihood that the jury would be subjected to adverse trial publicity. [Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 394-95, 67 S. Ct. 1249, 1263, 91 L. Ed. 1546, 1561 (1947) (Jackson, J., dissenting).] In an ideal world a free press would seek to foster fair trial rights by not circulating inherently prejudicial publicity at least during a time of trial. See Fred W. Friendly &amp; Martha J. H. Elliott, The Constitution: That Delicate Balance 148 (1984). If this cannot be so, courts must guarantee the preservation of fair trial rights without any restraint of the editorial freedom of the press. We long ago made the choice that "free speech is the national currency." Maressa v. New Jersey Monthly, 89 N.J. 176, 201, cert. denied, 459 U.S. 907, 103 S. Ct. 211, 74 L. Ed. 2d 169 (1982). In future capital cases a court should change the venue of a capital trial when there is a realistic likelihood that presumptively prejudicial publicity will continue during the conduct of a trial. Presumptively prejudicial publicity is recognized as a barrage of inflammatory reporting that may but need not include all of the following: evidence that would be inadmissible at the trial, editorial opinions on guilt or innocence, and media pronouncements on the death-worthiness of a defendant. We realize that this respect for a free press imposes an added expense and inconvenience on the State and the victims of crime. The alternatives, sequestration of jurors or gag orders on the press, have proven unacceptable. See generally Allen, supra, 73 N.J. 132. In his initial motion for a change of venue, Harris asked the trial court to select Camden County as the place for trial because of the county's relative proximity to Mercer County, the minimum circulation of newspapers containing prejudicial publicity, and because the racial makeup of the county's population (its demographics) was nearly the same as Mercer County. Initially, the court rejected Camden County as a transfer site or source for a jury because it was not one of the counties contiguous to Mercer County and because there was no legal authority requiring the court to consider the racial makeup of the alternate jury pool in its decision. The court considered the two contiguous counties of Hunterdon and Burlington. It chose Hunterdon because the two Trenton newspapers (the Times and the Trentonian) had a combined Burlington County circulation of approximately 20,000, split fairly evenly between the two. The circulation of the two Trenton newspapers in Hunterdon County was about 3,000 daily, of which some 1,200 were of the Trentonian. After the Appellate Division determined that racial demographics should be considered by the court and that the trial court had erred in refusing to consider Camden County merely because it was not contiguous to Mercer County, Harris again urged the selection of Camden County based upon publicity and the demographic considerations. Camden County, like Mercer County, consisted of an urban center surrounded by rural areas with a sixteen percent African-American population. At most, 250 copies of the Trentonian circulated in Camden County. In contrast, Burlington County consisted of largely rural areas with an African-American population of only fourteen percent. The trial court concluded that the racial demographics of the counties were virtually identical and that the circulation of the Trenton newspapers in Burlington County was not large enough to prejudice defendant. Relying upon the considerations of proximity and efficiency, it chose Burlington County as the source for selection of the jury. Defendant finds it to be a paradox that although the relatively large local circulation of the Trenton papers had motivated the trial court to reject Burlington County in the first instance (Hunterdon's circulation of 3,000 having been preferable to Burlington's circulation of 22,000), when required by the Appellate Division to reconsider, the court chose Burlington County over Camden even though the circulation figures were more widely disparate: Burlington's 22,000 copies compared with Camden's 250. The trial court held that the extent of news coverage in Burlington County should not be decisive because even if the case were tried "on the Ross Ice Shelf [in Antarctica], it would generate publicity. There is no way to avoid that." Defendant argues that because the goal is to "minimize the danger that prejudice [from extensive pretrial publicity] will infiltrate the adjudicatory process," Koedatich I, supra, 112 N.J. at 268 (quoting Williams I, supra, 93 N.J. at 63), the most effective method of minimizing the potential was to select a jury from a county which was outside of the circulation range of the Trenton newspapers. Defendant would prevail if the court had taken no other steps to minimize the danger that prejudice would infiltrate the adjudicatory process. The court took firm steps to ensure that none of those households that received the Trentonian (the newspaper containing the most inflammatory material) would be on this jury. A questionnaire specifically inquired whether a potential juror had read the Trenton newspapers. Any juror who regularly read the Trentonian was effectively subject to elimination for cause in the jury selection process. In addition, the court ensured that during the course of the trial most jurors were assembled at the Burlington County Court House and transported directly to the Mercer County Court House with attempts to minimize the exposure to the hawking of papers en route to the court house. Although the court empaneled the jurors from Burlington County, the net effect was not significantly different than if the jury had been from Camden County. As noted, the racial demographics of the two counties were substantially similar, although Camden is more urban. When the jury panel was finally composed, it included two minority members. The court systematically excluded readers of the Trentonian from the panel of jurors. (The court's initial goal was to select sixty jurors and eventually qualified forty-nine jurors on the day before trial was to commence on January 3, 1996.) The principal risk of jury contamination in this case arose in Mercer county and not in the home counties of the jurors. It made little difference whether the jurors were from Burlington or Camden counties. Defendant contends that assuming that it was not an abuse of discretion to employ an out-of-county jury, the court's refusal to question jurors individually concerning any possible exposure to inherently prejudicial midtrial publicity deprived defendant of a fair trial. Defendant specially challenges the penalty-phase portion of the trial. After the guilt verdict was returned, defense counsel moved for sequestration of the jury and that the court conduct an individual voir dire. Counsel argued that jurors, particularly juror number seven, may have been exposed to prejudicial publicity that the jurors might have been reluctant to discuss in a group setting. Dramatically prejudicial headlines were attendant to the guilt-phase deliberations. The Trentonian headlines read, "One Juror Stalls Verdict," and "Battling Harris Jury Draws Public Fire." A feature story quoted a Trenton resident as expressing the opinion that "[m]ost people figure the jury would think, `We'll have lunch on the county, and we'll squirt him--this afternoon.'" Similar publicity continued during the penalty phase. A headline such as "Ambrose Eyed in '67 Slay." An editorial recommended death for Harris. The day after the jury returned its guilt verdict, a front-page photograph of Harris ran over a caption which read, "So why's this killer smiling? Because he's seen juror No. 7 crying, and he thinks she'll never go for the death penalty." Defense counsel acknowledge that whenever they requested the court to question jurors concerning any prejudicial headlines and accounts, the court did ask the jurors to acknowledge by a show of hands if they had seen or read any news accounts of the trial and that on each of these occasions it received no response. But defendant argues that because of the inherently prejudicial nature of these articles, particularly those that singled out a specific juror, the court should have granted defense counsel's request for an in camera individual voir dire of the jurors. (In camera individual voir dire means one-on-one interviews between the judge and each juror, without the press or the public present.) Bey I, supra, 112 N.J. 45, presented a similar issue. In that case the defendant had been charged almost simultaneously with two murders in the same county. Because the defendant had not been convicted of either murder, evidence of the other murder was inadmissible at the first guilt-phase trial. During voir dire, the court questioned jurors concerning exposure to any pretrial publicity and admonished prospective jurors not to read newspaper accounts of the case. These protective instructions were repeated frequently at trial. After the commencement of trial, a newspaper circulating in the county printed articles concerning the other murder and also published a strongly worded commentary criticizing sentences in other murder cases as overly lenient. Id. at 79-80. Defense counsel produced the articles and requested a mistrial or, in the alternative, that the jury be polled concerning any exposure. The court declined to question the jury with respect to any exposure to the newspaper articles, relying on the presumption that jurors would faithfully adhere to the court's instruction. Id. at 80. Notwithstanding the general presumption that jurors act in good faith and seek to comply with a court's instructions, we held that general warnings not to read trial publicity are inadequate when inherently prejudicial information has been published during a trial and it is likely that one or more jurors may have been exposed to the publicity. Id. at 81. If a court is satisfied that published information has the capacity to prejudice a defendant, the court should first "determine if there is a realistic possibility that such information may have reached one or more of the jurors." Id. at 86. If such a "possibility exists, the court should conduct a voir dire to determine whether any exposure has occurred." Ibid. In a footnote, the Court wrote that "[t]hough the form and content of this initial questioning is better left within the trial court's sound discretion, we note that a practice of polling the jurors individually, in camera, is likely to be more effective in uncovering any exposure than is questioning the jury en banc, in open court." Id. at 86 n.26. Justice Stein further prescribed that [i]f there is any indication of such exposure or knowledge of extra-judicial information, the court should question those jurors individually in order to determine precisely what was learned and establish whether they are capable of fulfilling their duty to judge the facts in an impartial and unbiased manner, based strictly on the evidence presented in court. We reversed the conviction in Bey I because the court refused to question the jurors in accordance with defense counsel's request. We observed that "[s]uch an inquiry might have revealed that no exposure to the publicity had occurred at all." Id. at 91. That scenario did not occur in this case. Harris' jurors were questioned generally and that inquiry revealed that no exposure had occurred. United States v. Bermea, 30 F.3d 1539 (5th Cir. 1994), cert. denied sub nom. Rodriguez v. United States, 513 U.S. 1156, 115 S. Ct. 1113, 130 L. Ed. 2d 1077 (1995), is similar. After instances of possible exposure to inherently prejudicial publicity had been brought to its attention, the court conducted a collective voir dire. The negative response received on each occasion disclosed that jury exposure did not occur and supported the court's discretionary decision that individual voir dire was unnecessary. The Bermea court wrote: "We have found nothing in our cases to support a rule that midtrial publicity requires individual voir dire even after the district judge has made a collective inquiry to the jury and received no positive response." Id. at 1560; see also United States v. Tolliver, 61 F.3d 1189, 1204 (5th Cir. 1995) (holding that a two-step inquiry is necessary to assess whether individualized voir dire is necessary because of midtrial publicity, concerning the nature of the media coverage and its prominence). In Bey I, the court was at pains to point out that "with respect to the trial court's failure to poll the jury about exposure to media reports, we have gone no further than to adopt the approach accepted by the majority of states that have considered the matter for capital and noncapital cases alike." Bey I, supra, 112 N.J. at 92. Had we intended to go further than prevailing practice on the question of exposure to midtrial publicity, we should have done so explicitly. Not having done so in Bey I, a denial of individual voir dire should not form the basis for reversing a conviction when there is no evidence of exposure. Unlike in Bey I and Bermea, in which the jurors were exposed in their homes to newspapers and television accounts of inherently prejudicial material, the jurors in this case were not exposed to publicity in their homes. The question was whether, in their travels by bus in and out of the county and in their trips for lunch, they would have read and been influenced by the prominently displayed headlines of the tabloid newspaper involved. In such circumstances, the collective voir dire was acceptable. A question may arise whether we should reconvene the jury and poll the members individually to determine whether any individual juror was, in fact, exposed to prejudicial midtrial publicity. In Koedatich I, supra, 112 N.J. 225, defendant sought to question jurors after his trial. He relied on a newspaper article that quoted some jurors as having knowledge of his involvement in a second murder. We held that questioning jurors after a trial is "an extraordinary procedure" that should be invoked only when there is a strong representation that a defendant may have been harmed by juror misconduct. Id. at 288 (quoting State v. Athorn, 46 N.J. 247, 250, cert. denied, 384 U.S. 962, 86 S. Ct. 1589, 16 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1966)). We did not wish to create a situation where "disappointed litigants would be encouraged to tamper with jurors to harass them and to employ fraudulent practices in an effort to repudiate their decisions." Ibid. (quoting Athorn, supra, 46 N.J. at 250). Nor did we wish to extend "an open invitation . . . to any disgruntled juror who might choose to destroy a verdict to which [the juror] had previously assented." Ibid. (quoting Athorn, supra, 46 N.J. at 250). Privacy and secrecy must attach to the process, not only to promote the finality of jury verdicts but also to aid the deliberative process itself, allowing each juror the freedom to discuss his or her thoughts. Ibid. For the same "strong policy reasons" that led us to the decision not to interrogate the Koedatich jury, Koedatich, supra, 112 N.J. at 288-90, we ought not reconvene the jury that convicted and sentenced defendant. On February 22, 1996, prior to the commencement of the penalty phase, defense counsel moved to sequester the jury. The impetus for this motion was a "new direction" that the publicity had taken. The February 21, 1996, edition of the Trentonian contained in bold type the bold headline, "Guilty," over a picture of Mr. Harris with a caption, "So why's this killer smiling? Because he's seen juror No. 7 crying, and he thinks she'll never go for the death penalty." Several days before, while the jury was deliberating defendant's guilt, a cover page headline said, "One Juror Stalls Verdict." Defendant describes this as a clear attempt by the media to seek to influence or intimidate this jury, and, more specifically, to intimidate, by personal attack, a single juror who happened to be a black female. In this context, sequestration of jurors means that jurors would not return to their homes at the end of a day of trial and would be housed by the court, take all meals, and receive outside information under the supervision of court officers. See Marcy Strauss, Sequestration, 24 Am. J. Crim. L. 63, 66 (1996). This is not to be confused with the sequestration of witnesses, the practice of not allowing prospective witnesses to hear the testimony of other witnesses, the theory being that the witnesses might shape their testimony to that which they have heard. Defendant emphasizes that under our prior death-penalty practice, sequestration of the jury was required at all times in capital cases. State v. Pontery, 19 N.J. 457, 479 (1955) (Heher, J., concurring). It was not until September 5, 1972, that judges were permitted to disperse a criminal jury during deliberations. Pressler, Current N.J. Court Rules, comment 3 on R. 1:8-6 (1998). The Sub-Committee on Jury Deliberations of this Court's Criminal Procedure Committee, which recommended the 1972 rule change, suggested that sequestration after commencement of deliberations be a discretionary decision for the trial court based on such factors as the nature of the case, the identity of the defendant, the length of the trial, and the kind of public interest evidenced on the day and the hour when deliberations begin. More importantly, the Committee recommended that the presumption against sequestration, which applies during the course of the trial, not carry over to the deliberations phase. Ibid. We acknowledge that sequestration was once considered the norm during jury deliberations in criminal cases, where the need to protect jurors from the outside influences of pretrial publicity was a constant. Allen, supra, 73 N.J. at 155 (Pashman, J., concurring). Yet, sequestration did not originate as a means of preserving juror impartiality. Rather than to protect the defendant by keeping the deliberating jurors from being improperly influenced by contacts with or communication from outside sources, it appears that the purpose of the ancient common law practice of keeping the jurors locked up without food or drink and sometimes without heat and light until they have reached a verdict was simply to force them to agree. [Strauss, supra, 24 Am. J. Crim. L. at 70-71.] Because trials then generally lasted less than a day, this ancient requirement was "less onerous in practice than may appear on first glance." Id. at 71. The "trend of modern decisions seems to be constantly tapering off from the ancient idea that the confinement of the jury in a criminal case is a prerequisite to insure an uninfluenced verdict." Id. at 72. The principal reason for the decline in sequestration is the burden it imposes on the judicial system and on jurors themselves. Sequestration has been described as "a glorified prison," where "[e]very contact to the outside world is censored," and where "[e]verything the sequestered jury reads, hears, and sees is monitored." Christo Lassiter, TV or Not TV--That Is The Question, 86 J. Crim. L. &amp; Criminology 928, 986 (1996). Such conditions can cause feuding among jurors and can motivate jurors to rush their deliberations. Id. at 985-86. In addition, even a short sequestration will reduce the number of potential jurors because the prospect of sequestration will deter many potential jurors from serving. Id. at 985. In one highly publicized case, ninety-five percent of the nearly 4500 potential jurors said that sequestration would impose a prohibitive hardship. Mark Hansen, Sequestration: Little Used, Little Liked: Tensions on Simpson Jury Could be Symptom of Record Confinement, 81 A.B.A.J. 16, 17 (Oct. 1995). Sequestration has thus been viewed as a "drastic remedy [that] cannot be recommended lightly." United States v. Simon, 664 F. Supp. 780, 794 (S.D.N.Y. 1987), aff'd sub nom. In re Application of Dow Jones &amp; Co. v. Simon, 842 F.2d 603 (2d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Dow Jones &amp; Co. v. Simon, 488 U.S. 946, 109 S. Ct. 377, 102 L. Ed. 2d 365 (1988). Although the trial court did alert the jurors during orientation that they might be sequestered for several days during deliberations, the court was understandably reluctant to sequester the jury on the basis of the contemporaneous publicity reported in the Trentonian. As near as can be determined from this record, no prejudicial publicity appeared on any of the televised news broadcasts to which the jurors might have been exposed in their homes, nor in any of the other newspapers circulating in the State. The jurors chosen tended not to read the Trentonian. Because the overnight activities of the jurors did not pose a threat of taint and because there is no indication of any actual exposure during the jurors' lunch hours, it was not necessary to sequester the jury. Before trial, defendant requested that the court bar the State from introducing evidence of defendant's prior criminal record or, in the alternative, that the court empanel separate guilt-phase and penalty-phase juries. The trial court denied defendant's motion. The court found that defendant possessed an "extensive criminal record which could be used to impeach him in the event he elects to testify during the guilt phase of the trial." Defendant had been convicted of possession of stolen property, larceny, burglary, robbery, attempt to commit robbery, and unlawful possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes. The court found that use of defendant's criminal record would not prejudice defendant at the penalty phase. The court relied on two considerations. First, the court found that "sanitizing" defendant's criminal record, as required by State v. Brunson, 132 N.J. 377 (1993), would lessen the possibility of prejudice considered in State v. Erazo, 126 N.J. 112 (1991) and State v. Monturi, 195 N.J. Super. 317 (Law Div. 1984). Under Brunson, supra, a prosecutor may impeach a defendant's credibility by introducing evidence of prior criminal convictions. 132 N.J. at 394. However, if the past crimes are similar to the instant charge, the prosecutor may only inform the jury of the degree of the prior crimes and the dates of conviction. Ibid. Counsel may not specify the nature of the offenses. Ibid. The trial court found that the Brunson decision obviated the need for separate guilt-phase and penalty-phase juries. Second, the court found that selection of a foreign jury would "reduce[] the possibility that the jurors will be aware of the exact nature of defendant's crimes by virtue of pretrial publicity." Despite his expressed desire to testify without regard for the trial court's decisions on these issues, defendant did not testify during the guilt phase. Defendant argues that the trial court's ruling prevented him from testifying, denying him his Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial, because he was unable to present fully his contention that Gloria Dunn was in fact the trigger person causing Kristin Huggins' death. Defendant contends that the use of his criminal record for impeachment purposes, while proper during the guilt phase of the trial, would have led the jury to improper consideration of that evidence during the penalty phase. During voir dire, six of the jurors who ultimately went on to deliberate expressed the opinion that defendant's criminal record would be a relevant consideration during sentencing. Defendant contends that no limiting instruction would have been effective. Trial courts are authorized to empanel separate guilt-phase and penalty-phase juries in capital murder cases. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(1) provides, in part: Where the defendant has been tried by a jury, the [penalty] proceeding shall be conducted by the judge who presided at the trial and before the jury which determined the defendant's guilt, except that, for good cause, the court may discharge that jury and conduct the proceeding before a jury empaneled for the purpose of the proceeding. Thus, although a single jury is preferable, State v. Biegenwald, 126 N.J. 1, 44 (1991) (Biegenwald IV), a trial court may, for good cause, empanel two juries. That decision rests in the sound discretion of the trial judge. State v. Long, 119 N.J. 439, 475 (1990). "One of the purposes of the bifurcated-trial system established by the New Jersey Death Penalty Act is to prevent the jury's determination of death-eligibility from being influenced by evidence relevant only to adjudgement of the appropriate sentence." Biegenwald IV, supra, 126 N.J. at 44. Evidence of other crimes has the capacity to prejudice the penalty-phase proceedings of a capital murder case. Erazo, supra, 126 N.J. at 132; State v. Moore, 113 N.J. 239, 276-77 (1988). "With the stakes so high, the possibility of prejudice on the penalty phase persists as a cause for continuing concern." Erazo, supra, 126 N.J. at 132. The use of two juries "commends itself when guilt-phase evidence is so prejudicial that the same jury could not fairly sit on both phases of the trial." Id. at 133 (citing Monturi, supra, 195 N.J. Super. 317). One instance in which the Court has required separate juries is when the State relies on aggravating factor c(4)(a), conviction of another murder. See Biegenwald IV, supra, 126 N.J. at 43-44 (recognizing "that our finding that defendant is entitled to voir dire potential jurors on the possible blinding impact of the c(4)(a) factor most likely will require a two-jury system for all capital cases in which the State seeks to prove that factor"). Except for that specific category of cases (in which it is inevitable that a reverse spillover will taint the guilt phase of a capital trial), a motion for separate guilt- and penalty-phase juries should be decided at the close of the guilt phase of a criminal proceeding. The statute contemplates that procedure. It is then that a trial court may properly assess whether prejudicial evidence has been presented to the jury. In Monturi, supra, Judge Stern addressed a defendant's pre-trial motion to empanel separate guilt- and penalty-phase juries. 195 N.J. Super. at 321-23. The defendant was accused of two murders and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder as well as a number of unrelated, "post-murder" crimes. The court found that some evidence necessary to prove guilt of the "post-murder" offenses would be inadmissible during the penalty phase. Id. at 326. "Nevertheless, to prejudge the evidence and order pre-trial that the case be tried to separate juries would be imprudent." Id. at 327. The court withheld decision on the issue of separate juries, suggesting that a court should wait until the end of the guilt phase to decide if the evidence presented was prejudicial in fact or would be admissible in some way during the penalty phase of the proceeding. Id. at 329-30. The potential introduction of Harris' sanitized prior convictions did not pose so grave a risk of prejudice as to warrant before trial the empanelment of two juries. We will not speculate whether the trial court's decision prevented defendant from testifying. There are many factors that influence that decision. Defendant stated that he would testify regardless of the court's decision to admit his criminal record or empanel only one jury. It may be, then, that some other consideration prevented defendant from testifying. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in failing to empanel two juries before trial. Whether a guilt-phase jury's exposure to a "Brunsonized" version of a criminal defendant's prior record of convictions rises to the level of "good cause" required under N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(1), must remain in the sound discretion of the court. We can envision circumstances in which evidence of other "unsanitized" convictions, such as child sexual abuse, might pose a potential for impermissible spillover into the penalty phase thus requiring two juries. See Erazo, supra, 126 N.J. at 132-33. Defendant contends that the trial court, without proper justification, excluded defense counsel from direct participation in jury selection and, remaining insensitive to counsel participation throughout jury selection, proceeded to conduct an entirely valueless voir dire. He contends that the jury voir dire was so inadequate that he was denied his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. Although his argument states a broad-based challenge to the trial court's conduct of voir dire, there are distinct aspects to the challenge: (1) whether the trial court improperly terminated attorney-conducted voir dire; (2) whether the overall quality of the voir dire was insufficient to enable counsel to exercise peremptory challenges with respect to issues such as the presumption of innocence, the exposure to publicity, and the awareness of other crimes on the defendant's part; (3) whether the court failed to explore a potential racial bias of jurors; and (4) whether the court failed to excuse for cause jurors whose views substantially interfered with their ability to be fair and impartial. The death-qualification and jury selection process is "important, delicate, and complex," and requires a "thorough and searching inquiry" into jurors' opinions and biases. State v. Williams, 113 N.J. 393, 413 (1988) (Williams II). Under our single-jury capital trial system, jury selection must serve double duty as both a time to "death qualify" jurors and a time to enable counsel to exercise the valuable constitutional prerogative of selecting a fair and impartial jury. The two purposes of the inquiry tend to overlap. See State v. Zola, 112 N.J. 384, 398 (1988), cert. denied sub nom. Zola v. New Jersey, 489 U.S. 1022, 109 S. Ct. 1146, 103 L. Ed. 2d 205 (1989). Significant inquiry into jurors' feelings, views, and attitudes on the death penalty and relevant issues in a case is required in capital voir dire. We have therefore encouraged open-ended questioning. We have strongly disapproved closed-ended questions that predetermine answers or elicit narrow yes-or-no responses. Williams II, supra, 113 N.J. at 423. We have encouraged the formulation of additional questions that will provide insight into a juror's views on a subject in controversy. Obviously, a court must control voir dire examination, but in doing so it must remain neutral. The court must not proselytize, and it must not indicate in any way its views of the "right" or "wrong" answers to voir dire questioning. The voir dire should be probing, extensive, fair, and balanced. Such voir dire is the essential predicate to securing a jury with the strong sense of fairness necessary in a capital prosecution. We have repeatedly stressed that the need for jury impartiality is heightened in cases in which the defendant faces death. Williams I, supra, 93 N.J. at 61. We have therefore repeatedly held that in capital cases trial courts should be especially sensitive to permitting attorneys to conduct a portion of voir dire. Biegenwald II, supra, 106 N.J. at 30. It is against these standards that we must assess the conduct of the voir dire in this case. Defendant contends that the trial court improperly admitted testimony from two witnesses. Specifically, defendant challenges Gloria Dunn's testimony that defendant offered to kill Anthony Boone, the father of one of her children, and the testimony of Edward Borm, an employee of the Trenton Club, that he identified defendant out of a mug shot photo array. We find no material prejudice to defendant from the testimony. Prior to trial the State indicated that it did not intend to present other-crime evidence under N.J.R.E. 404(b). The trial court accepted this representation. At the beginning of Dunn's testimony, the State sought to establish how Dunn and defendant came to be acquainted. Dunn testified that she met defendant in September 1992 at the Trenton Welfare Office. Dunn approached defendant because a friend mistook defendant for defendant's brother whom she knew. Defendant asked Dunn for her name, address and phone number presumably so that his brother, who was incarcerated at that time, could call Dunn. Dunn said that defendant called her later in the day and began to ask her a variety of personal questions about her children and whether she was married or had a boyfriend. During this conversation, Dunn told defendant that her children were not living with her because she was having domestic problems with Boone. The prosecutor asked Dunn what else she and defendant talked about during that conversation. The following colloquy ensued: A. That we was having problems, that [Boone] busted my windows out of my apartment and stuff. And [defendant] asked me did [Boone] hurt me, and what I wanted to be done about him doing that to me, because I should have my kids with me. And I told him nothing. He kept asking me. He said when was the last time I seen them and stuff. And I told him that I seen them. And he asked me did I want [defendant] to take care of [Boone] for me, and I told him no. Q. Did [the defendant] tell you what he meant when he asked you if you wanted him to take care of Anthony Boone for you? A. He asked me did I want [defendant] to pop [Boone]. Q. What does that mean to you? A. To hurt him or kill him. Q. Did you want that to happen to Anthony Boone? A. No, no. I didn't want [defendant] to hurt [Boone]. I never asked him until he kept talking about it. Defendant did not object to this testimony nor did he request a limiting instruction. Defense counsel did raise the issue on cross, noting that in all of her statements given to the police, Dunn had never mentioned this conversation. Defendant now argues that this testimony portrayed him "as a killing machine," thus eliminating the possibility that he would receive a fair trial. N.J.R.E. 404(b) prohibits the use of evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts for the purpose of showing that a criminal defendant is predisposed to commit a crime. State v. Cofield, 127 N.J. 328 (1992); State v. Stevens, 115 N.J. 289 (1989); State v. Weeks, 107 N.J. 396 (1987). However, such evidence may be admitted for limited purposes "such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident when such matters are relevant to a material issue in dispute." N.J.R.E. 404(b). The State seeks to justify admission of the evidence to show why Dunn was rightfully afraid of defendant during Huggins' abduction. Had the State proffered to the trial court that basis for admission of the evidence, it is highly unlikely that the trial court would have sustained the State's position. See Part IV, Sec. C hereof, post at ___ (slip op. at 62), discussing balance of probative value versus prejudicial effects of 404(b) evidence. Dunn's fear of defendant was not a material issue at that stage of the case. Dunn was testifying without challenge on direct examination. Dunn's testimony sought to explain that her fear of defendant prevented her from helping Huggins when she had the chance and from immediately notifying the police of the crime. The probative value relevant to that issue was slight compared to the prejudicial effect. Moreover, Dunn's failure to assist Huggins did little to establish whether defendant committed the crimes with which he was charged. Although the evidence may not be admissible under N.J.R.E. 404(b), it did not turn the jury against defendant. The State never referred to this testimony again in its direct case, rebuttal or summation. The admission of this evidence was not clearly capable of producing an unjust result warranting reversal. Next, defendant argues that Borm's testimony regarding defendant's "mug shot" impaired his ability to receive a fair trial. During the course of his testimony, Borm relayed the manner in which the Trenton Police came into contact with him. The prosecutor continued: Q. Were you ever asked to view photographs? A. Yes. Q. Where did you do that for the first time? A. At the police station. Q. And tell us the kind and number of photographs that you were asked to view. A. I was looking at pictures of mug shots, mostly black and white pictures. There were a few color, and they were a couple of file cabinet drawers filled to the top that I had to go through. Borm stated that this photo identification took place in January 1993. Defendant did not object to this testimony nor did he request a curative instruction. Reference to mug shots constitutes an impermissible reference to a defendant's criminal record. State v. Cribb, 281 N.J. Super. 156, 161-62 (App. Div. 1995). Although references to mug shots have been found to be error, solitary, fleeting references will generally not constitute reversible error. See State v. Porambo, 226 N.J. Super. 416, 425-26 (App. Div. 1988); State v. Miller, 159 N.J. Super. 552, 562 (App. Div. 1978). The reference to the mug shot was fleeting and came after testimony that defendant had been arrested in December 1992. Therefore, the jury was aware that mug shots of defendant existed. Despite the lack of a court instruction to the jury regarding Borm's statement, there was no harm. The Court: Miss Dunn, what did you say, remember when I walked over and told you that you were to make no comments, what did you say? The Witness: I said murderer, and I said I hope they kill his ass. He heard me. You killed her. The court admonished Dunn against any further outbursts. The court then placed the full exchange on the record. The Court, also, will place on the record that . . . Miss Dunn, by her own admission turned to the defendant and said, "Murderer. I hope they kill your ass," or something to that effect. What the record does not reflect is what the Deputy Clerk of the Court, Miss Diaz, has revealed to the Court during the recess, and that is that when the witness, Miss Dunn said something to the defendant, that defendant mouthed back the word "Bitch." So that we have a little bit of an ongoing colloquy. Upon the jury's arrival in the courtroom, the court immediately asked its members if they had heard Dunn's comments directed at defendant. The majority of the jurors responded that they had. The court instructed the jury to ignore the comments. The Court instructs you that those comments are to be ignored. Now, that does not mean that you can put them out of your mind, obviously, and as the Court has explained to you before, remember the comment and remember that you're not to consider it in your determinations. They are determinations for you in this case. They are not for the witness. They are argumentative. They are improper and should be disregarded. Several days later, defense counsel requested that the court ask the jury whether any of its members had heard defendant's response to Dunn's outburst and, if any responded affirmatively, to interview each of the jurors individually to determine whether what they heard would prevent them from fairly deciding the case. The trial court agreed to question the jury but refused to question its members individually because the court reasoned that the outburst was not significant enough to overcome the "overwhelming evidence." No jurors indicated that they heard defendant's response. Defendant moved for a mistrial based on Dunn's outburst. The court denied defendant's motion, finding that Dunn's comments were nearly inaudible and reflected poorly on her rather than damaging defendant's case. Additionally, during the jury charge at the end of the guilt phase, the court again warned the jury to ignore any improper remarks from the witnesses. There was no error. The court's immediate curative action coupled with the fact that the jurors did not see or hear defendant's response to Dunn's comments limited the prejudice that defendant could have suffered here. Additionally, Dunn's statements, while improper and inappropriate, were in accord with the testimony that she was giving. In State v. Loftin, 146 N.J. 295, 363 (1996), the Court addressed an outburst by a member of the gallery directed at one of the jurors who was moved to tears by the defendant's allocution. This outburst prompted the jurors to inform the trial judge that they feared for their safety. Ibid. The court immediately informed the jury that it was to share any concerns that it had about safety or the performance of its duties with the court. Id. at 163-64. Acceding to defense counsel's request not to question the jurors individually about the outburst for fear of drawing attention to it, the trial court simply asked a limited question whether any of them had seen or heard anything that would impact their ability to discharge their duties. Id. at 364. All of the jurors responded in the negative. Ibid. Refusing to second-guess defense strategy, the Court rejected the defendant's argument on appeal that the trial court should have engaged in more extensive voir dire and provided a more specific jury instruction. Id. at 364-65. There, we found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in taking the curative action that it did because the outburst had been brief, contained no factual information, and did not constitute victim impact evidence because the jury poll revealed that the jury was not affected by the episode. Id. at 366-67. We recognize that the facts here are different. Dunn was a testifying witness whose outburst concerned the subject of her testimony. Her comments were directed at defendant and were audible to the jury. We find, however, that the same result should obtain. The trial court's curative action was sufficient. The court polled the jury and found that, although the jury did hear Dunn's outburst, it did not hear defendant's response. Furthermore, the court concluded that Dunn had already testified that defendant was a murderer. Her comments directed at defendant were in accord with her testimony. Dunn's outburst was brief and appropriately handled by the trial judge. The comments were limited; the trial court's response was swift. [New Jersey Model Criminal Jury Charges 4.100 (1976) (citing Spruill, supra, 16 N.J. at 78, and Begyn, supra, 34 N.J. at 54).] During the charge conference, defense counsel requested the trial court to "charge the jury with respect to credibility, that the presence of a plea agreement between the State and Gloria Dunn may be considered by the jury in evaluating the credibility of Ms. Dunn." The trial court "decline[d] to do that," calling it "a matter for argument." The State argues that the court's decision on this matter did not constitute an arbitrary denial of an accomplice charge, in violation of our Spruill decision, because defense counsel's request was not sufficiently specific to notify the court that defendant sought the charge on the "accomplice rule." The State urges that defendant thus waived his right to the accomplice-credibility charge. Although one need not "speak with the discrimination of an Oxford don," Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 476, 114 S. Ct. 2350, 2364, 129 L. Ed. 2d 362, 382 (1994) (Souter, J., concurring), in order to preserve the right to a proper instruction, defense counsel would better have included in his request the version of the accomplice charge that formerly appeared at section 4.100 of our Model Criminal Jury Charges, or perhaps cited the cases that gave rise to that model charge. We need not debate whether defense counsel's request, because of the way it was phrased, constituted a failure to object for we are satisfied in the circumstances that the jury could not have misunderstood that Dunn's testimony was especially suspect. To establish that the error warrants reversal, defendant must prove that the error was "of such a nature as to have been clearly capable of producing an unjust result." R. 2:10-2. Because defendant attacked Dunn's credibility so thoroughly during the course of the trial, and because witnesses other than Dunn provided ample evidence to implicate defendant as the actual shooter, the failure to give the accomplice charge was not reversible error. Defendant undermined Dunn's credibility at almost every stage of the guilt-phase trial. During opening statements, defense counsel said, "You can't, you won't, you must not believe Gloria Dunn because she is simply unbelievable. She simply has no credibility, I submit to you right at the outset." After explaining that Dunn went to the police in order to collect a $25,000 reward, counsel continued, "She never got the 25,000 bucks, but she got a much more precious reward, because think to yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, what each and every day of your life is worth. She got a king's ransom for . . . providing the information to the State." He characterized Dunn as an opportunist: She's a fortune seeker, she's a cheater and she's a liar. She does nothing unless she gets paid off big time for it. The prosecutor here, probably not because she [the prosecutor] wants to but because that's the only way to go . . . , has made a deal with the devil, has made a deal with the devil herself to execute him. On cross-examination, defense counsel attacked Dunn's credibility even more effectively. He emphasized that she was testifying to "keep[] [her] end of the deal," in exchange for fifteen-year parole eligibility on her guilty pleas to kidnapping and robbery. He had Dunn admit that she had been indicted for felony murder and as an accomplice to rape, which charges were dismissed when she pleaded guilty to kidnapping and robbery. She admitted that she had yet to receive sentences on those charges. Counsel alluded to Dunn's continued participation in the kidnapping in spite of defendant's alleged statement that he would kill their carjacking victim if that victim happened to be white. He stressed that Dunn failed to take advantage of several opportunities to withdraw from the criminal endeavor. Counsel showed several inconsistencies between her trial testimony and her statements to police, gleaning admissions from Dunn that she had lied to the police as well as repeated claims from Dunn that the police had recorded her statements inaccurately. He also elicited admissions that Dunn had previously pleaded guilty to welfare fraud and had both used and sold narcotics. Dunn's lack of credibility was the refrain of defense counsel's summation. Over and over counsel warned the jury, "You can't trust her. You can't believe her. There's something wrong." Counsel referred repeatedly to Dunn's plea bargain and to the motivation for it. He said at one point, "She's made herself a heck of a deal. . . . You know what the deal is. The prosecutor's candid. She told you what that deal was. Based on . . . [Dunn's] performance, . . . she would receive a significantly lesser sentence." And counsel's final words to the jury were the following: "Are you willing to rely on Gloria? Are you willing to trust in Gloria? Convict [defendant] for the sin of using the MAC card. Convict him, but don't condemn him on the word of a liar." Defendant's impeachment of Gloria Dunn was extensive. It was obvious to any juror that Dunn was a witness whose testimony called for careful scrutiny. The absence of the benefit to defendant of the court's imprimatur on his argument through the accomplice-credibility instruction was not clearly capable of producing an unjust result. Trial witnesses testified to several inculpatory, out-of-court remarks by defendant. For example, Gloria Dunn testified that defendant said he would kill their carjacking victim if he or she were white; that he told Huggins in the course of raping her to "take your clothes off, bitch"; that defendant said he had to shoot Huggins a second time to make sure she was dead; that defendant threatened to "come looking" for Dunn if she reported their crime; and that defendant offered to "pop" Dunn's ex-boyfriend. Tariq Ayres testified that defendant bragged to him about "knock[ing] off some white girl." Defendant challenges the court's failure to instruct the jury to use caution in considering such testimony of out-of-court statements. He also argues that the trial court erred by not instructing that the jury could not consider out-of-court statements as evidence unless it found beyond a reasonable doubt that the statements were credible. Criminal defendants are entitled to an instruction that jurors use caution in evaluating testimony concerning out-of-court statements. State v. Kociolek, 23 N.J. 400, 421 (1957). Further, when the prosecution seeks to introduce a statement made by a criminal defendant, and the trial judge is required to determine the admissibility of that statement, the judge must instruct the jury to disregard the statement if it finds it is not credible. State v. Hampton, 61 N.J. 250, 271-72 (1972) (codified at N.J.R.E. 104(c)). We recently rejected the argument now advanced by defendant that jurors should not be able to consider such testimony without being convinced of its credibility beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Chew, 150 N.J. 30, 82-83 (1997). Defendant did not request the Hampton and Kociolek instructions at trial. However, a defendant need not request those instructions in order to preserve the right to them. In State v. Jordan, 147 N.J. 409 (1997), we held that the Hampton charge is required, "[w]hether requested or not, whenever a defendant's oral or written statements, admissions, or confessions are introduced in evidence." Id. at 425. "Like the Hampton charge, the Kociolek charge should be given whether requested or not." Id. at 428. However, we held in Jordan that if a defendant fails to request either the Hampton or the Kociolek instruction, a trial judge's failure to give the applicable charge is not per se reversible error. Id. at 425, 428. Rather, Jordan held that the omission of the Hampton instruction warrants reversal "only when, in the context of the entire case, the omission is 'clearly capable of producing an unjust result.'" Id. at 425 (citing R. 2:10-2). The same standard applies to the omission of an unrequested Kociolek charge. See id. at 428. The omission of the Kociolek and Hampton charges, in the context of the State's entire case against defendant, was not clearly capable of producing an unjust result. The principal value of the Kociolek charge is to cast a skeptical eye on the sources of inculpatory statements attributed to a defendant. The devastating cross-examination of Dunn and Tariq Ayres accomplished that end. In addition, the Kociolek and Hampton instructions would have done nothing to affect the force of Gloria Dunn's eye-witness testimony or Tariq Ayres' evidence that defendant possessed the murder weapon. Defendant argues that the trial court erred when it refused to accept the jury's indication that it was deadlocked on the rape charge and instead ordered further deliberation. Defendant contends that the court's instruction coerced a verdict on the count of aggravated sexual assault by forcing the minority of jurors, who were voting not guilty, to accept the position of the majority. The jury had deliberated for approximately six hours over the course of three days. The guilt phase trial took six weeks. Additionally, the jury's note stated that the "split [was] very deep," but concluded that "there doesn't seem at present a way to resolve it," thus stating the deadlock conditionally. Given this limited period of deliberation and the language of the jury's note, the court did not err in requiring the jury to continue deliberating. The jury had not yet reached a point at which agreement was impossible. Ordering further deliberation was not unreasonable. See Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 304 (addressing penalty-phase deadlock). Nor did the trial court coerce the minority of jurors into accepting the majority's position. The instruction to the jury to continue deliberations clearly instructed the jurors not to change their opinions simply to agree with the other jurors or to "surrender a view honestly held." Further, the court informed the jury that, should its opinion remain the same at the end of the morning session of the next day of deliberation, the court would accept its verdict. Consequently, the jurors were not confronted with the possibility of a lengthy deliberation, which possibility might have caused a juror to change his or her verdict in order to end the deliberation. The trial court simply requested that the jury spend one more morning in deliberation. This was not an unreasonable request. The court's instruction was in accord with our holding in State v. Czachor, 82 N.J. 392 (1980). At the conclusion of the guilt phase, defense counsel informed the court that they intended to submit 180 mitigating factors, all falling under N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h) and all relating to defendant's childhood. The court replied, "I have to believe that most of these boil down to probably five or six mitigating factors, of which the balance would be subsections." Defense counsel did not agree to reduce the number of factors. In an effort to have the jury vote separately on each of the 180 factors, counsel argued that "the defendant has an opportunity to present to the jury as many mitigating factors under [N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h)] as he pleases." When the penalty phase began on February 26, 1996, the court said it would condense the 180 factors into one, which was "that the defendant suffered as a tortured, abused, or deprived child." It stated it would "inform the jury that the weighing process is qualitative, not quantitative," and that the "single mitigating factor may outweigh both aggravating factors [the escape-detection and felony factors] if the state establishes both." It also said it would instruct the jury that it was "free to find any other . . . mitigating factor . . . which is relevant to the defendant's character or record, or to the circumstances of the offense." Defense counsel objected. After taking the views of the State and the defense on the wording of the single factor, the court decided to describe the mitigating factor as "the childhood of Ambrose Harris." At the end of the penalty phase, the court instructed the jury as follows: The defendant has alleged one mitigating factor, that is, his childhood. The defendant has raised 180 specific points to support the existence of that mitigating factor. Whether the evidence presented in mitigation is considered as a single factor or as the sum of a number of factors or specific points, it is to be weighed in its totality against the aggravating factor or factors which you find to exist. The court later instructed, If you have unanimously found that the State has proven beyond a reasonable doubt one or both of the aggravating factors alleged, then you must consider the evidence of mitigating factors. Here, the defendant alleges that his childhood was a mitigating factor, or is a mitigating factor, and he has submitted 180 points or arguments to support that contention. You have in your possession, or will have at the time of your deliberations, a list of all 180 points or arguments. The court repeated, "In considering the mitigating factors alleged by the defendant, you are required to consider all the evidence received as it relates to the defendant's life prior to October 4, 1965, and his character prior to that date, including his mental or emotional condition." With regard to the weight the jurors should attach to the mitigating factors, the court explained: The weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors must be qualitative rather than quantitative. We do not count the number of aggravating factors against the total number of mitigating factors. Rather, it is the total weight of all aggravating factors which is measured against the total weight of the mitigating factors. The weighing process, the balancing of aggravating and mitigating factors is not mechanical or numerical in nature. We do not count the number of factors. We consider them qualitatively. One aggravating factor may be found to outweigh beyond a reasonable doubt numerous mitigating factors. Similarly, many aggravating factors may be found not to outweigh a single mitigating factor. In addition, the court explained that the jury could consider mitigating factors other than those the court submitted: "As judges in this case, you are not limited to a consideration of the mitigating factor listed on the verdict sheet. You may find and consider additional mitigating factors." As noted above, defendant submitted all 180 of his mitigating factors under N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h) (hereafter c(5)(h)). That provision establishes what is known as the "catch-all" category of mitigating factors. It provides: (5) The mitigating factors which may be found by the jury or the court are: (h) Any other factor which is relevant to the defendant's character or record or to the circumstances of the offense. This Court has expressed a preference that courts should give juries specific guidance in the application of c(5)(h). For example, in State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 123 (1988) (Bey II), we held to be inadequate a jury charge that merely recited the language of c(5)(h) in asking the jury whether it found "any other factor which is relevant to the defendant's character or record or to the circumstances of the offense." Id. at 169-70. We recognized there that "[the constitutional] requirement that capital sentencing must not preclude consideration of relevant mitigating circumstances would be hollow without an explanation of how the evidence can mitigate the imposition of the death penalty." Id. at 169. In another case involving a trial court's refusal to list separately the c(5)(h) factors submitted by the defendant, we stated: "Common sense compels the determination that when evidence of wholly-unrelated circumstances is offered pursuant to c(5)(h), it is not intended to be considered as a single factor by the sentencer." Biegenwald IV, supra, 126 N.J. at 48. The question in this case is whether a court must submit, as separate mitigating factors, a list of occurrences in a defendant's life. Because the 180 circumstances submitted by defendant were not "wholly unrelated," and because the judge supplemented the single mitigating factor with the 180 supporting points, we are satisfied that the trial court's charge was within its discretion. Section c(5)(h) does not require capital jurors to vote on such separate questions as whether "[i]n November, 1961, [defendant] was transferred to a special Fourth Grade class at Junior #4." It would have been preferable in this case for the court and defense counsel to agree on a number of mitigating factors between one and 180 for the jury to consider and vote on separately--perhaps "five or six," as the judge suggested. However, given counsel's insistence on separate jury votes for all 180 factors, the trial court's presentation of the charge properly upheld defendant's rights under c(5)(h).See footnote 4 In the context of jury consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the bedrock constitutional guarantee is that "the sentencer, in all but the rarest kind of capital case, not be precluded from considering as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death." Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 604, 98 S. Ct. 2954, 2964-65, 57 L. Ed. 2d 973, 990 (1978) (footnotes omitted); accord Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 377, 110 S. Ct. 1190, 1196, 108 L. Ed. 2d 316, 327 (1990); Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 294. The trial court honored this principle. Rather than precluding the jury from considering the 180 factors, the court directed juror attention to those aspects of defendant's life by providing a list of each one. He also explicitly instructed jurors they were not limited to the points submitted and could consider any other factor. We have held in the past that the Constitution does not require trial courts to list all mitigating factors proffered by defendants. Biegenwald IV, supra, 126 N.J. at 47; see Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 292. Nor does the Constitution require a jury vote on each proffered circumstance. In addition to guaranteeing that a jury not be precluded from considering mitigating circumstances, a capital defendant may not be sentenced to death based on a jury instruction that creates any possibility the jury might misunderstand its role in the sentencing process or fail to appreciate the meaning and function of mitigating circumstances. Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. at 168-169 (citing Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 890, 103 S. Ct. 2733, 2750, 77 L. Ed. 2d 235, 258 (1983) ; Peek v. Kemp, 784 F.2d 1479, 1493-94 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 939, 107 S. Ct. 421, 93 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1986); Briley v. Bass, 750 F.2d 1238, 1244-45 (4th Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1088, 105 S. Ct. 1855, 85 L. Ed. 2d 152 (1985)). The trial court's detailed instruction adequately removed that possibility. It closely tracked the model charge printed as Appendix J to the Judges Bench Manual for Capital Causes. That manual is prepared by the Trial Judges Committee on Capital Causes to outline the rights of capital defendants at the trial stage. It is "necessarily advisory." Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 155. A judge's compliance with the manual does not foreclose constitutional challenge to trial procedure. However, the instructions suggested in the manual, and the charge given in this case, do more than is necessary to prevent juror misunderstanding regarding the jury's roleSee footnote 5 or the purpose of considering mitigating circumstances.See footnote 6 New Jersey's Constitution does not require more in the presentation of mitigating circumstances to a death-penalty jury than do the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. In particular, Paragraphs 1, 9, 10, and 12 of Article I of the State Constitution do not guarantee capital defendants the right to have jurors vote separately on each item of evidence of a mitigating factor those defendants allege. Defendant cautions that "[i]f this single-factor approach is sustained, then all future trial courts need do to fulfill their duty is to instruct a jury to weigh a defendant's 'life' in mitigation under c(5)(h)." We doubt that will occur. In other capital cases, juries have been presented with separate mitigating factors under c(5)(h). E.g., State v. Cooper, 151 N.J. 326, 345 (1997) (eighteen separate c(5)(h) factors). In one instance a jury made an independent finding of a catch-all mitigating factor that had not been submitted. Chew, supra, 150 N.J. at 100 (Handler, J., dissenting). It is possible that the submission of a broadly cast mitigating factor, such as a defendant's entire life, without the kind of supporting evidence the court submitted in defendant's case, would impermissibly create a reasonable possibility that the jury would misunderstand either its role in the capital sentencing process or the purpose of mitigating circumstances. See Peek v. Kemp, supra, 784 F.2d at 1494. The submission of defendant's "childhood," together with the exhibit listing 180 details of that childhood and the judge's tracking of the instructions in the Judges Bench Manual, sufficiently focused the jury on its role and the function of the proffered mitigating evidence. As part of its penalty phase charge to the jury, the trial court instructed the jurors that "in your assessment of the weight to be assigned to aggravating and mitigating factors, you should not give inordinate weight to evidence that supports more than one mitigating factor." Defense counsel objected: "On the double counting charge, I think you misspoke. You said that charge applies to mitigating factors. You threw the word 'mitigating' in, and I'll show you where." The court responded, "It's aggravating or mitigating." The prosecution repeated the objection: "My only comment is the one that [defense counsel] made, that the word mitigating was included." Following the sidebar discussion, the court re-addressed the jurors and amended its charge: During the court's instructions, it told you that the same evidence which supports more than one factor should not -- you should be aware of that, and you should not give it inordinate weight. When the court spoke with you, it made reference to mitigating factors. Obviously it applies to aggravating factors as well. It applies to both of them. Defendant now submits that this "double-counting" instruction should apply to aggravating circumstances only. He also argues that the instruction not to "give inordinate weight to evidence that supports more than one mitigating factor" created an impermissible likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from considering constitutionally relevant evidence.See footnote 7 We disagree. Our cases have established that when the prosecution uses the same evidence to prove more than one aggravating factor, the jury must be instructed not to give undue weight to the facts supporting the multiple factors. State v. Rose, 112 N.J. 454, 527 (1988). On the other hand, we have never stated that trial courts must prevent capital jurors from double-counting mitigating evidence offered in support of multiple mitigating factors. In Biegenwald IV, we rejected the State's argument that a listing of separate factors under c(5)(h) would lead to impermissible double-counting of mitigating circumstances. Because a jury's double-counting of mitigating circumstances would not implicate a defendant's constitutional rights the way an undue concentration on aggravating evidence would, and because Lockett and its progeny require jurors to be permitted to consider all mitigating evidence, we held that "the treatment of aggravating factors . . . is not relevant to the treatment of mitigating factors, nor can it be." Biegenwald IV, supra, 126 N.J. at 48. However, the Constitution does not require that a capital jury must be allowed to give, say, double or triple weight to evidence supporting two or three mitigating factors. On the contrary, in State v. Pennington, 119 N.J. 547 (1990), we advised the trial court that on remand, after instructing the jury that the same evidence could be used to prove multiple mitigating factors, the court should tell the jury to "be cognizant that the same facts are being used to prove more than one [mitigating] factor." Id. at 599 (quoting Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. at 176) (internal quotation marks omitted). Even if the Constitution required that jurors be allowed to double-count mitigating evidence, the challenged instruction would not have violated that requirement. The court merely instructed the jurors not to attach "inordinate weight" to evidence supporting more than one factor. Neither the federal nor the State Constitution guarantees capital defendants that jurors will be allowed to attach inordinate weight to mitigating or any other type of evidence. Prior to the penalty-phase instructions, defense counsel requested the Court to instruct the jury on the maximum number of years and the maximum amount of parole ineligibility in the aggregate that Harris was exposed to by virtue of his convictions on the related non-capital offenses of, among others, kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, and robbery. That parole ineligibility period could have been over sixty years.See footnote 8 The court declined, stating that "it does not know that it would impose or could even rationally impose that many years. The jury is further informed that it is not to consider all of this when deciding on whether the death sentence should be imposed or a term of imprisonment." Consistent with this ruling, the court instructed the jury on the individual base sentence and the individual period of parole ineligibility on each charge that Harris could receive. The court explained concurrent and consecutive sentencing and told the jury that the court would decide "whether those sentences will be consecutive or concurrent." The court also instructed the jury that "[t]he possible sentences for the other convictions should not influence your decision regarding the appropriateness of a death sentence on the murder charge." Defendant contends that in refusing defense counsel's request for an instruction concerning Harris' aggregate sentence, including aggregate parole disqualifiers, and in instructing the jury not to consider these sentences, the court violated Harris' state and federal constitutional due process right to a fair and reliable sentencing hearing and subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment. Prior to our decision in Loftin, supra, 146 N.J. 295, our capital punishment jurisprudence had emphasized a trial court's obligation in the penalty phase of a capital case to inform the jury of its responsibility in determining the appropriateness of the death penalty, to apprise the jury of the practical effect of a life sentence, and to inform the jury about a defendant's prior sentences in order "to preclude speculation about a defendant's release from distorting a jury's decision to impose life or death." State v. Bey, 129 N.J. 557, 601-02 (1992) (Bey III), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1164, 115 S. Ct. 1131, 130 L. Ed. 2d 1093 (1995). Reflecting federal precedent concerning sentencing information that should be furnished to capital case jurors in the penalty phase, see Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 161-69, 114 S. Ct. 2187, 2192-96, 129 L. Ed. 2d 133, 141-46 (1994), we concluded in State v. Martini, 131 N.J. 176 (1993), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 875, 116 S. Ct. 203, 133 L. Ed. 2d 137 (1995), that in the penalty phase of a capital case when defense counsel or the jury requests instructions on the potential sentences a defendant will receive for convictions arising from the same trial as his capital-murder conviction, such information should be provided by the trial court. The jurors should be informed of the sentencing options available to the judge, and that the determination of sentence had not yet been made. In addition, the trial court should explain that the sentence may or may not run consecutively to that for murder, but that the determination is left to the court. Finally, the court should inform the jury that defendant's possible sentence for the other convictions should not influence its determination regarding the appropriateness of a death sentence on the murder count. Such instructions will assist in dispelling confusion on the part of the jury and will help to safeguard against improper sentencing determinations. The trial court followed the Martini guidelines. the judge explained the sentencing options for each of the offenses (omitting reference to possible extended terms for repeat offenders), that he would decide later whether to impose those sentences concurrently or consecutively, and that the potential sentences on other convictions should not affect their determinations on life or death. The issue in Simmons was whether when future dangerousness is an issue for the sentencer, a capital jury should be informed that the non-capital sentence is effectively life without possibility of parole. In New Jersey, future dangerousness is not an issue for capital sentencers to consider. Nonetheless, we held in Loftin that in future cases, if the court, based on the evidence presented believes that there is a realistic likelihood that it will impose a sentence to be served consecutively to any of defendant's prior sentences, in the event the jury does not return a death sentence, the jury should be so informed. We believe that in most cases the courts will conclude that there is a "realistic likelihood" that it will impose a consecutive sentence rather than a concurrent sentence in the event of a non-death verdict. However, not every court necessarily will reach that conclusion. In those cases, the court need not inform the jury whether a non-death sentence is likely to be consecutive or concurrent. Considering that Harris was forty-three years old at sentencing, advising the jury that he was eligible to receive a non-death sentence under which he would be ineligible for parole until at least age 100 would have been the functional equivalent of advising the jury in Simmons that the defendant would be forever ineligible for parole. We agree that most trial judges, considering the type of crimes of which defendant was convicted, would find a "realistic likelihood" that some of the non-death sentences would be made consecutive to the thirty-year parole disqualifier for murder. Had defendant's trial taken place after Loftin announced its prospective rule, defendant would have been entitled to an instruction informing the jury of the likelihood of consecutive sentencing. Loftin, supra, 146 N.J. at 372. The Loftin rule did not apply, however, because we reached our decision in Loftin several months after defendant was sentenced. We further believe that defendant's jury could not have misunderstood the gravity of the non-capital sentences defendant would have faced. The court explained the sentencing options available to it. If any one of the sentences for other offenses were made consecutive to the murder sentence, Harris would have been at least eighty-three years old before release. Thus defense counsel could say to the jury that its choice was between death and "life in prison." We find no error in the pre-Loftin charge given by the court. [Fisher v. United States, 328 U.S. 463, 477, 66 S. Ct. 1318, 1325, 90 L. Ed. 1382, 1391 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).] Cases such as this test the measure of our system of criminal justice--judges, lawyers, and law enforcement. Although outside influences sought to denigrate--indeed, to undermine fundamental safeguards of our civilization (the presumption of innocence, the assistance of counsel and the right to a fair trial), court and counsel, both prosecution and defense, ensured the observance in this case of those indispensable safeguards for the ascertainment of guilt. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK and GARIBALDI join in JUSTICE O'HERN's opinion. JUSTICE STEIN has filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which JUSTICE COLEMAN joins. JUSTICE HANDLER has filed a separate dissenting opinion which JUSTICES STEIN and COLEMAN join as to part IC. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. AMBROSE A. HARRIS, Defendant-Appellant. STEIN, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part. The majority opinion accurately describes the judiciary's responsibility to guarantee a fair trial despite the exercise by the press of its constitutional right to circulate inherently prejudicial publicity before and during a trial. In an ideal world a free press would seek to foster fair trial rights by not circulating inherently prejudicial publicity at least during a time of trial. If this cannot be so, courts must guarantee the preservation of fair trial rights without any restraint of the editorial freedom of the press. [Ante at ___ (slip op. at 22) (citation omitted).] I fully agree with Justice Handler's conclusion that the trial court's refusal to take adequate preventative measures to address the prejudicial effects of the midtrial publicity compromised defendant's right to a fair trial. In my view, however, the prejudicial effect of the trial court's inaction undermined only the penalty phase of the trial. I therefore join part IC of Justice Handler's opinion, but only to the extent that it concludes that defendant's death sentence be vacated. Accordingly, I would vacate defendant's death sentence and remand for a new penalty trial. I join the majority opinion in all other respects, to the extent that it is not inconsistent with my conclusion concerning defendant's death sentence. SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY A- 17 September Term 1997 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. AMBROSE A. HARRIS, Defendant-Appellant. HANDLER, J., dissenting. In an atmosphere of saturating, vicious publicity, a Burlington County jury convicted defendant Ambrose Harris in Mercer County for the carjacking, kidnapping, rape, and murder of Kristin Huggins. The same jury sentenced him to die. At trial defendant actively contested his guilt, particularly his status as triggerman and, hence, his eligibility for the death sentence. Defendant directly appeals as of right his convictions. The primary issue that defendant raises in this appeal relates to the massive, inflammatory pretrial and midtrial publicity about the case and its impact on his trial, his conviction, and his death sentence. Defendant also raises substantial claims concerning the adequacy of the jury voir dire as related to jury selection and jury taint, the failure to bifurcate the jury for the guilt and penalty phases of the trial, the trial court's failure in the penalty-phase of the trial to exclude or neutralize inadmissible evidence introduced at the guilt phase, and the failure to inform the jury that in the event defendant were not sentenced to die, he would receive lengthy consecutive sentences for the robbery, kidnapping, and aggravated sexual assault convictions. I conclude that defendant's principal claims of error are valid and that their prejudicial impacts thwarted a fair trial. The Court should reverse defendant's convictions and vacate his death sentence. I, therefore, dissent. Response: "Nice try, but I was the first to offer to pay for the rope. You can buy the lumber for the gallows, though." Opinion: "I liked your response to the caller who said it costs more to execute someone than to keep them in prison. The comment about rope being cheap was very good." Opinion: "Let's bring back the death penalty and let's set up a lottery to get rid of monsters like Ambrose Harris, ok? Let me be the first to pull the switch on this guy." Response: "It turns out the hot squat [i.e., electric chair] isn't so pricey either, provided you get the industrial rate from the electric company. Two or three bucks tops for all those amps and volts. What a deal." Opinion: "When `Creeping Justice' called to complain about how long it's taking to get around to trying the worthless piece of murdering scum BackTalk now refers to as `Squirt Boy,' you said, `Yes, but take solace in knowing that eternity is long and hell's fires endless.' Maybe so, Ed, but in the meantime we're still paying for Squirt Boy's room and board. These thugs enjoy prison too much and too long." Response: "I was only trying to look on the bright side. Squirt Boy will be screaming soon enough, and he'll be screaming forever and ever." The unsigned editorial page continued this egregious campaign: Harris has to have a trial and he has to be provided the best representation taxpayers' money can buy. That's what our justice system requires. Then there will be the usual appeals and further appeals. But someday, years from now, if there is justice, the last appeal will have been rejected and the last stay of sentence vacated. On that day, Ambrose Harris -- cold-blooded murderer -- will be strapped to a prison gurney. A needle will be inserted into his arm and a lethal mixture of drugs will be injected into his veins. Minutes later, one of the biggest pieces of human trash ever to blight Trenton's streets will be gone, and the world will be a far better place for his passing. The Trentonian . . . at various times has referred to Harris as "Artist Slayer," "Maggot," and "Squirt Boy," the latter in anticipation of the happy day when the jury does what's right and sends him to the execution chamber to get the lethal injection he so richly deserves. Well, Mr. Call [defendant's attorney, who in his attempts to change venue, criticized the Trentonian's coverage] can whine and moan all he wants about how his pet maggot is too much in the spotlight, but the truth is he put himself there by capping his criminal career with the rape and murder of Kristin Huggins. It may offend Call's sensibilities to hear his scumbag client referred to as "Artist Slayer" and "Squirt Boy," but an artist slayer he is and a squirt boy he will be if the jury does its duty. Like it or not, that's the way things are, Law Boy. The Trentonian consistently portrayed defendant as negatively as possible. For example, the Trentonian repeatedly referred to defendant as "artist killer" and "career criminal Ambrose Harris." It titled one article "Life of a career criminal" and another "Life and crimes of Ambrose Harris." In addition, by using large sensationlistic quotes that implied the statements were those of individuals -- such as "He did it," "Grieving parents: All murderers must die," and "Ambrose a terror" -- on its covers and in the titles of articles, the Trentonian injected inflammatory editorial comment and opinion in its ostensible factual reporting. The Trentonian laced its factual reporting with references to defendant as a sociopath. It "reported" that "The Killer hates to hunt alone," that "Ambrose Harris sees `murder as a joke,'" and that "[w]hen scenes of violence flicker across the television screen[,] . . . the alleged killer and rapist smiles." It also reported that fellow inmates and prison guards hated defendant. The Trentonian ran a number of reports on opinions regarding defendant. One such article, entitled "People agree Harris `shouldn't live,'" stated: Ambrose Harris should die: That was the simple message yesterday from the young barmaid, the grizzled war vet, the guys from the ice house and the stylish secretary. All across Greater Trenton, people called for the death penalty -- even torture -- for the suspected killer of Bucks County artist Kristin Huggins, whom Harris is accused of raping and killing on Dec. 17, 1992. "There's no excuse for a human like that. He's a waste of space," said Annie Summers, a barmaid in her early 20s. Her call for speedier justice and longer sentences won support at Jule's Tavern in Trenton's Chambersburg. "He should have been fried a long time [ago]. He's been a criminal [his entire] life," said John Shaffer, 42, a Vietnam veteran who works at an ice house in Trenton. One of Shaffer's colleagues volunteered to put Harris on ice, so to speak. "Let me give him the squirt (lethal injection)," said the man, who identified himself only as Paul L. "For all the suffering he put those girls through . . . they should make him suffer for a while." Several people offered various modes of execution. A 62-year-old secretary from Trenton who offered one such idea said it should be done "at high noon on Broad and Market." The American Civil Liberties Union wouldn't be happy to hear all the calls yesterday for simply shooting Harris, who has yet to stand trial for the Huggins murder. "No trial," said an 81-year-old 'Burg man who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. "He shouldn't live. He's no good. Just get on with it and fry him. No trial," said the WWII vet and retired city streets worker who wouldn't give his name. Apart from the charges in the present case, defendant had an extensive record that included violent offenses. The Trentonian and the Trenton Times, often referring to him as a "career criminal," a "one man crime spree," a "troll" who had engaged in a "rape spree," and the like, repeatedly publicized defendant's record in headlines and article titles. Most egregiously, on the first day of the penalty phase, the Trentonian published a glaring, front-page headline that revealed: "Ambrose eyed in '67 slay: Remains prime suspect in unsolved murder." Some of the midtrial publicity was racially inflammatory. It dwelled on the fact that an urban African-American man raped and murdered a suburban white woman. It recounted testimony that defendant referred to Huggins as a "white bitch" and had stated that he would spare a black robbery victim but kill a white one. The Trentonian reported an alleged story about defendant's jailhouse campaign of terror against white inmates. It stressed that he had threatened another rape victim by allegedly telling her that she should not resist because he had "just killed a white girl." The Trentonian and other papers also stressed defendant's purported comment about having "knocked off some white girl." Much of the publicity was clearly intended to influence the jury. For example, after the guilt-phase jury commenced its deliberations, it initially deadlocked over the charge of aggravated sexual assault. The Trentonian ran a cover stating "One juror stalls verdict" and reported about an alleged holdout juror who "could save Harris' life." Another headline remarked: "Dawdling Harris jury draws public's fire." After the trial court instructed the deadlocked jury to continue its deliberations, the jury convicted defendant of all the charges. The Trentonian ran the following front-page headline: "GUILTY! So why's this killer smiling? Because he's seen juror No. 7 crying, and he thinks she'll never go for the death penalty." That reporting occurred while the unsequestered jury, which could leave the courthouse during lunch and which was not individually voir dired about exposure to publicity, continued to deliberate over a period of days. See discussion, infra at __ (slip op. at 20-27). In a particularly vicious editorial, entitled "Death for Harris," the Trentonian published an unsigned open letter to the jury that urged it to sentence defendant to death. The publicity was intensely concentrated in Trenton. The Trentonian is present throughout and around Trenton, the site of the crime and the trial. A plethora of streetcorner vending machines and "hawkers" sold the Trentonian in Trenton, including the area surrounding the Mercer County Courthouse. Due to the ubiquity of the Trentonian and the immense font used for the front-page headlines, the Trentonian's cover page is inescapable in this State's capital. [Id. at 89-90 (citations omitted) (quoting Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 363, 86 S. Ct. 1507, 1522, 16 L. Ed. 2d 600, 620 (1967))]. The majority, noting simply that unlike the Bey jurors who were admonished, the "Harris' jurors were questioned generally and that inquiry revealed that no exposure had occurred," ante at __ (slip op. at 30), distinguishes Bey I, supra, and therefore concludes that "a denial of individual voir dire should not form the basis for reversing a conviction when there is no evidence of exposure," ante at __ (slip op. at 31). The Court's reasoning is flawed. The absence of direct evidence that the jury was exposed to the publicity, which was unavoidable in Trenton, can be attributed to the lack of individualized voir dire. Due to the trial court's woefully inadequate effort to uncover jury exposure to publicity, the Court's reliance on the absence of direct proof that the jury had been exposed to publicity is disingenuous and misplaced. Moreover, under Bey I's two-part test, the trial court in this case was enjoined to take vigorous prophylactic measures to avoid juror exposure to midtrial publicity. First, the publicity given to defendant's criminal record and to the unsubstantiated allegations of his perpetration of a 1967 homicide, the calls for his conviction and execution, and the attempts to encourage jurors to convict and to sentence defendant as quickly as possible were calculated to influence the jurors and had the capacity to prejudice defendant. Second, given the sheer volume of coverage, the prominence of the Trentonian's cover stories, sales of the Trentonian and Trenton Times in and around the courthouse, and the newspapers' substantial circulations in Burlington County, there was a "realistic possibility that such information may have reached one or more of the jurors," Bey I, supra, 112 N.J. at 86. Sequestration during the penalty-phase deliberations probably would also have been an effective means of shielding the jury during those charged deliberations. Rule 1:8-6(b) allows the trial court, at its discretion, to sequester a civil or criminal jury during deliberations. Due to the massive midtrial publicity, the court should have sequestered the jury during penalty-phase deliberations. At the very least, the court should have barred the jurors from leaving the jury room during lunch and modified their bus route and entry into the courthouse to avoid exposure to the Trentonian's graphic and inflammatory covers. Although the jurors presumably were conscientious in attempting to avoid exposure to midtrial publicity, we cannot be confident that none was exposed, given the utter lack of preventive measures taken by the trial court. It is difficult to imagine that none of the jurors ever were exposed to prejudicial midtrial publicity. The jurors began their day by being bussed to the courthouse, probably passing by the Trentonian's huge headlines, and by entering the courthouse without being guided away from the tabloid. By the time they were seated each morning, therefore, a significant possibility existed that one or more of them had been exposed either consciously or subconsciously to some sort of publicity regarding either defendant or the jury itself. At lunch, the jurors were permitted to wander around the courthouse and the downtown area; this increased the chance of exposure. During the entire trial, including the penalty phase, they went home each night, where they had yet another opportunity for inadvertent exposure. Yet, when asked by the trial court on three occasions whether they had been exposed, they failed to indicate that they had. Of course, that failure is not surprising given the attendant embarrassment to such an open-court admission. Moreover, the one precautionary measure that the trial court actually took -- occasional voir dire of the jury regarding potential exposure -- was insufficient to neutralize the prejudice created by potential exposure to midtrial publicity. Although this Court in Bey I, supra, refused to create a blanket rule of individualized voir dire of jurors in order to gauge exposure, it strongly intimated its approval of such a procedure, 112 N.J. at 86-87 n.26, and cited favorably to the ABA standard that recommends individualized voir dire. Id. at 87-88 &amp; n.28. To rely exclusively on admonitions and occasional en banc voir dire in open court to discover, to gauge, and to counteract potential juror exposure to the massive and inflammatory midtrial publicity in this case was a seriously inadequate response. The trial court's consistent refusal to take serious steps to address the midtrial-publicity problem -- indeed, it even refused to take measures that the prosecutor did not oppose -- is almost impossible to understand or to explain, and the Court does not do so. Because the trial court failed to discharge its duty to take adequate precautionary measures to minimize the prejudice flowing from midtrial publicity, the Court, on this basis alone, should reverse defendant's conviction. At the very least, the Court should vacate his death sentence. Understanding the necessity of a venue change to preserve a fair trial in cases, such as this one, that are swamped by prejudicial publicity, the Court prospectively rules: In future capital cases a court should change the venue of a capital trial when there is a realistic likelihood that presumptively prejudicial publicity will continue during the conduct of a trial. Presumptively prejudicial publicity is recognized as a barrage of inflammatory reporting that may but need not include all of the following: evidence that would be inadmissible at the trial, editorial opinions on guilt or innocence, and media pronouncements on the death-worthiness of a defendant. That belated and anemic concession of the trial court's error has a dull and hollow ring. It is too little and too late for defendant, who was sentenced to die by a jury that was inescapably exposed to highly prejudicial publicity. The possible sentences for the other convictions should not influence your decision regarding the appropriateness of a death sentence on the murder charge. Your decision must be based only upon aggravating and mitigating factors presented by the evidence. Despite having professed that "it does not know that it would impose" "the maximum number of years that could be imposed and the maximum amount of parole ineligibility," the court proceeded to mete out precisely those maximum sentences. After the death verdict, the trial court imposed the maximum sentence, including an extended term of life imprisonment with twenty-five years of parole ineligibility for aggravated sexual assault, on each nonmerged count and ordered that they run consecutively to each other and to the sentence that defendant had been serving. If defendant's death sentence were to be vacated, his prison sentence for the crimes against Huggins would total two life terms plus fifty-five years with eighty-two and one half years of parole ineligibility. That sentence would be consecutive to his prior sentence of life imprisonment with a thirty-year parole bar. Hence, if defendant's death sentence were reversed, he would face a total of 112 years of parole ineligibility. Obviously, defendant, who was forty at the time of his arrest, would die in prison if he were not executed. The trial court should have informed the jury that defendant would receive the maximum aggregate sentence on the noncapital convictions. The majority's rationale for keeping the jury uninformed is totally unsatisfactory and terribly unfair to a defendant facing a death sentence.See footnote 19 This Court repeatedly has held that penalty-phase juries must be informed of the legal effect of their sentencing decisions, including the noncapital sentences to which the defendant is subject. Consequently, the Court has required that juries be apprised of defendants' prior sentences, State v. Bey, 129 N.J. 557, 603 (1992) (Bey III), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1164, 115 S. Ct. 1131, 130 L. Ed. 2d 1093 (1995), and of the possible noncapital sentences resulting from the current capital prosecution, Martini I, supra, 131 N.J. at 313. In Loftin, supra, the Court held that in future cases, if the court, based on the evidence presented believes that there is a realistic likelihood that it will impose a sentence to be served consecutively to any of defendant's prior sentences, in the event the jury does not return a death sentence, the jury should be so informed. We believe that in most cases the courts will conclude that there is a "realistic likelihood" that it will impose a consecutive sentence rather than a concurrent sentence in the event of a non-death verdict. However, not every court necessarily will reach that conclusion. In those cases, the court need not inform the jury whether a non-death sentence is likely to be consecutive or concurrent. While Martini I merely required that the court inform the jury of the possible sentences and that the decision about the actual sentences and whether those sentences will be consecutive is for the court and is not to be considered, the rationale of Loftin requires that the trial court tell the jury that it will impose consecutive sentences when there is a reasonable likelihood that it will do so. But, the trial court did not inform the jury that it would impose consecutive sentences on defendant. The trial court's omission cannot be considered harmless. See Loftin, supra, 146 N.J. at 431 (Handler, J., dissenting) (concluding trial court's failure to inform jury of defendant's likely parole ineligibility was reversible error). Although, in his penalty-phase summation, defense counsel repeatedly told the jury that its choice was between lethal injection and "incarcer[ation] for the rest of his life," that reference was to the judge's instruction that defendant would receive between thirty years and life for the murder conviction. Counsel never argued to the jury that defendant would receive consecutive sentences for the noncapital counts. The Court "agree[s] that most trial judges, considering the type of crimes of which defendant was convicted, would find a `realistic likelihood' that some of the non-death sentences would be made consecutive to the 30-year parole disqualifier for murder." Ante at __ (slip op. at 92). Nevertheless, it finds "that defendant's jury could not have misunderstood the gravity of the non-capital sentences defendant would have faced." Ante at __ (slip op. at 93). We cannot in this context guess about what the jury understood. Neither counsel's summation nor the trial court's instructions cure the prejudice that defendant suffered from the absence of a clear instruction by the trial court to indicate that defendant would spend the rest of his life in prison if not sentenced to death. Moreover,the court erred by instructing the jury to disregard defendant's noncapital sentences. See State v. Nelson, __ N.J. __, __ (1998) (slip op. at 21-22). The error was not harmless. See id. at __ (Handler, J., dissenting) (slip op. at 20). This Court should reverse defendant's death sentence due to the trial court's failure to inform the jury that it would likely impose consecutive noncapital sentences on defendant and give defendant no prospect of ever leaving prison alive. The trial court's erroneously instructing the jury to disregard defendant's noncapital sentence also mandates reversal. NO. A-17 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. AMBROSE A. HARRIS, Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED It is important to remember that evidence of mitigating factors is not offered to justify or to excuse the defendant's conduct. Rather, it is intended to present extenuating facts about the defendant's life or character that would justify a sentence of less than death. Mitigating evidence may be used to establish the existence of mitigating factors, to weaken the state's proofs concerning the weight of aggravating factors, or to bolster the weight of mitigating factors found to exist in relation to the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors. In considering a mitigating factor, you may also take into account such sympathy as that mitigating factor may inspire. In considering the mitigating factors alleged by the defendant, you are required to consider all the evidence received as it relates to the defendant's life prior to October 4, 1965, and his character prior to that date, including his mental or emotional condition. Most publicity by far occurred between the murder and April 1993, when defendant was arrested. It again spiked when defendant and Gloria Dunn were indicted in mid-1993, when defendant dismissed his attorneys at the end of 1993, when defendant was tried and convicted of an unrelated robbery charge in mid-1994, when Gloria Dunn pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the State in late 1994, and as the trial of the present case began and proceeded in late 1994 and early 1995. If it is determined that material disseminated during the trial goes beyond the record on which the case is to be submitted to the jury and raises serious questions of possible prejudice, the court may on its own motion or shall on motion of either party question each juror, out of the presence of the others, about his exposure to that material. [Bey I, supra, 112 N.J. at 87-88 &amp; n.28 (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis added).]