Title: State of New Jersey v. D.G.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: a-157-97
State: new-jersey
Issuer: new-jersey Supreme Court
Date: February 9, 1999

(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). GARIBALDI, J., writing for a unanimous Court. This appeal concerns the admissibility at trial of out-of-court statements regarding allegations of sexual abuse. In this case, which is the criminal prosecution of a man, D.G., for the sexual assault of his stepdaughter, eight-year-old Michelle, the specific issue is whether under the tender years exception to the hearsay rule, N.J.R.E. 803 (c) (27), the testimony of a relative regarding the child's out-of-court statements about the sexual assault and a videotaped police interview of the child that contained a seven-minute gap are admissible. The possibility of the sexual abuse of Michelle came to light in early 1993, when a relative of Michelle, known as Aunt Sandy, found Michelle engaging in sex play with Aunt Sandy's two young daughters. Aunt Sandy confronted the girls angrily and then questioned Michelle about why she had acted that way and where she had learned that behavior. After initially blaming the conduct on the younger girls, Michelle told Aunt Sandy that Daddy David, as she called her stepfather, had stuck his thing in her and then had peed on the bed and wiped it up with a towel. She described the event as having occurred three weeks earlier when she had accompanied D.G. on an errand and had been alone with him in the family's new home. On the basis of Michelle's statement to Aunt Sandy, which was repeated to Michelle's mother and reported to the police, D.G. was criminally charged. During the police investigation, Detective Hayes, a female detective from the Child Abuse Unit of the prosecutor's office, interviewed Michelle. Aunt Sandy initially waited in the hall while Hayes spoke with Michelle. The interview was videotaped, and at the outset Michelle, who told Hayes Aunt Sandy had promised her a surprise if she told the truth, said little, reporting only that D.G. had touched her boobies. Hayes unsuccessfully tried to get her say more and sensed the child was scared and was holding back. Hayes interrupted the interview and the videotape while she took Michelle, whose nose had begun to bleed, to the bathroom. Hayes spoke privately to Aunt Sandy and asked her to reassure the child about speaking to her. Aunt Sandy held Michelle on her lap and reassured her that she should tell Hayes the truth. Seven minutes later the interview proceeded and Michelle told Hayes that D.G. had put his penis into her vagina. Prior to trial, Michelle's mother beat her to get her to recant her allegations against D.G. Michelle was sent to live with a series of relatives, including her natural father. When she returned from living with him, she accused him of sexual assault also and described the assault in detail almost identical to her allegations against D.G. She recanted her allegations against D.G. numerous times over the next six months, but also recanted her recantation, saying she had taken back her claims to please her mother and that her mother had told her to lie. After a pretrial hearing, the trial court ruled that the videotape of the interview of Michelle could be used by the prosecution at trial, finding after watching the tape and hearing testimony by Detective Hayes about the making of the tape, that Michelle's statements on the tape were sufficiently trustworthy to be admitted as evidence under the tender years exception to the hearsay rule. The tape was played for the jury, and Michelle, D.G., Aunt Sandy, Michelle's mother, and various expert witnesses testified. Aunt Sandy, over defense objection, testified to what Michelle had said to her when she first related D.G.'s abuse of her. Michelle's testimony at trial differed from her earlier statements to the police and social service personnel and she vacillated so much in her testimony that the prosecutor sought to attack her credibility. D.G. denied any sexual contact with Michelle. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charge of aggravated sexual assault, but convicted D.G. of the lesser-included offense of second-degree sexual assault and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child. D.G. was sentenced to a presumptive prison term of seven years and he appealed to the Appellate Division. The Appellate Division affirmed the conviction. The court concluded the seven-minute gap in the videotape did not render it inadmissible and with regard to Aunt Sandy's testimony about Michelle's statements to her, the court concluded they were admissible under the tender years exception and that the trial court's failure to conduct the hearing required before a finding of admissibility was harmless error. The Supreme Court granted D.G.'s petition for certification. HELD: Out-of-court statements regarding sexual assault cannot be admitted as evidence at trial under the tender years exception to the hearsay rule without a hearing on notice to defendant to determine the probable trustworthiness of the statements. The portion of the videotaped interview that followed an interruption in the interview is not sufficiently reliable to be admitted as evidence. 1. For a criminal defendant's constitutional right to confront witnesses against him to be satisfied when hearsay evidence such as Aunt Sandy's testimony regarding Michelle's statements to her is to be admitted, a court must find based on time, content and circumstances of the statement that there is a probability the statement is trustworthy. Corroborating evidence is not to be used to support a finding of trustworthiness. In this case, in which the court did not hold the hearing required by N.J.R.E. 803 (c) (27) and in which Michelle made frequent recantations and nearly identical allegations against her father, a court could have found the requisite trustworthiness lacking. Because there was no hearing, the Court cannot determine whether the trial court properly did not consider corroborating evidence and does not agree with the Appellate Division that the failure to hold a hearing was harmless error. A hearing must be held. (pp. 14-20) 2. In considering the admission of a number of repetitive corroborative statements, a trial court should bear in mind its right to exclude evidence that it finds has a prejudicial effect substantially greater than its probative value. Here, the several statements admitted under the tender years exception that corroborated Michelle's charges against D.G. may have tipped the balance. Moreover, a defendant must be given proper and timely notice of the hearing. Because the Court is remanding this matter for a hearing, it need not determine whether the failure to give notice was reversible error. (pp. 21-23) 3. Because of the seven-minute gap in the videotape, Aunt Sandy's involvement, and the unrecorded conversation of Michelle with Detective Hayes, the portion of the videotaped interview after the interruption was not sufficiently reliable to have been admitted into evidence under N.J.R.E. 803 (c) (27). (pp. 23-30) The judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED and the matter is REMANDED for a new trial. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES HANDLER, POLLOCK, O'HERN, STEIN, and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE GARIBALDI's opinion. SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY A- 157 September Term 1997 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. D.G., Defendant-Appellant. Argued September 28, 1998 -- Decided February 9, 1999 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Robert L. Sloan, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Ivelisse Torres, Public Defender, attorney; Mr. Sloan and Quentin D. Driskell, Designated Counsel, on the briefs). Michael J. Williams, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Peter Verniero, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney). The opinion of the court was delivered by GARIBALDI, J. In this appeal we again confront the critical and continually recurring problem of the admissibility of a child's extrajudicial statements regarding allegations of sexual abuse. Specifically, we must determine whether under the tender years exception to the hearsay rule, N.J.R.E. 803(c)(27), the testimony of a relative regarding the child's extrajudicial statements about the sexual assault and a videotaped police interview of the child that contained a seven minute gap in the taping are admissible.See footnote 1 In Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805, 814, 110 S. Ct. 3139, 3146, 111 L. Ed. 2d 638, 651 (1990), the Supreme Court set forth a general approach for determining whether "statements admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule also meet the requirements of the Confrontation Clause." Where the hearsay evidence "falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception," reliability can be "inferred." Id. at 815, 110 S. Ct. at 3146, 111 L. Ed. 2d at 652. If hearsay evidence "does not fall within 'a firmly rooted hearsay exception' and is thus presumptively unreliable and inadmissible for Confrontation Clause purposes, it may nonetheless meet Confrontation Clause reliability standards if it is supported by a 'showing of particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.'" Id. at 817, 110 S. Ct. at 3147, 111 L. Ed. 2d at 653 (quoting Lee v. Illinois, 476 U.S. 530, 543, 90 L. Ed 2d 514, 106 S. Ct 2056 (1986)). Declining to "endorse a mechanical test for determining 'particularized guarantees of trustworthiness,'" the Court identified a number of key factors that courts might consider: spontaneity, consistency of repetition, lack of motive to fabricate, the mental state of the declarant, use of terminology unexpected of a child of similar age, interrogation, and manipulation by adults. Id. at 821-22, 827, 110 S. Ct. at 3150, 3153, 111 L. Ed. 2d at 656, 659-60. That list of factors is not exhaustive, and "courts have considerable leeway in their consideration of appropriate factors." Id. at 822, 110 S. Ct. at 3150, 111 L. Ed. 2d at 656. The factors must, however, relate to "whether the child declarant was particularly likely to be telling the truth when the statement was made." Ibid. The hearsay statement must possess "inherent trustworthiness"; the court may not point to corroborating evidence in an attempt to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the hearsay statement. Id. at 822-23, 110 S. Ct. at 3152, 111 L. Ed. 2d at 657. The "presence of corroborating evidence" merely indicates "that any error in admitting the statement might be harmless." Ibid. N.J.R.E. 803(c)(27) similarly requires that the court "find[], in a hearing conducted pursuant to Rule 104(a), that on the basis of the time, content and circumstances of the statement there is a probability that the statement is trustworthy." Courts applying 803(c)(27) and its predecessor, N.J. Evid. R. 63(33), have looked to the trustworthiness factors outlined in Wright when determining if a child victim's out-of-court statements are admissible. See State in Interest of S.M., 284 N.J. Super. 611, 621 (App. Div. 1995) (upholding conviction after admissibility of tender years statement was challenged where it was "clear that the court was fully aware of its responsibility to determine trustworthiness as outlined in Idaho v. Wright"); State v. C.H., 264 N.J. Super. 112, 124 (App. Div.) (acknowledging that the following Wright factors are to be considered when determining if an out-of-court statement is sufficiently trustworthy to be admissible under the tender years exception to hearsay: "spontaneity and consistent repetition ... mental state of the declarant ... use of terminology of a child of similar age ... [and] lack of motive to fabricate"), certif. denied, 134 N.J. 479 (1993); State v. J.G., 261 N.J. Super. 409, 421 (App. Div.) (finding tender years hearsay statement trustworthy when it "disclosed a sexual knowledge beyond the ken of a young child" and was made "without prompting"), certif. denied, 133 N.J. 436 (1993); State v. Roman, 248 N.J. Super. 144, 153 (App. Div. 1991) (noting that should prosecutor "renew his application for admission of the hearsay statement pursuant to Evid. R. 63(33), the issue of trustworthiness should be fully explored and decided" using the Wright factors); State v. M.Z., 241 N.J. Super. 444, 450 (Law Div. 1990) (noting that in order to find a statement "trustworthy" under 63(33), the "court must have some indicia of credibility similar in nature to those itemized in the other hearsay rules"). Applying the Wright factors to this case, a trial court could conclude that Michelle's statements to Aunt Sandy did not possess "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness." The situation under which Michelle disclosed the sexual abuse was very stressful. Michelle did not spontaneously divulge information concerning the assault to Aunt Sandy, but rather Aunt Sandy interrogated her after finding her performing questionable acts while at play. Michelle's mental state can best be described as agitated; Aunt Sandy was screaming at her and Michelle was afraid she was in trouble for what she had done. Michelle initially lied, saying that her cousins had precipitated the sexual contact. Although she eventually named defendant as the culpable party, there was no consistency of repetition; when speaking to parties other than Aunt Sandy, Michelle claimed that it was her real father and not defendant who was responsible. Moreover, because neither the trial court nor the appellate court made findings of fact concerning the admissibility of Michelle's statements to Aunt Sandy under the tender years exception, it is not possible to determine whether either court complied with the Supreme Court's admonition in Wright that the presence of corroborating evidence may not be used as a basis for finding the declarant's statements to have been trustworthy when made. See Wright, supra, 497 U.S. at 823, 110 S. Ct. at 3152, 111 L. Ed. 2d at 657. To determine if the extrajudicial statements have the appropriate indicia of reliability required for admission, N.J.R.E. 803(c)(27) requires that the trial court conduct a hearing prior to their admission. In this case the trial court did not conduct a N.J.R.E. 104(a) hearing with respect to the admission of Aunt Sandy's testimony. The appellate court, however, concluded that "any error in the admission of Sandra's testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." We disagree. Where tender years testimony was admitted without the benefit of either a N.J.R.E. 104(a) hearing or a statement of findings concerning trustworthiness, the Appellate Division has observed "[T]he vital issue of guilt was exceedingly close and any error that could have tipped the credibility scale would have to be regarded as plain error. . . . A fair trial in child abuse cases is particularly important. In such sensitive cases, we must tread a measured path that avoids ignoring the reality of child abuse and avoids as well the possibility of unjust conviction." State v. W.L., 292 N.J. Super. 100, 117-18 (1996) (internal citation and quotation omitted). Further, not only did Michelle testify as to the identity of the abuser, but Dr. Finkel, Detective Hayes and Aunt Sandy, also named defendant as the culprit. Additionally, the videotape was played for the jury and, on the tape Michelle accuses defendant of sexual abuse. The jury thus heard four times not just that Michelle had been abused, but that defendant was the abuser. Even if, as the trial court averred, Aunt Sandy's testimony was merely corroborative, to have admitted it, could still be plain error. Given the victim's frequent recantations, that the prosecutor herself was forced to impeach Michelle on the stand, and that Michelle made identical allegations against her natural father, credibility was at issue. The corroborative statements that came in under the tender years exception to hearsay may well have tipped the scale. We observe that in considering the admission into evidence of several repetitive corroborative statements under the tender years exception, a trial court should be cognizant of its right under N.J.R.E. 403, to exclude evidence if it finds in its discretion, that the prejudicial value of that evidence substantially outweighs its probative value. N.J.R.E. 803(c)(27) requires the court to find, in a hearing conducted pursuant to N.J.R.E. 104(a), that on the basis of the time, content and circumstances of the statement there is a probability that the statement is trustworthy. Without such a hearing, the statements cannot properly be admitted under the tender years exception to the hearsay rule. The trial court may or may not determine that Michelle's statements carry with them the necessary indicia of reliability and trustworthiness. However, without a pretrial hearing on notice to defendant the testimony should not have been admitted. Therefore, on remand there must be a N.J.R.E. 104(a) hearing regarding the trustworthiness of Aunt Sandy's statement and its admissibility into evidence. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES HANDLER, POLLOCK, O'HERN, STEIN, and COLEMAN join in this opinion. NO. A-157 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. D.G., Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED