Opinion ID: 6930065
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Kontakis’ other issues

Text: Kontakis contends that the voir dire denied him a fair and impartial jury in violation of the Sixth Amendment and the due process clause. He objects to the trial court’s use of a written questionnaire that was “to be completed out of the presence of counsel and the court.” Brief at 57. In assessing this argument, we do not review the voir dire for violations of New Jersey law; rather, our “authority is limited to enforcing the commands of the United States Constitution.” Mu’min v. Virginia, 500 U.S. 415, -, 111 S.Ct. 1899, 1903, 114 L.Ed.2d 493 (1991). We may grant a writ predicated on a finding that a fair and impartial jury was denied only if we find that the state courts committed “manifest error” in rejecting this contention. Rock v. Zimmerman, 959 F.2d at 1252 n. 8. Here, we find no “manifest error,” and indeed no error at all, in the conclusion reached by the state, courts that the voir dire did not result in an unfair or prejudiced jury. The district court accurately summarized the reasons why the voir dire passed constitutional muster when it stated: The voir dire transcripts reveal that the trial court patiently questioned potential jurors orally after they completed the written questionnaire. Moreover, petitioner’s attorney had ample opportunity to submit questions to the trial court in order to clear up any misunderstanding resulting from potential jurors’ written answers. Before swearing in the jury, the court gave petitioner’s counsel the opportunity to challenge its composition [and] petitioner failed to exhaust his peremptory challenges. (App. at 24). Thus, we reject Kontakis’ argument that the voir dire violated his constitutional rights.
Kontakis contends that the trial court’s refusal to charge the jury on passion/provocation manslaughter, as provided in NJ.Stat.Ann. § 2C:ll-4(b)(2) (West 1982), violated his constitutional rights under Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980). 13 That section provides that a homicide which otherwise would be murder is manslaughter if it “is committed in the heat of passion resulting from a reasonable provocation.” In Beck, the Supreme Court held that in a capital case the trial court committed constitutional error when it would not charge on a lesser-included offense for which the evidence supported a conviction. The Court held that in a capital case in which a conviction for a lesser-included offense could be justified by the evidence, the jury should not be given an all-or-nothing choice. Kontakis, arguing from Beck, contends that the court’s refusal to give the passion/provoeation charge wrongfully precluded the jury from convicting him on that lesser-included offense. In support of this contention, Kontakis points to evidence that his wife left him, took his child, and committed adultery. He asserts that these circumstances caused him to act in the heat of passion when he shot her. The district court found that this evidence did not support a passion/provocation instruction, and we agree. 14 Under New Jersey law, passion/provocation manslaughter has four elements, one of which is that the provocation must be adequate. State v. Coyle, 119 N.J. 194, 574 A.2d 951, 967 (1990). In some circumstances, adequate provocation may be shown through a course of ill treatment that the defendant reasonably believed would continue. See State v. Guido, 40 N.J. 191, 191 A.2d 45, 56 (1963). But in this case, the state courts held that the evidence did not demonstrate a level of ill treatment sufficient to justify the charge under state law. We cannot reject this conclusion for there is, after all, no federal constitutional requirement that a state recognize marital misconduct as justifying a homicide or lessening the consequences which otherwise would follow from the homicide. Rather, it may prefer the more civilized approach of leaving the settlement of these disputes to the matrimonial courts. Nothing in Beck permits us to grant habeas relief when a state court refuses to charge a jury that it may convict a defendant for an offense when under state law the evidence could not justify the conviction.
Kontakis contends that the trial court’s admission of Mary McLaughlin’s testimony violated his Sixth Amendment confrontational clause rights and his due process right to a fair trial and fundamental fairness. McLaughlin testified that on February 4, 1982, she saw Margaret Kontakis “banging at another door, for help.” McLaughlin then called out to her to come to McLaughlin’s apartment. McLaughlin testified that when Margaret Kontakis entered the apartment she was shaking, crying, and frightened, and said that Kontakis had placed a gun to her forehead that morning. McLaughlin also testified that she saw Kontakis “looking for somebody,” while he was walking quickly around the building. She testified that it appeared he was carrying something. Kontakis contends that the admission of his wife’s statements through McLaughlin’s testimony denied him his Sixth Amendment right to confront Margaret as a witness. We reject this argument because the Appellate Division held that the statement properly was admitted under state law under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. Of course, the Sixth Amendment was not infringed by this evidence, as the amendment does not preclude admission of evidence under firmly rooted exceptions to the hearsay rule. See White v. Illinois, — U.S. -, - n. 8, 112 S.Ct. 736, 742 n. 8, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992). Furthermore, for the admission of evidence in a state criminal proceeding to rise to the level of a constitutional error, the petitioner must show that the “use of the evidence” caused “fundamental unfairness” in violation of due process. Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 236, 62 S.Ct. 280, 290, 86 L.Ed. 166 (1941). Brecht compels us to apply the Kotteakos harmless error test to determine whether the unconstitutional admission of evidence in a state proceeding justifies the granting of relief, inasmuch as a mistaken evidentiary ruling falls with the trial category of constitutional error. Therefore, even if we found the admission of McLaughlin’s testimony unconstitutional to the extent it included Margaret’s statements, which we do not, we nevertheless would deny habeas relief unless, in the words of Brecht, the evidence had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” McLaughlin’s testimony could not have had such a consequence. The trial record is replete with eye-witness testimony that Kon-takis carefully fired three bullets into his wife’s head. In these circumstances, the evidence that he threatened her three years earlier was not significant. This was, after all, not a case in which identity of the killer was in issue so that evidence of earlier threats was critical in establishing his identity. Therefore we conclude that, assuming arguendo the admission of McLaughlin’s testimony was unconstitutional, any error therefrom was harmless.
Kontakis also objects to the district court’s rejection of his arguments that prosecutorial misconduct and/or the admission of Peter Zielinski’s testimony mandate the granting of the writ. We will reject these arguments without detail, for we agree with the district court that they are without merit.