Opinion ID: 2344370
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: cummulative error.

Text: We address defendant's final point: that the aggregate of his complaints suffices to vitiate his death sentence. The State, in response, claims that we should reject defendant's request because no error occurred below and defendant received a fair trial. The standard for review of a trial is neither as stringent nor as unforgiving as defendant asserts. We repeatedly have made clear that [t]he proper and rational standard [for the review of claimed trial errors] is not perfection; as devised and administered by imperfect humans, no trial can ever be entirely free of even the smallest defect. Our goal, nonetheless, must always be fairness. A defendant is entitled to a fair trial but not a perfect one. Lutwak v. United States, 344 U.S. 604, 619, 73 S.Ct. 481, 97 L.Ed. 593 (1953); accord, State v. Marshall, 123 N.J. 1, 169-70, 586 A. 2d 85 (1991), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 929, 113 S.Ct. 1306, 122 L.Ed. 2d 694 (1993). [ State v. R.B., 183 N.J. 308, 333-34, 873 A. 2d 511 (2005).] That principle applies equally in death penalty cases. See State v. Koskovich, 168 N.J. 448, 540, 776 A. 2d 144 (2001) ([W]e still adhere to the general principle that a defendant is entitled to a fair trial but not a perfect one. (quoting State v. Feaster, 156 N.J. 1, 84, 716 A. 2d 395 (1998) (internal quotation and editing marks omitted)); State v. Timmendequas (I), 161 N.J. 515, 639, 737 A. 2d 55 (1999), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 858, 122 S.Ct. 136, 151 L.Ed. 2d 89 (2001) (same, explaining that [t]his is true even in capital cases, where we subject the record to intense scrutiny, recognizing that a defendant's very life is at stake. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, although it is a fundamental tenet of our system of justice that where legal errors . . . in their aggregate have rendered the trial unfair, our fundamental constitutional concepts dictate the granting of a new trial before an impartial jury[,] State v. Orecchio, 16 N.J. 125, 129, 106 A. 2d 541 (1954), the predicate for relief for cumulative error must be that the probable effect of the cumulative error was to render the underlying trial unfair. Defendant has made repeated assertions of trial error. However, our close scrutiny of defendant's penalty phase trial discloses that, in all material respects, no appreciable error was present. More fundamentally, it was fair. Therefore, we reject defendant's claim of cumulative error.