Opinion ID: 2315948
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Removal of Intoxication from Mitigating Factor c(5)(d) Instructions

Text: Defendant's Notice of Mitigating Factors included notice that should a capital-sentencing proceeding be necessary, he would seek to prove that defendant's capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was significantly impaired as the result of mental disease or defect or intoxication. [ N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(d).] During the sentencing proceeding defense counsel elicited testimony on cross-examination of Smith tending to establish that defendant had been smoking marijuana on the night of the murder: Q You recall having a conversation, don't you, at some time when Mr. Biegenwald told you he was in the car that night and smoking pot with the girl? A Yes. To emphasize that testimony, defense counsel returned to the subject as the final question: Q You do recall him saying he had smoked pot in the particular car where you found the blood stains with the girl? A Yes. In his summation, defense counsel reminded the jury that Smith had testified to defendant's smoking marijuana on the night of the murder. The summation, however, made no explicit attempt to develop that fact as a mitigating factor. Rather, defense counsel's reference to defendant's drug use appeared to focus on a motive for the killing  namely, to prevent the victim from reporting defendant's drug use (a violation of his parole) to the police  and thereby to refute aggravating factor c(4)(c). In the general, introductory jury charge, the court had listed all eight possible mitigating factors. At that point, in reading c(5)(d) to the jury, the court mentioned that that factor included intoxication as possibly impairing defendant's mental capacity. However, when the court narrowed its discussion to the mitigating factors actually advanced by defendant in the resentencing proceeding, it deliberately omitted reference to intoxication, both when reading c(5)(d) again to the jury and when explaining that factor. Defendant took timely exception to the court's omission of intoxication in its explanation of c(5)(d). The court refused to amend the instruction: MR. DIAMOND: Your Honor, please the Court, with the addition that the legislature put in as to intoxication at the time of the offense was committed, could you instruct the jury intoxication also includes the use of drugs such as marihuana? THE COURT: No, I won't. MR. DIAMOND: That's what the legislature intended. THE COURT: I won't instruct them. MR. DIAMOND: There is testimony at the time the offense was committed. THE COURT: Your position is clear, I'm not going to instruct them on intoxication. No further explanation for the court's decision is evidenced in the record. The verdict sheet also omitted intoxication from the c(5)(d) factor. Defendant claims that the trial court's refusal to include reference to intoxication in its instruction on mitigating factor c(5)(d) precluded the jury from considering and giving effect to mitigating evidence and therefore requires vacating of the death sentence. The State contends that the trial court did not err because there was no evidence of intoxication. The State further contends that the jury was not precluded from considering defendant's marijuana usage on the night of the murder under mitigating factor c(5)(h), the catch-all factor. Defendant correctly points out that the eighth amendment requires that juries be given instructions which allow them to `consider and give effect to [the] mitigating evidence,' quoting Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 314, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 2944, 106 L.Ed. 2d 256, 275 (1989). This Court has indicated previously that juries must be allowed to consider all mitigating circumstances advanced by defendant at trial. Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. at 169, 548 A. 2d 887. Defendant emphasizes that he is not suggesting that the evidence of intoxication would have constituted a defense to prosecution, but rather that the evidence supported a charge on intoxication as a mitigating factor under c(5)(d). That the trial court omitted intoxication from its charge on c(5)(d) and left intoxication out of the recitation of that factor on the verdict sheet is troubling, particularly because the trial court read the language of the provision  including the reference to intoxication  to the jury in its initial overview of the statute but thereafter gave no explanation for its failure to have included intoxication in its specific charge and on the verdict sheet. The statute plainly includes intoxication in its c(5)(d) language. That intoxication can derive from drug or alcohol usage is recognized generally. E.g., State v. Zola, 112 N.J. 384, 424, 548 A. 2d 1022 (1988); N.J.S.A. 2C:2-8e(1) (defining intoxication as a disturbance of mental or physical capacities resulting from the introduction of substances into the body). In Zola, we held that the trial court had not erred in denying a request that the jury be instructed on the defense of intoxication. 112 N.J. at 425, 548 A. 2d 1022. We reasoned that intoxication may be attributed to drugs    but must cause `prostration of faculties' to be considered relevant to negating an element of the offense. Id. at 424, 548 A. 2d 1022 (citation omitted) (quoting State v. Cameron, 104 N.J. 42, 54, 514 A. 2d 1302 (1986)). Because the trial court had found no reliable evidence of ingestion of drugs or alcohol, much less any incapacitation of judgment due to use [of] such substances, ibid., we concurred with the decision not to charge intoxication as a defense to capital murder. Whether the refusal of the court below to instruct the jury on intoxication constituted significant error we need not decide, because we vacate defendant's sentence on other grounds. However, we do note that the standards for admissibility and consideration of intoxication during a capital-sentencing proceeding are not the same as the comparable standards applicable during the determination of guilt. See N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(2)(a) (defendant shall have the burden of producing evidence of the existence of any mitigating factors    but shall not have a burden with regard to the establishment of a mitigating factor); -3c(2)(b) (defendant may offer, without regard to the rules governing the admission of evidence at criminal trials, reliable evidence relevant to any of the mitigating factors); -3c(5)(d) (defendant's capacity impaired as the result of intoxication, but not to a degree sufficient to constitute a defense to prosecution); cf. Smith v. State, 492 So. 2d 1063, 1067 (Fla. 1986) (some evidence, however slight, that Smith had smoked marijuana the night of the murder held sufficient to justify giving instructions for reduced capacity and extreme emotional disturbance in capital-sentencing proceeding); State v. Goodman, 298 N.C. 1, 32, 257 S.E. 2d 569, 589 (1979) ([w]hen the defendant contends that his faculties were impaired by intoxication, such intoxication must be to a degree that it affects defendant's ability to understand and control his actions); State v. Bellamy, 293 S.C. 103, 105, 359 S.E. 2d 63, 65 (1987) (if there is evidence that the defendant could be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, court should charge on mitigating circumstances relating to reduced capacity).