Opinion ID: 1435973
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Third-Party Guilt

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court improperly barred him from introducing evidence that would have supported an argument that someone elsea third partykilled Melissa Padilla. Defendant sought to introduce evidence that Padilla had sold crack cocaine earlier on the day of her murder for the purpose of drawing the inference that her death was drug-related. He also sought to show that unidentified sperm found in a vaginal swab from Padilla's body could not have come from defendant and, therefore, must have come from her killer. In both instances, the trial court found that there was no rational basis to support a theory of third-party guilt. We agree.
The constitutional right to present a defense confers on the defendant the right to argue that someone else committed the crime. State v. Jimenez, 175 N.J. 475, 486, 815 A. 2d 976, 982 (2003); State v. Koedatich, 112 N.J. 225, 297, 548 A. 2d 939, 976 (1988) ( Koedatich II ), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1017, 109 S.Ct. 813, 102 L.Ed. 2d 803 (1989). In this case, defendant's general denial by the entry of a not-guilty plea implicitly raised the defense of third-party guilt. In fact, during summation defendant argued that Hector Fernandez, Padilla's live-in boyfriend, was the third party who killed Padilla. It appears that the third-party evidence he now alleges was improperly excluded would have taken him in another direction. The right to argue third-party guiltthat someone in general, or in particular, other than the defendant committed the crimedoes not address whether specific evidence is admissible in support of such a defense. Evidence in support of third-party guilt, or any theory offered by the prosecution or defense, must satisfy the standards of the New Jersey Rules of Evidence. Scientific evidence offered through expert testimony must not only be relevant but also must meet the threshold of reliability. There is no burden on the defendant to prove his innocence through the introduction of evidence of third-party guilt. The defendant does not have to show that the evidence supports a probability that another person committed the crime. Third-party guilt evidence need only be capable of raising a reasonable doubt of defendant's guilt to warrant its admissibility. Koedatich II, supra, 112 N.J. at 299, 548 A. 2d at 977 (quoting People v. Hall, 41 Cal. 3d 826, 226 Cal.Rptr. 112, 718 P. 2d 99, 103 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Such evidence cannot be withheld from the jury if the proof offered has a rational tendency to engender a reasonable doubt with respect to an essential feature of the State's case. State v. Sturdivant, 31 N.J. 165, 179, 155 A. 2d 771, 778 (1959), cert. denied, 362 U.S. 956, 80 S.Ct. 873, 4 L.Ed. 2d 873 (1960). Stated more concretely, there must be some link ... between the third party and the victim or crime, Koedatich II, supra, 112 N.J. at 300, 548 A. 2d at 978, capable of inducing reasonable people to regard the evidence as bearing upon the State's case, Sturdivant, supra, 31 N.J. at 179, 155 A. 2d at 778. The connection between the third party and the crime cannot be left to conjecture. Ibid. We recognize that a trial court's decision regarding the admissibility of evidence is fact sensitive and, therefore, our review is deferential and limited to whether there has been an abuse of discretion. See Koedatich II, supra, 112 N.J. at 300, 548 A. 2d at 977-78.
Defendant claims that the trial court erred in not permitting him to introduce undisputed evidence that Hector Fernandez had purchased $100 worth of crack cocaine for himself and Padilla on the day of the murder, and that Padilla had sold the drugs later that day. Defendant's objective was to argue that Padilla was killed in a drug deal gone awry, or in the course of a robbery for drugs or drug money. Investigators learned of Padilla's drug dealing from witnesses who were interviewed during the homicide investigation. However, no evidence was ever presented that Padilla had drugs in her possession when she left the Gem Motel to purchase food for her family and encountered her killer. No one testified that she was selling drugs at or about the time of her murder. Moreover, the scene of the crime failed to reveal any evidence of drugs or evidence suggestive of a drug sale. All that was found near the bloodied corpse were the remnants of Padilla's purchases from the Quick Chek and a bloody dollar bill. The jewelry that she ordinarily wore was missing. Padilla's killer had battered, sexually assaulted, and strangled her, inflicting traumatic injuries to her anus, but none to her vaginal area. From this tableau, defendant argued that some unidentified denizen from that drug-infested area of Woodbridge Township near the murder scene killed Padilla. The State countered that no rational basis in the record supported the theory that Padilla's death was in any way related to drug dealing. Moreover, the State indicated that if the defense were permitted to pursue a theory that a drug fiend killed Padilla, it would introduce defendant's own significant history of drug addiction and abuse because witnesses placed him in close proximity to the scene at the approximate time of the murder. The court found that there was no link between the evidence of the victim's drug sales and the murder. Even if some connection had been made, the court concluded that the drug-dealing evidence would not tend to raise a reasonable doubt about the State's case because defendant, based on his drug history, would have had the same motivation and opportunity to rob and attack Padilla as the generic crazed drug abuser. In other words, assuming the crime was somehow related to Padilla's drug dealing, defendant was squarely in the class of peoplethose with drug habitswho would have been suspected of committing the offense. We agree with the trial court that the evidence did not suggest, even inferentially, that Padilla's drug dealing was connected in any way to her murder. Even if we were to assume that there was evidential support for that theory, defendant would have fit the profile of the prototypical suspect, and the door would have been opened to his own extensive drug history. If Padilla's drug dealing had any probative value, it was substantially outweighed by the risk of undue prejudice and confusion of the issues. See N.J.R.E. 403. We find that the drug-dealing evidence bore no relevance to any material issue in the case and, accordingly, did not have the capacity to raise a reasonable doubt of defendant's guilt.
Defendant contends that the trial court improperly precluded him from introducing evidence concerning sperm found in the victim's vagina that would have suggested a third party as the killer. We do not find that the trial court abused its discretion on the record before us. We note that the record presented by defendant is far from a model of clarity and the scientific issues were not elaborated with precision. On remand, defendant may request a new N.J.R.E. 104 hearing if he can produce evidence that will satisfy the standards for admissibility of evidence in accordance with the discussion that follows. The trial court clearly understood and articulated the issues. First, the court queried whether it would be logical for a jury to conclude that if someone else's [sperm] was found in the victim's body besides her boyfriend and the defendant, left there within a reasonable time of death, that a third person committed the crime. The answer to that question appears clear enough: such evidence would be relevant for the purpose of raising a reasonable doubt of defendant's guilt. First, we address whether the sperm recovered from Padilla's body had been ejaculated at or near the time of the victim's death. Dr. Marvin Shuster, the Middlesex County Chief Medical Examiner at the time of the murder, testified to the presence of sperm in the victim's vagina. When asked whether he could determine the age of the sperm found in the victim's vagina, he responded, It's highly variable. He stated that [w]ith fresh ejaculates one would expect to see intact sperm, but he found few and scattered sperm[], some of which [were] intact, and many of which [were] represented only by sperm heads. Dr. Shuster was unable to give an opinion as to the age of the sperm and, therefore, could not determine whether or not the recovered sperm were ejaculated into the victim's vagina at or near the time of her death. On the other hand, Dr. Geetha Natarajan, who succeeded Dr. Shuster as Middlesex County medical examiner, had no reservation reaching a firm conclusion with respect of the age of the sperm. She reasoned that had there been intercourse immediately prior to death, there would have been numerous sperms, rather than a few sperm heads or an intact sperm. She concluded that there was no ejaculation into [the victim's] vagina at the time or immediately prior to her death and, therefore, the recovered ejaculate had nothing to do with her murder. Although the defense was not bound by that conclusion, Dr. Shuster's testimony left the age of the sperm, at best, as a matter of conjecture. Dr. Shuster could not discount the possibility that the recovered sperm entered into the victim's vagina at or near the time of her death and, therefore did not render an opinion within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. Had defendant been able to pinpoint the entry of the sperm to the time of Padilla's death, then, even in the absence of identifying the donor, that evidence would have been admissible to challenge the State's theory that the Padilla murder and the Trooper Gardner assault both involved digital penetration only. But the defense could not mount such an attack on pure speculation. The second issue is whether the vaginal swab submitted to Cellmark Laboratories for DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) typing provided some reasonable basis to argue third-party guilt. At a N.J.R.E. 104 hearing, Paula Yates, a specialist in forensic science at Cellmark, testified that she performed a DNA analysis of the vaginal swab. She stated that she was unable to determine within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty or probability whether the sample she examined excluded the DNA of defendant, Fernandez, or even Padilla. She was unable to render such an opinion because of the absence of control dots that are visible when there is a sufficient amount of DNA to be tested and typed reliably for the presence of particular alleles. [6] According to Yates, the absence of the control dots meant that she had no way of knowing if she was observing all of the DNA in the vaginal swab. Yates testified that, without the control dots, the analysis could not exclude Padilla, Fernandez, or Fortin as the source of the DNA. Despite those limitations, the prosecutor and defense counsel prodded Yates to analyze the available data and to assume it to be interpretable. Working under that assumption, Yates testified that the data indicated that there were sperm from at least two different donors, a primary donor who contributed a number 1.2 allele and a secondary donor who contributed a number 2 allele. The analysis could not exclude defendant as the primary donor because his DNA typing had similarities to that of the primary profile, in particular the number 1.2 allele. Yates stated that defendant could not have been the secondary donor because he could not have contributed the number 2 allele. Yates also stated that Fernandez could not have contributed the number 2 allele, but defense counsel did not explore the import of that answer, although the answer suggested Fernandez's exclusion as a secondary donor. Defense counsel did not inquire of Yates whether Fernandez's alleles included or excluded him as a primary donor. Based on the N.J.R.E. 104 hearing testimony, the court entered an order barring any evidence or argument regarding penile penetration resulting in an ejaculation by an unknown third-party at the approximate time of [Padilla's] murder. The court reasoned that Cellmark, the laboratory that analyzed the vaginal swab for DNA, could not within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty or probability exclude any of the three known persons [defendant, Fernandez, or Padilla] from being the source of the sperm fraction analyzed. On that basis, the court found that defendant could not rationally argue that an unknown third-party [engaged in penile penetration of] the victim at the time of her death. During the guilt phase of the trial, Dr. Charlotte Word of Cellmark testified about the DNA analysis of the dollar bill and the cigarette butt found at the murder scene. On cross-examination, defense counsel questioned Dr. Word concerning the vaginal swab. As when Paula Yates testified, Dr. Word qualified her answers by assuming that there were appropriate controls and that the test had produced an interpretable result. Dr. Word stated the number 2 allele could not have come from defendant, Fernandez, or Padilla. There was no follow-up question asking Dr. Word to explain the meaning of her response regarding the number 2 allele. Dr. Word noted that Cellmark's report did not provide that conclusion because of the absence of the appropriate controls and presumably that is why Dr. Word did not render an opinion within a reasonable degree of scientific probability on that subject. After Dr. Word's testimony, defendant did not seek reconsideration of the court's earlier ruling barring evidence or argument concerning the DNA analysis of the vaginal swab. Based on that record, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in keeping non-competent and irrelevant evidence before the jury. The sine qua non for the admissibility of scientific evidence is reliability. Expert testimony must comply with the requirements of N.J.R.E. 702. That rule provides: If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.