Opinion ID: 1992848
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limitations on defense counsel's summation

Text: Prior to closing statements, the trial court granted a motion in limine precluding the defense from making certain arguments during summation. Defendant contends that those limitations deprived him of a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense. Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 2146, 90 L.Ed. 2d 636, 645 (1986) (citations omitted). During the trial, the State focused on defendant's statement to the Sears employees that he (as Gary Marsh) worked at Exxon. Because none of Marsh's personal belongings identified him as an Exxon employee, the State asked the jury to conclude that defendant could have known that Mr. Marsh worked at Exxon only if defendant had been at the Exxon station during the robbery/homicide. Defense counsel sought to argue in summation that defendant need not have been at the Exxon station, but could have simply found Mr. Marsh's wallet and read about the homicide in one of the Trenton newspapers that reported the homicide and provided details. Indeed, Thomas Citron, one of the State's witnesses, had first contacted the police after seeing an article about the homicide in the newspaper. The trial court refused to allow defense counsel to assert that defendant read about the crime in the newspaper because there was no evidence presented at trial to allow this inference. However, the court did permit the defense to argue that the information in the newspaper was available for people to read. I want it to be clear, you're not going to tell the jury that Mr. Loftin could have read the article. You're not going to say those words. You can certainly say to the jury that Mr. Citron read the article.... Certainly one could infer or conclude a lot of people could have read the article. During summation, defense counsel argued that the information supplied by defendant to Sears was the same information that Mr. Citron was equipped with ... that he had read in the newspapers about the incident. The scope of defendant's summation argument must not exceed the four corners of the evidence. State v. Reynolds, 41 N.J. 163, 176, 195 A. 2d 449, cert. denied, 377 U.S. 1000, 84 S.Ct. 1930, 12 L.Ed. 2d 1050 (1964) (citation omitted). The four corners include the evidence and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom. State v. Hill, 47 N.J. 490, 499, 221 A. 2d 725 (1966). We agree with the trial court that defendant's claim here was not based on any evidence introduced at trial. Defendant did not establish that he ever read the newspaper, or that he even saw it, especially since he did not live in Trenton but in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Defendant need not have taken the stand and waived his right to remain silent in order to have established a factual basis for this argument; he could have had his wife or mother testify on the availability of Trenton newspapers. Because no such evidence was offered, the trial court properly excluded that argument. Moreover, even if the argument should have been allowed, its exclusion was harmless error. The defense was adequately able to suggest to the jury that defendant could have acquired the information from the newspaper. Moreover, the evidence was overwhelming that defendant was at the Exxon station and committed the murder, and no rational jury would have concluded that defendant was not at the scene but merely read about the crime in the paper. Defense counsel also sought to argue in summation that the homicide may not have been intentional but rather an accident, the result of a robbery gone bad. The trial court restricted that argument in several ways. First, defendant sought to argue that because Mr. Marsh was a nail biter and nail biters are nervous people, he might have acted in a nervous manner which could explain the unintended discharge of the weapon which went off. We readily agree with the trial court that such an argument had no basis in the evidence. Second, defendant sought to argue in summation that the homicide was the result of an accidental discharge of the gun. The State objected, clarifying that it did not object to the defense arguing that the evidence cannot tell us whether this is an intentional murder versus an accident or a fight or a robbery that just went awry, but it did object to defense counsel asserting an evidentiary basis for a conclusion that was unsupported by the evidence. As defendant virtually conceded at the in limine hearing, the scenarios he wished to proffer were not based on facts in evidence but the lack of facts. The trial court agreed with the State, asserting that there was no fact or inference to support a robbery gone bad theory. We agree. Defendant was permitted to argue, and did in fact argue, that there was no evidence conclusively proving that this was not an accidental death. For example, defense counsel pointed to the medical examiner's inability, based on the autopsy itself, to rule out accidental death. However, because no evidence that actually supported the defense theory was developed on the record, the trial court correctly precluded defendant from arguing that a factual basis existed to affirmatively support the conclusion that the death was accidental. There was no evidence of a struggle and no evidence that the gun discharged accidentally. Indeed, the State presented testimony that the gun could fire only if the safety was removed and ten pounds of pressure was applied to the trigger. Thus, even if defendant were able to argue a robbery gone bad theory, the sheer weight of the facts would have led the jury to disregard it. Because there was no evidence to support a robbery gone bad theory, the trial court correctly limited the defense argument on that theory.