Opinion ID: 2366296
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Kociolek

Text: State v. Kociolek, 23 N.J. 400, 129 A. 2d 417 (1957), was decided fifteen years prior to Hampton. Kociolek, like Hampton, addressed issues concerning the admissibility of a defendant's oral statements and the instructions that should be given to the jury regarding those statements. The defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. However, the death sentence was reversed. State v. Kociolek, 20 N.J. 92, 118 A. 2d 812 (1955). During the initial trial, several of the defendant's oral admissions were admitted in evidence through the testimony of witnesses recalling the statements made by the defendant. Kociolek, supra, 23 N.J. at 405, 129 A. 2d 417. We explained that the trial court erred in refusing to charge the jury that it should receive, weigh and consider such evidence with caution in view of the generally recognized risk of inaccuracy and error in communication and recollection of verbal utterances and misconstruction by the hearer. Id. at 421, 129 A. 2d 417. We added that there are inherent weaknesses in this character of testimony: faulty memory, the danger of error in understanding and repetition. Ibid. (citation omitted). Observing that all verbal admissions are to be viewed with caution, we opined [a]side from the danger of fabrication, verbal admissions are regarded as unreliable evidence, because experience shows that they are frequently misunderstood, imperfectly remembered, and inadvertently made. Ibid. (citation omitted). The antidote for the general distrust associated with testimony reporting any extra-judicial oral statements, is an instruction to the jury against trusting overmuch the accuracy of such testimony. Ibid. We observed, verbal precision is of course important to the correct understanding of any verbal utterance, whether written or oral, because the presence or absence or change of a single word may substantially alter the true meaning of even the shortest sentence. Id. at 421-22, 129 A. 2d 417.