Opinion ID: 1969802
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: 2, a.45, a.58-60, b.109-32, b.138, b.199, e.9-13, e.19-20, e.24)

Text: The claims in this subsection include claims asserting discovery violations relevant to the testimony of Sarann Kraushaar, claims of ineffective assistance of counsel relating primarily to trial counsel's cross-examination of her, and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct also relating to Kraushaar's testimony. We address the claims on their merits and conclude that all of the claims relating to Kraushaar's testimony are meritless and should be dismissed without a hearing. The claimed significance of the alleged discovery violations is difficult to discern. The items allegedly withheld include Kraushaar's signed Miranda form dated September 7, 1984. Its purported relevance is that, although on September 7 the State was sufficiently suspicious of Kraushaar's possible involvement in the homicide to require submission of Miranda warnings before her interrogation, at trial the State was prepared to vouch for her credibility. We reject defendant's argument and conclude that the Kraushaar Miranda form was an immaterial document. Similarly irrelevant were receipts from E & B Coins and Stamps dated March 23 and 25, 1983, reflecting silver purchases made by defendant and Kraushaar, their significance allegedly deriving only from the fact that defense counsel questioned Kraushaar concerning the date she rented a safe deposit box to hold the silver. The subject and the document obviously are too tangential to the central issues at trial to have had any effect on the result. Defendant next contends that the State's failure to produce two affidavits and related search warrants dated September 10 and 27, 1984, for Kraushaar's telephone toll records tainted the integrity of the remand hearing ordered by this Court concerning the Kraushaar immunity agreement. We exhaustively addressed the issues raised in the remand hearing in our direct appeal opinion, Marshall I, supra, 123 N.J. at 171-207, 586 A. 2d 85, and that discussion and analysis serves as the foundation for our rulings on PCR issues related to the substance of the remand hearing. Concerning the search warrants and the supporting affidavits, the PCR court correctly determined that those documents were not included within the scope of the trial court's discovery order governing the remand hearing. Contrary to defendant's contention that the affidavits supporting the warrants contained information suggesting that Kraushaar was still a suspect on September 10 and 27, and therefore even more vulnerable to cross-examination about her trial testimony and the immunity agreement, examination of the September 10th affidavit (the September 27th affidavit is undoubtedly similar but is not contained in the PCR appendix) reveals that it consists of relatively boilerplate allegations, summarizing the investigation to date and Marshall's relationship with Kraushaar, and alleging that access to Marshall's and Kraushaar's telephone toll records would lead to the identification of the persons responsible for Maria Marshall's death. The affidavit is silent regarding suspicions of Kraushaar's direct involvement and, in our view, its usefulness in cross-examination would have been minimal. The State's failure to produce the affidavits and warrants had no capacity to affect the result of the trial. The final document consists of the prosecutor's notes of preparatory interviews with Kraushaar, allegedly significant because they refer to the potential interest of the prosecutor's office in any link between the Marshall homicide and the murder of Vincent Craparotta in July 1984. We doubt that the notes were discoverable, and are convinced that their content had no capacity to affect the result of the trial. Defendant asserts several claims of prosecutorial misconduct. Two of the claims based on the State's failure to disclose the promise of immunity to Kraushaar and its failure to disclose details of financial obligations incurred in connection with McKinnon's testimony, were properly dismissed by the trial court under Rule 3:22-5. We addressed and resolved those specific contentions in detail in our direct appeal opinion. Marshall I, supra, 123 N.J. at 199-207, 586 A. 2d 85. In addition, defendant contends that the prosecutor's questioning of Kraushaar concerning her accompanying defendant to consult with counsel on September 22, 1984, was intended to denigrate defendant's right to counsel and to imply that such consultation had a bearing on guilt. We addressed a related issue on direct appeal, id. at 121-25, 586 A. 2d 85, and we dismiss this claim on the merits on the same grounds. Defendant alleges prosecutorial misconduct arising from the prosecutor's failure to inform the court that Kraushaar did not comply with a court order, to which the prosecutor consented, that Kraushaar read no press reports about witnesses who testified during a break in her testimony. Defendant alleges, on the basis of a book about the murder and trial (Joe McGinniss, Blind Faith (1989)), that Kraushaar violated the order. In our view, the allegation is insufficiently substantiated and, even if true, had no capacity to affect the trial result. Nor is there any merit to the contention that the prosecutor improperly elicited from Kraushaar testimony that she terminated her relationship with defendant because she thought he was guilty of murder. Kraushaar testified that she terminated the relationship because she could no longer believe what [defendant] was telling me. Neither the prosecutor's questioning nor Kraushaar's response had the capacity materially to affect the outcome of the trial. Another claim of prosecutorial misconduct relates to the allegedly wrongful failure to provide copies of the affidavits and related search warrants for Kraushaar's telephone toll records. We have already addressed the substance of that claim in connection with the alleged discovery violations, and order it dismissed on the same grounds. Defendant asserts two other claims of misconduct that allegedly undermined the reliability of the remand hearing ordered by this Court. First, defendant asserts that representatives of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office lied at the remand hearing when they testified that Investigator Murphy of that office was responsible for compiling and forwarding discovery material in the Marshall case. Defendant bases that allegation on a record maintained by the prosecutor's office entitled Death Investigations 1981-1984, in which Investigator Mahoney was designated as the case agent in the Marshall investigation. Defendant asserts that because Mahoney had signed one of the Kraushaar immunity agreements, his status as case agent would have made him directly responsible for delivering that agreement to defense counsel, whereas the testimony at the remand hearing naming Murphy as case agent purported to relieve Mahoney of that responsibility. Second, defendant asserts a related claim of misconduct premised on the failure of the prosecutor's office to produce for discovery a report by Investigator Mahoney dated February 15, 1985, detailing an inventory of items found in defendant's Best Western Motel room. Defendant alleges that the withholding of that report inhibited defense counsel from adequately cross-examining Mahoney at the remand hearing concerning his responsibility for discovery. After the PCR court dismissed as procedurally barred the claim of misconduct based on the death ledger, defense counsel moved for a new trial, or for an evidentiary hearing, to permit defendant to offer proof of his allegation that Investigator Mahoney was responsible for discovery in the Marshall case. In opposing defendant's motion, the State argued that the primary function of the death ledger was to keep track of homicides and their victims and not to designate case agents, noting that the ledger's case-agent designation in the Accetturo prosecution (the case in which the existence of the ledger was first disclosed) was found to be inaccurate. The State contended that the reliability of the ledger was outweighed by the testimony at the remand hearing, tested by cross-examination, demonstrating that Murphy and not Mahoney had been responsible for discovery. Without attempting to resolve the factual dispute, the PCR court determined that, based on this Court's holding that the nondisclosure of the State's non-prosecution agreement with Kraushaar was not material to defendant's guilt or punishment, Marshall I, supra, 123 N.J. at 199-205, 586 A. 2d 85, to hold a new hearing to redetermine the question of willfulness would be an exercise in futility, and not in the interest of justice. We agree with the PCR court's determination and dismiss on the merits those claims of misconduct. Defendant asserts numerous claims of ineffectiveness of counsel relating to the manner in which Zeitz prepared for and conducted the cross-examination of Kraushaar. Included within this category are the following claims: that trial counsel should have withdrawn as counsel in order to provide testimony contradictory to Kraushaar's; that counsel should have objected to Kraushaar's testimony that she accompanied defendant on September 22, 1984, to meet with Zeitz; that counsel should have objected to Kraushaar's conclusory statement that defendant was in dire financial straits; that counsel should have cross-examined Kraushaar on the reason she resigned her position as vice principal; that counsel should have cross-examined Kraushaar concerning her retention of counsel and the details of her conversations with her attorneys on September 7, 1984, the date of her first statement to the prosecutor's investigators; that counsel should have interviewed Kraushaar's attorneys prior to trial and should have called them as defense witnesses; and that counsel failed to develop a coherent strategy for the cross-examination of Kraushaar. Irrespective of whether counsel's performance was deficient in those areas, defendant has failed to demonstrate any probability that counsel's alleged deficiencies would have affected the outcome of the trial. Accordingly, we dismiss those claims on the merits. In addition, defendant asserts a number of miscellaneous and obviously meritless claims relating to other possible areas of cross-examination or impeachment of Kraushaar's testimony that are alleged to have constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. We dismiss those claims on their merits as well because there is absolutely no demonstration that counsel's conduct, even if deficient, could have affected the trial result.