Opinion ID: 2333091
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 27

Heading: Was there error in the court's instructions to the jury?

Text: In support of his contention that his confession was involuntary, Harry Wise testified as to his prior use of narcotics and the circumstances under which he became an addict. In the course of this testimony, he said he had been taking narcotics for three years and had acquired the habit while on active duty in the United States Air Force in Korea. The trial judge in the main body of his charge to the jury instructed them as follows: The statutory punishment for first degree murder is death, subject only to the condition that the jury in its absolute discretion chooses to recommend life imprisonment; a recommendation shall not be made, however, except after consideration of all the evidence and by incorporating the recommendation in the verdict of guilty. Thereafter the court granted the State's requests Nos. 5 and 6 and instructed the jury as follows: [No. 5] `During the course of this trial certain references have been made by counsel to the past life and background of the various defendants. Evidence with reference to past life and antecedent background are out of place in a trial for crime and should not be considered by you in determining your verdict. The crime itself and the circumstances under which it was committed form the criterion for a recommendation of life imprisonment or a refusal to recommend life imprisonment.' `No. 6: By the same token, any suggestion or evidence that the jury should save a defendant from capital punishment because of his repentance or remorse is not a legitimate issue and should not be considered by you in determining your verdict.' Counsel for Harry Wise objected to the instruction and here urges the charge given violated N.J.S. 2 A :113-4, which provides: Every person convicted of murder in the first degree    shall suffer death unless the jury shall by its verdict, and as a part thereof, upon and after the consideration of all the evidence, recommend life imprisonment, in which case this and no greater punishment shall be imposed. It is said Harry Wise was entitled as a matter of right to have the jury consider all the evidence before it in deciding whether or not to spare his life. The deprivation of that right constitutes reversible error. Precisely how the evidence alluded to  and concededly this is the only evidence which was affected by the court's charge  would have affected the jury's deliberation upon the choice of punishment is not stated by counsel. Conceivably, had Harry been under the influence of narcotics at the time he committed the crime, that fact might have been considered by the jury as a mitigating circumstance. However, no suggestion was ever made during the trial that such was the case. We, of course, recognize the possibility that Harry's service record  although only the sketchiest details were given  might well have received sympathetic consideration from the jury. Indeed, that fact was carefully, indelibly and skillfully brought to the jury's attention in his counsel's summation, to a degree that probably no instruction on the part of the court could have effectively removed. The statutory language requiring the jury's deliberations upon the punishment to be confined to all the evidence was enacted following the decision of the Court of Errors and Appeals in State v. Martin, 92 N.J.L. 436 (1919). It was there held that under the original act of 1916 ( P.L., c. 270) the jury were at liberty but not required to consider the evidence in determining whether to make or to refuse a recommendation of life imprisonment. The Legislature was in session when the decision in State v. Martin was handed down, and their immediate response was to adopt an amendment of the statute ( L. 1919, c. 134), which in its present form is N.J.S. 2 A :113-4, quoted supra. Two years later in State v. James, 96 N.J.L. 132 (1921), the Court of Errors and Appeals had occasion to consider the effect of the then recent amendment. There, the trial court had refused to admit evidence of the prisoner's family history, which was offered to show a taint of insanity in his family. On appeal, it was urged that although the defense of insanity had not been interposed, such evidence could have been taken into consideration by the jury on the question whether or not to recommend imprisonment for life. Chancellor Walker held the amendment of 1919 had been intended to and did overrule the decision in State v. Martin, supra , and that the statutory language, all the evidence, meant all of the evidence adduced between the State and the prisoner on the issue of guilt or innocence, (96 N.J.L., at page 151). He said (at page 150): The Legislature could never have intended by this act to open the door to the trial of a collateral issue, such as insanity in the family of a prisoner who had not pleaded insanity in himself as a defense in bar, to enable a jury to decide to render a merciful verdict for a prisoner on trial for murder.    In State v. Barth, 114 N.J.L. 112 ( E. & A. 1935), the defendant, on trial for first-degree murder, sought to introduce evidence concerning his past life and antecedent background to show that in his family life he had been habituated to an atmosphere of violence, firearms, and crime, and being so habituated, should not be put to death for committing murder in the attempted perpetration of a robbery. (114 N.J.L., at page 116.) It was urged that since the jury had the prerogative under the statute of recommending life imprisonment, the propriety of such a recommendation became an issue in the case upon which relevant evidence could be introduced. The court, in rejecting this contention, said ( Ibid. ): As a matter of precedent, in State v. James, 96 N.J.L. 132, cited and relied on by plaintiff in error, this court limited the phrase `all the evidence' to mean `all the evidence adduced between the state and the prisoner on the issue of guilt or innocence.' Evidence about `past life and antecedent background' may be offered to the Court of Pardons, but is out of place in a trial for crime. The crime itself, and the circumstances under which it was committed, form the criterion for a recommendation vel non by the trial jury. The evidence was properly excluded. The holding of the Barth case was adhered to and followed in State v. Favorito, 115 N.J.L. 197 ( E. & A. 1935), and in State v. Molnar, 133 N.J.L. 327 ( E. & A. 1945). In the latter case it was again pointed out (at page 335) that the character of the sentence is not an issue for trial. The issue is guilt or innocence and, as always, only proof relevant to that issue is admissible. The highest tribunal of this State, despite an expressed minority view, has, from the time of the enactment of what is now N.J.S. 2 A :113-4, consistently interpreted the phrase all the evidence to mean only evidence bearing upon the defendant's guilt or innocence. This interpretation of the statute follows not only the obvious legislative intent to avoid speculation on the part of the jury and to narrow the issues for their deliberation, but accords with common sense in making basic justice more certain in its administration. Were the rule otherwise, it is quite evident that first-degree murder trials might well become hopelessly mired in autobiographical sketches and psycho-sociological debates, submerging the true issue of guilt or innocence. We doubt if the end result would be productive of justice, as the jury would be further burdened by emotional equations in their deliberations, created by testimony totally dissociated from the crime itself, relating to unfortunate incidents and others encountered by most mortals in the normal span of life. This, we think, was the very evil the Legislature sought to obviate in enacting the amendment, which occasioned a reversal of a conviction for first-degree murder in State v. Deegan, 132 N.J.L. 261 ( E. & A. 1944). In the instant case, the evidence relating to the prisoner's background was admitted since it was relevant to the issue of the voluntariness of his confession. The jury may well have considered that evidence in deciding what weight should be given to the defendant's confession. However, merely because the evidence was properly received does not alter the rule. Such evidence clearly was irrelevant to the issue of guilt or innocence and under settled authority was properly excluded from the jury's deliberation upon a recommendation of life imprisonment. Mindful of the fact that the defendants are under the sentence of death, we have examined the record with utmost care and are unable to find error in the proceedings below which either prejudiced the defendants or denied them a fair trial upon the charges laid in the indictment. The judgments are accordingly affirmed. HEHER, J. (dissenting in part). I would reverse the judgment of conviction entered against Harry Wise, for error in the instruction given the jury at the instance of the State, No. 5, that the crime itself and the circumstances under which it was committed form the criterion for a recommendation of life imprisonment or a refusal to recommend life imprisonment, and that Evidence with reference to past life and antecedent background are out of place in a trial for crime and should not be considered by you in determining your verdict. This direction constituted a departure of substance from the principle of the statute, N.J.S. 2 A :113-4, designed as it was to invest the jury in a capital case with full discretion, upon and after the consideration of all the evidence, to recommend and thus to fix the punishment at life imprisonment. I adhere to the rule of interpretation advanced in the dissent filed in State v. Molnar, 133 N.J.L. 327, 337 ( E. & A. 1945): The statutory discretion is to be exercised upon a view of the evidence as a whole. The issue is committed to the judgment and consciences of the jury; and the inquiry is whether, under all the circumstances disclosed by the evidence, it would serve the interests of justice, as between society and the accused, if capital punishment were not imposed. The statute in unmistakable terms empowers, indeed directs, the jury to consider all the evidence, not a given part of the evidence, in the resolution of the crucial issue of death or life imprisonment as the penalty for murder in the first degree; and there is no standard laid down for the guidance or control of the jury in the exercise of the function. It is enjoined only to consider all the evidence in the performance of the duty; and its action, after so doing, is not ruled by any criterion save its own collective discretion and judgment. This, by force of the broad terms of the statutory power. The authority of the jury to decide that the accused shall not be punished capitally is not limited to cases in which the court, or the jury, is of opinion that there are palliating or mitigating circumstances. But it extends to every case in which, upon a view of the whole evidence, the jury is of opinion that it would not be just or wise to impose capital punishment. Winston v. United States, 172 U.S. 303, 309, 19 S.Ct. 212, 215, 43 L.Ed. 456 (1899). In elaborating the legislative text, great care must be taken to avoid alien refinements and distinctions infringing the substance of the function or tending to confuse the lay mind as to its essential quality; and the instruction here, I submit, does not satisfy this test. The policy is the exclusive province of the lawgiver; and it is to be enforced as written, giving to the legislative terms their normal sense and significance. Here, the judge charged the jury in the statutory language, all the evidence, and then added the qualifying terms interposed by the State. The ruling in State v. Barth, 114 N.J.L. 112 ( E. & A. 1935), invoked by the State, concerned the exclusion of evidence obviously immaterial relating to details of family life, some addressed to the defendant himself, some to his father, some to his sister and perhaps others, and bearing on such subjects as the reading of detective stories, listening to stories of the great war, playing of games involving the handling of firearms, and the like, offered by the accused as relevant on the issue of punishment alone; and the holding there is to be assessed accordingly. The evidence now in question was adduced in substantial part by the State on cross-examination of the accused. He had served his country in the armed forces for three years, 11 months of that period on the Korean Front, where he formed the narcotic habit and had been an addict for more than four years when the killing here occurred. He was described by the physician who treated him after his arrest as a sociopathic personality, a personality that has great difficulty in integrating himself into society and gets in conflict with society. Otherwise, I concur in the opinion of Mr. Justice WACHENFELD. It is not contended the foregoing instruction prejudiced the codefendants. The defendants made no issue at the trial of their guilt of murder in the first degree; they sought only a mitigation of the punishment to life imprisonment. I would reverse the judgment against Harry Wise, and direct a retrial of the issue as to him, and affirm the judgment of conviction against the codefendants, Albert Wise and Alfred Stokes. JACOBS, J., concurring in result. For affirmance  Chief Justice VANDERBILT, and Justices OLIPHANT, WACHENFELD, BURLING, JACOBS and BRENNAN  6. For affirmance in part and reversal in part  Justice HEHER  1.