Opinion ID: 1898380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: The confession to Pettigrew

Text: While awaiting trial in Atlantic County Jail, defendant met Paul Pettigrew, who was also awaiting trial for a series of robberies in the Atlantic City area. He had pled guilty to five of the robberies. He sought to withdraw his plea, but was sentenced to a thirty-five-year term with a seventeen-and-one-half-year parole disqualifier. He was angry with defendant because he had partially influenced him to plead guilty. Pettigrew claimed that just before his sentencing on March 15, defendant had talked to him about the Carmichael and Compton shootings. Defendant admitted shooting Carmichael, and claimed that after he had shot Carmichael, he ran into his cousin. The two men went to the liquor store. On their way in, they encountered a white male who saw the cousin. Defendant mentioned that the prosecutor's office had tried to hypnotize the customer. After the customer left, defendant and his cousin remained in the store while defendant made a purchase. Pettigrew said that defendant then shot the clerk as he reached for a paper bag, or possibly a gun, because he didn't want to leave [a] witness behind. Pettigrew admitted that he went to the prosecution hoping for a deal. According to Pettigrew, no promises were made but the prosecutor said that he would recommend that the sentence be reduced if Pettigrew gave favorable testimony. He was also told that the prosecutor would recommend that he be sentenced to another facility. Pettigrew's motion for reconsideration was still pending at the time of trial. After the jury convicted defendant of the Carmichael shooting and the Compton murder, the court reduced Pettigrew's sentence from thirty-five years with seventeen-and-one-half years parole disqualifier to a straight seventeen-and-one-half-year term with no mandatory minimum, the equivalent of about five years of real time.
The sole aggravating factor the State relied on in the sentencing phase was the felony murder. The defense raised the mitigating factors of defendant's character, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h); lack of significant history of prior criminal activity, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(f); and defendant's age, twenty-four, at the time of the offense, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(c). The defense called many witnesses to prove defendant's character. His friends described defendant as the leader of his family after his father left when defendant was only ten. Various character witnesses asked the jury to spare defendant's life, but the court sought to restrain such direct appeals to the jury. Defendant's mother said that defendant was the one member of the family whom the others could count on for help after her separation from defendant's father. Defendant had served eighteen months in the Marines. He had been civic-minded. The defendant sought to prove a lack of significant prior criminal activity. To rebut that evidence, the State introduced evidence of four prior offenses, including testimony from a purse-snatching victim from Philadelphia. The jury unanimously found the felony-murder to be an aggravating factor. It found age not to be a mitigating factor. The jurors were divided on whether defendant's character and lack of prior significant criminal activity were mitigating factors. The jury unanimously found that the aggravating factor outweighed any mitigating factor beyond a reasonable doubt. The court sentenced the defendant to death and set a date for execution. Defendant appeals to us as of right under Rule 2:2-1(a)(3).