Opinion ID: 1435973
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Social History Evidence

Text: In the penalty phase, defendant was prepared to present, through the testimony of two expert witnesses, a complete thirty-year social history of his life, from birth to the August 11, 1994 murder of Melissa Padilla, with two significant exceptions. Defendant intended to carve out of the presentation of his extensive criminal history any reference to his 1983 manslaughter conviction for the killing of his brother and his 1995 conviction for the sexual assault of Trooper Gardner. The trial court determined that the State was entitled to rebut that incomplete portrait of defendant's life with the introduction of those two prior convictions in a sanitized form. The court recognized that the State could not introduce prior bad conduct, other than a murder conviction, in support of a statutory aggravating factor and that such specific past conduct was admissible only to rebut defendant's mitigation evidence. See N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(a); State v. Rose, 112 N.J. 454, 503, 548 A. 2d 1058, 1082-83 (1988). To minimize potential prejudice to defendant, the court stated that it would allow the use of the convictions in rebuttal provided that graphic and inflammatory details were removed. The court ruled that the 1983 manslaughter conviction would be admissible, but only as a conviction for a second-degree assault against his brother, and the 1995 sexual assault conviction would be admissible, but only as a first-degree assault conviction. Defendant claims that to avoid the introduction of the 1983 and 1995 sanitized convictions, he was forced to forgo the presentation of any social history. We find that defendant made a tactical decision to abandon the presentation of his mitigation evidence to forestall the State from introducing relevant and damaging rebuttal evidence. We perceive no error in the court's ruling.
In the penalty phase of a capital trial, if the jury unanimously determines that the State has proven the existence of one or more statutory aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt and that the aggravating factor or factors outweigh beyond a reasonable doubt all of the mitigating factors presented by the defendant, the court must impose the punishment of death. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(3)(a). If the State falls short of persuading even a single juror, the punishment is a term of imprisonment, ranging from a minimum period of thirty years without parole eligibility to life. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(3)(c). Defendant proffered three mitigating factors: he was under the influence of an extreme mental or emotional disturbance, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a); he suffered from a mental disease or defect, or intoxication that sufficiently impaired his capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(d); and his character and record, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h). In support of those mitigating factors, defendant submitted the report of Lois Nardone, M.S.W. That report gave a detailed thirty-year portrait of defendant's troubled life, a life that included physical and emotional abuse by a brother; severe beatings by his father; lack of nurture or support from his family throughout childhood and adolescence; sexual abuse by an adult male when he was a teenager; and a substantial criminal past, ending with the Padilla murder. Defendant also submitted the report of Dr. Maureen R. Santina, a forensic psychologist, who relied on Nardone's complete psychosocial history. Dr. Santina diagnosed defendant's mental-health disorders, which included drug and alcohol dependence, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, and avoidant personality disorder with mixed narcissistic and antisocial personality. Nardone's report gave a sweeping review of defendant's prior criminal history. As a juvenile, defendant was adjudicated a delinquent for attempted theft of a motor vehicle in 1978, theft of a motor vehicle by an unlicensed driver in 1980, criminal trespass in 1981, a disorderly persons offense in 1981, and shooting an eighteen-year-old with a BB gun in 1982. With regard to that last offense, defendant reported that he was tired of being pushed around and wanted to scar the young man by shooting him. As an adult, he was convicted of criminal mischief and possession of a machete for an unlawful purpose in 1991. For the machete offense, defendant was sentenced to prison for three years. His parole was later revoked in 1992 for failure to refrain from using drugs. He was arrested on a charge of possession of controlled dangerous substances in 1993, which was later dismissed. In 1994, defendant was arrested on counts of criminal trespass, burglary, and criminal mischief. [9] In addition to noting defendant's assault on his girlfriend, Dawn Archer, on the night of the murder, Nardone's report is replete with descriptions of defendant's drug and alcohol abuse, his failures at keeping a job, and his inability to adjust positively to probation and counseling. The only convictions missing from Nardone's report were defendant's 1983 theft and manslaughter convictions and his 1995 sexual assault conviction. Defense counsel had eliminated the April 3, 1995, sexual assault of Trooper Gardner from Nardone's report by instructing Nardone to cut off her analysis of defendant's social history at Padilla's 1994 murder, and counsel redacted from Nardone's report reference to defendant's 1983 second-degree manslaughter conviction. [10] The State held in reserve for rebuttal Dr. Michael Welner, a psychiatrist, who prepared a forty-nine page report in which he considered defendant's entire criminal record along with information that painted a starkly different picture of defendant's formative years than the one that appeared in Nardone's report. Dr. Welner was prepared to testify about the normal, close, and caring family that defendant had described to him, the omitted convictions, and evidence that raise[d] the serious likelihood that defendant was not the victim of sexual abuse in his adolescence as depicted in Nardone's report. Dr. Welner also was dismissive of Dr. Santina's diagnoses of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, and avoidant personality disorder. He found that defendant suffered from alcohol and drug dependence, sexual sadism, and antisocial personality disorder. Moreover, he concluded that defendant met the criteria for the diagnosis of psychopathy, which, in part, is evidenced by a selfish and parasitic exploitation of others. In short, Dr. Welner's rebuttal was aimed at attacking the accuracy and reliability of the defense experts' reports and at providing an alternate picture of defendant's background and mental health status. Defendant argued that both the 1983 manslaughter conviction and the 1995 sexual assault conviction were outside the scope of cross-examination because neither defense expert mentioned those incidents in their reports. The State maintained that it was entitled to cross-examine defendant's experts on their failure to consider those convictions in rendering their social history and mental health reports. The court granted the State permission to examine the defense experts on the incomplete presentation of defendant's prior criminal record in their reports. At defense counsel's request, the court agreed that counsel could restore Nardone's original report, so that her credibility would not be tarnished on the stand by counsel's redaction of the 1983 manslaughter conviction that had made her report incomplete. The court also ruled that the State could adduce on cross-examination that Nardone had stopped her social history at the killing of Ms. Padilla ... and was specifically requested not to go further. As noted, the court required the State to refer to defendant's 1983 conviction of manslaughter as a second-degree assault on defendant's brother and to his 1995 sexual assault conviction as a first-degree assault. The trial court followed the model in State v. Brunson, in which this Court held that when a defendant testifies and the State seeks to impeach his credibility with a prior criminal conviction that is similar in kind to the charged offense, the prior criminal conviction should be sanitized to minimize the potential improper use of the evidence to show propensity to commit the charged offense. 132 N.J. 377, 391-92, 625 A. 2d 1085, 1092-93 (1993). For example, a testifying defendant on trial for third-degree distribution of drugs, who has a prior conviction of third-degree distribution of drugs, could be impeached only by reference to a conviction of a third-degree crime. The trial court recognized that the Brunson analogy was not a perfect fit to the circumstances of this case because defendant's credibility was not subject to attack as a testifying witness, but the court was moved by similar concerns about the undue prejudicial impact of unredacted convictions. In an apparent effort to limit the damaging rebuttal testimony that would have come from Dr. Welner, defendant abandoned the presentation of psychological testimony from Dr. Santina and withdrew mitigating factors N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a) and (d). As a result, the defense removed the threat of Dr. Welner offering a psychiatric opinion that defendant was a psychopath as well as other testimony regarding his mental state. Dr. Welner, however, was available to rebut Nardone's narrative of defendant's social history. Defendant ultimately elected not to call Nardone at the penalty trial. Defendant's only mitigating evidence was presented under the catch-all factor, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h), through cross-examination of the State's witnesses. The jury thus learned nothing of defendant's social history or about the alleged physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that he suffered as a child.
In the penalty phase of a capital case, the jury must be allowed to consider under the catch-all mitigating factor, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h), any evidence that is relevant to the defendant's character or record or to the circumstances of the offense. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h) closely tracks the language of Lockett v. Ohio, which required individualized consideration of the defendant in a capital case as a constitutional imperative under the Eighth Amendment. 438 U.S. 586, 604, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 2964, 57 L.Ed. 2d 973, 990 (1978); see also Timmendequas I, supra, 161 N.J. at 625-26, 737 A. 2d at 114-15. The general purpose of mitigating factor 3c(5)(h) is to present extenuating facts regarding the defendant's life or character or the circumstances surrounding the murder that would justify a sentence less than death. Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. at 170, 548 A. 2d at 911. Character evidence within the context of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h) embrace[s] those individual qualities that distinguish a particular person. State v. Davis, supra, 96 N.J. at 618, 477 A. 2d at 311. A capital defendant's background or social history falls squarely within the realm of character evidence to be considered under that mitigating factor. See, e.g., Timmendequas I, supra, 161 N.J. at 628-32, 737 A. 2d at 116-19 (discussing forensic social worker's presentation of evidence of defendant's childhood and social history under catch-all factor); State v. Bey, 129 N.J. 557, 615-16, 610 A. 2d 814, 844 (1992) ( Bey III ) (noting that all the evidence presented at trial about defendant's background could be viewed as part of the catch-all mitigating factor), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1164, 115 S.Ct. 1131, 130 L.Ed. 2d 1093 (1995). In this case, defendant's social history evidence implicated both his character and his record under N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h). Defendant claims that the Hobson's choice foisted upon him by having to choose between introducing Nardone's social history testimony along with sanitized evidence of his 1983 and 1995 convictions, or presenting none of that testimony, effectively deprived him of all mitigating evidence, and thus a fair sentencing trial. Defendant, however, did not intend to confine the proposed mitigating social history evidence to his childhood, as is made clear by Nardone's report. Cf., e.g., State v. Harris, 165 N.J. 303, 323, 757 A. 2d 221, 232 (2000) ( Harris II ) (noting that defense experts' review of mitigating evidence was limited to defendant's mental condition as a young child presumably because the defense did not want the jury to have specific knowledge of his criminal record); Timmendequas I, supra, 161 N.J. at 545, 737 A. 2d at 70 (noting that defense expert's review was limited to defendant's social history up to age seventeen); State v. Cooper, 151 N.J. 326, 345, 700 A. 2d 306, 314 (1997) ( Cooper I ) (same), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1084, 120 S.Ct. 809, 145 L.Ed. 2d 681 (2000). Instead, defendant sought to present his complete social history and criminal record up to the time of Padilla's murder, which occurred exactly twenty days after his thirtieth birthday, and approximately eight months before his assault of Trooper Gardner. He did so, apparently, in the hope of demonstrating those facets of his life experience that contributed to the man he had become. The reliability of Nardone's report and proposed testimony was therefore directly at issue, and subject to cross-examination and rebuttal as to its accuracy and completeness in light of the glaring omissions of defendant's 1983 and 1995 convictions from Nardone's otherwise comprehensive discussion of defendant's extensive juvenile and adult record. See State v. Josephs, supra, 174 N.J. at 127-28, 803 A. 2d at 1123-24 (holding that State was entitled to expose bias, inaccuracy, and incompleteness of mitigating expert's social history testimony); Timmendequas I, supra, 161 N.J. at 592-96, 737 A. 2d at 96-99 (same). The trial court's sensible solution of sanitizing the omitted 1983 and 1995 convictions to first- and second-degree assault convictions was both fair and reasonable. [11] A capital defendant is not entitled to present an incomplete picture of his social history and criminal record by carving out and omitting those offenses he deems unfavorable to his mitigation defense. Although he may limit his social history evidence to a particular subject area or certain aspects of his life, such as childhood, he may not omit sanitized adult convictions from an otherwise complete social and criminal history by excising a conviction that falls within the relevant time period or by terminating his adult social history at a date immediately preceding the offense he wishes to exclude from the jury's consideration. See Harris II, supra, 165 N.J. at 323, 757 A. 2d at 232 (allowing defendant to limit social history evidence to mental condition as young child). We also note that the sanitized convictions were no more prejudicial than the criminal history or other unflattering details described in Nardone's report. For example, Nardone would have testified that defendant had shot an eighteen-year-old with a BB-gun with the intent of scarring the victim and had committed theft offenses, which were the subject of juvenile adjudications. She would have testified that defendant was convicted as an adult of possession of a machete for an unlawful purpose, that he was arrested for drug offenses, and that he had beaten Dawn Archer on the night of Melissa Padilla's murder. She also would have testified that defendant did not respond well to probation or counseling. In other words, the two sanitized convictions would not have impugned the spotless reputation of a pillar of the community, but would have been additional pieces of a picture of a dysfunctional person who did not conform his conduct to the law. Nardone's report presented itself as a complete psychosocial history of defendant from birth to age thirty, yet the omitted 1983 assault conviction occurred when defendant was nineteen years old. The 1995 first-degree assault occurred just eight months after the Padilla murder, the point at which Nardone abruptly concluded her social history. In light of the temporal proximity of the first-degree assault conviction to defendant's thirty-year social history, the conviction was clearly relevant to show that the social history was less than complete. Defendant misconstrues Rose, supra, 112 N.J. 454, 548 A. 2d 1058, and State v. Long, 119 N.J. 439, 575 A. 2d 435 (1990), as standing for the proposition that a capital defendant's prior and subsequent convictions are not fair game for cross-examination or rebuttal to refute the existence of a mitigating factor unless the defendant adduces good-character evidence through his mitigation witnesses. In Rose, supra, we held that the use of specific instances of prior misconduct to impeach a capital defendant's character evidence was permitted under Evid. R. 46, the predecessor rule to N.J.R.E. 404(c) and N.J.R.E. 405. 112 N.J. at 503, 548 A. 2d at 1082-83. In that case, the defendant's mitigation witnesses had testified about his good character, including his kindness to children and his thoughtful, caring nature. Id. at 498, 503, 548 A. 2d at 1082-83. This Court found no fault with the prosecution introducing evidence of specific instances of the person's conduct to rebut that characterization. Id. at 502-03, 548 A. 2d at 1082-83 (quoting Evid. R. 46). N.J.R.E. 405(b) provides that [w]hen character or a trait of character of a person is an essential element of a charge, claim, or defense, evidence of specific instances of conduct may also be admitted. (Emphasis added). As in Rose, defendant placed at issue a trait of his character through the introduction of mitigation evidence. Unlike Rose, this defendant was not introducing evidence to prove that he was of good character, but rather evidence to show the experiences, forces, and circumstances that shaped his personality. The State, nevertheless, was not obliged to sit back silently while defendant picked only those pieces of evidence that suited his purposes and that painted an incomplete picture. As the commentary to N.J.R.E. 405 observes: In the penalty phase of a capital case, N.J.S. 2C:11-3c(2)(b) permits the State to ignore the prohibition against using prior specific instances of conduct, if such evidence serves to rebut evidence offered by the defendant. Biunno, Current N.J. Rules of Evidence, comment 4 on N.J.R.E. 405 (2003). In Long, supra, we held that the defendant's 1985 simple-assault conviction was properly introduced to rebut his assertion under mitigating factor N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(f) that he lacked a significant history of prior criminal activity. 119 N.J. at 459, 502, 575 A. 2d 435, 444. We rejected the defendant's claim that the State's rebuttal evidence was limited to the timeframe of mitigating character evidence that he had introduced up to the subject 1982 murder, which he committed at the age of twenty-four. Id. at 451, 459, 502, 575 A. 2d at 444, 466-67. Instead, we implicitly held that [n]either case law nor Court Rules requires such limitation on the rebuttal of mitigating evidence that a defendant has artificially confined to a period of time closely preceding a relevant conviction he wishes to exclude. Id. at 502, 575 A. 2d at 466. Defendant's 1983 and 1995 convictions were relevant and admissible at his penalty phase because he intended to give a distorted view of his troubled youth and adulthood by including all of his convictions, but two. Had defendant chosen to limit his social history to his childhood, Nardone could have testified to defendant's alleged troubled home- and school-life, his repeated sexual abuse by an adult male from ages thirteen to sixteen, his many contacts with the juvenile justice system, and his struggles with drug and alcohol abuse. Instead, defendant gambled on an all-or-nothing strategy of either presenting a social history up to the night of Padilla's murder without the 1983 and 1995 sanitized convictions or presenting no social history at all. In light of the powerful and damaging rebuttal testimony expected from Dr. Welner, defendant was in the best position to know whether the presentation of a mitigation defense would have made more likely the return of a death sentence. Defendant made a calculated decision to deny the State the opportunity to call Dr. Welner in rebuttal. That strategy did not achieve its desired result. The failure of that strategy, however, does not give rise to a valid claim that the trial court abused its discretion by giving the State permission to rely on relevant rebuttal evidence.