Opinion ID: 1951964
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Instruction on Hearsay Statements

Text: Trial witnesses testified to several inculpatory, out-of-court remarks by defendant. For example, Gloria Dunn testified that defendant said he would kill their carjacking victim if he or she were white; that he told Huggins in the course of raping her to take your clothes off, bitch; that defendant said he had to shoot Huggins a second time to make sure she was dead; that defendant threatened to come looking for Dunn if she reported their crime; and that defendant offered to pop Dunn's ex-boyfriend. Tariq Ayres testified that defendant bragged to him about knock[ing] off some white girl. Defendant challenges the court's failure to instruct the jury to use caution in considering such testimony of out-of-court statements. He also argues that the trial court erred by not instructing that the jury could not consider out-of-court statements as evidence unless it found beyond a reasonable doubt that the statements were credible. Criminal defendants are entitled to an instruction that jurors use caution in evaluating testimony concerning out-of-court statements. State v. Kociolek, 23 N.J. 400, 421, 129 A. 2d 417 (1957). Further, when the prosecution seeks to introduce a statement made by a criminal defendant, and the trial judge is required to determine the admissibility of that statement, the judge must instruct the jury to disregard the statement if it finds it is not credible. State v. Hampton, 61 N.J. 250, 271-72, 294 A. 2d 23 (1972) (codified at N.J.R.E. 104(c)). We recently rejected the argument now advanced by defendant that jurors should not be able to consider such testimony without being convinced of its credibility beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Chew, 150 N.J. 30, 82-83, 695 A. 2d 1301 (1997). Defendant did not request the Hampton and Kociolek instructions at trial. However, a defendant need not request those instructions in order to preserve the right to them. In State v. Jordan, 147 N.J. 409, 688 A. 2d 97 (1997), we held that the Hampton charge is required, [w]hether requested or not, whenever a defendant's oral or written statements, admissions, or confessions are introduced in evidence. Id. at 425, 688 A. 2d 97. Like the Hampton charge, the Kociolek charge should be given whether requested or not. Id. at 428, 129 A. 2d 417. However, we held in Jordan that if a defendant fails to request either the Hampton or the Kociolek instruction, a trial judge's failure to give the applicable charge is not per se reversible error. Id. at 425, 428, 129 A. 2d 417. Rather, Jordan held that the omission of the Hampton instruction warrants reversal only when, in the context of the entire case, the omission is `clearly capable of producing an unjust result.' Id. at 425, 688 A. 2d 97 (citing R. 2:10-2). The same standard applies to the omission of an unrequested Kociolek charge. See id. at 428, 129 A. 2d 417. The omission of the Kociolek and Hampton charges, in the context of the State's entire case against defendant, was not clearly capable of producing an unjust result. The principal value of the Kociolek charge is to cast a skeptical eye on the sources of inculpatory statements attributed to a defendant. The devastating cross-examination of Dunn and Tariq Ayres accomplished that end. In addition, the Kociolek and Hampton instructions would have done nothing to affect the force of Gloria Dunn's eye-witness testimony or Tariq Ayres' evidence that defendant possessed the murder weapon.