Opinion ID: 2277244
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Testimony Regarding Defendant's Character

Text: Defendant claims that in his re-direct examination of Patricia Fennell and again in his summation, the prosecutor improperly placed in issue defendant's character. The general rule is that the prosecutor may not offer evidence of the defendant's character to support an inference about the defendant's conduct on a specific occasion unless the defendant has first produced evidence of good character. State v. Welsch, 29 N.J. 152 (1959); Evid.R. 47. Here, however, the State adduced evidence about defendant's bad character, even though defendant had not offered evidence of his good character. Specifically, defendant points to the prosecutor's questioning of Fennell on re-direct examination concerning defendant's bad temper and to the prosecutor's suggestion during summation that defendant is a hothead    who loses his temper more quickly than the average person. Defendant's point is that the prosecutor impermissibly placed defendant's character in issue to discourage the jury from convicting defendant of the lesser-included offense of passion/provocation manslaughter. Defendant contends that these errors were harmful because they created a reasonable possibility that the jurors found Mr. Hunt guilty of murder when they might otherwise have found him guilty of manslaughter. The State argues that its questioning regarding defendant's temper merely explained the testimony elicited by defendant's counsel during cross-examination of Fennell, in which Fennell referred to defendant's mood prior to killing Lawson. Similarly, the State contends that the challenged remarks in the prosecutor's summation were a fair response to arguments made in the defendant's summation that defendant's anger was sufficient to justify reducing murder to manslaughter. On cross-examination, Fennell described defendant's appearance when she saw him on the stairwell with Thompson. She testified that defendant [h]ad a kind of look that he was mad, and that she had tried to dissuade defendant from hurting Lawson by telling him it didn't make no sense because Charlotte is going to be right back with him again. Over a defense objection, the prosecutor asked the following questions of Fennell on re-direct examination: Q. Ms. Fennell, when you were talking about James Hunt yesterday you said something about not being able to talk to him when he was like that. What did you mean by that? A. Well, when Man [Hunt] is mad, you can't tell him nothing. I mean, when he get real mad, it's best for him to, you know, cool off by hisself [sic] because nobody can tell him nothing. Q. Have you seen him mad on many occasions, many times? Have you seem him mad? A. I seen him so mad he could tear up a whole house. Q. All right. Does he have a bad temper? A. I wouldn't really say a bad temper, just when somebody really get on his last nerves. The trial court permitted the State to question Fennell about defendant's temperament because it anticipated that the defense was likely to seek an instruction on manslaughter. Thus, the trial court reasoned, defendant's temperament was at issue and the interrogation was relevant to determining whether defendant was reasonably provoked. We question that reasoning. The test for determining whether a homicide occurred in the heat of passion resulting from a reasonable provocation, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-4b(2), is objective. Conceivably, testimony about defendant's bad temper could shed light on the credibility of the contention that his conduct was objectively reasonable. To the extent the State established that defendant reacted because he is a hothead, it diminished his contention that his conduct was objectively reasonable. The relevant inquiry, however, is not whether the defendant was more susceptible than another to provocation, but whether a reasonable person would have been provoked under the circumstances. State v. Grunow, 102 N.J. 133, 141 (1986); State v. Pratt, 226 N.J. Super. 307, 314-21 (App.Div. 1988). We are concerned that the introduction of testimony about defendant's subjective disposition could deflect the jury's attention from determining whether his conduct was objectively reasonable. In reaching that conclusion, we recognize that a trial, particularly a capital case, is not a minuet. On the record before us, defense counsel, if he did not invite the prosecutor's re-direct examination, at least stimulated the response. A similar pattern emerged on summation. Defense counsel first referred to Fennell's testimony that defendant looked angry after learning that Lawson had beaten Charlotte, and that defendant's anger intensified when he saw that Charlotte's lip had been busted. Based on this evidence, the defense counsel argued that defendant had acted in the heat of passion and that, at worst, he was guilty of manslaughter. In reply, the prosecutor stated in his summation: Now, I agree here that a man was slaughtered. But that doesn't necessarily make it legally manslaughter. You have to appreciate we can't all go around killing our brothers-in-law because we don't like the way they're treating our sisters and say I was mad so it was manslaughter not murder. To have manslaughter you need two other elements. You need legal provocation, not just provocation but legal provocation. And that's something that would make an ordinary average reasonable person lose control of themselves. Not a hothead, not a guy who's got a vendetta, not a guy who loses his temper more quickly than the average person, but it has to be something that would make the average ordinary person lose control of himself.         I submit to you that what we have here is in fact a vendetta. Is in fact a person with a bad temper and is not manslaughter but a preplanned vendetta carried out on December 2nd of 1982. Defense counsel did not object to this or any other part of the prosecutor's summation. Nonetheless, we find that the prosecutor's comments suggesting that the defendant was a hothead and a guy who loses his temper more quickly than the average person were ill-advised. The question remains whether they constitute reversible error. Notwithstanding its misperception of the relevance of defendant's bad temper, the trial court accurately instructed the jury to apply an objectively reasonable test in determining whether the defendant was legally provoked. Nothing in the trial court's charge suggested that defendant's character was relevant to the manslaughter defense. We conclude that the trial court's extensive and accurate charge on passion/provocation manslaughter sufficiently focused the jury's attention on the objective reasonableness of defendant's conduct to cure any prejudice caused by the prosecutor's re-direct examination and summation.