Court Opinion

ID: 9862523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:17:53.02868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:25:43.178650
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring and dissenting.
On April 20,1995, defendant, Leslie Nelson, shot and killed two police officers and severely wounded another as the police attempted to serve and execute a search warrant for guns she kept in her apartment. The two officers who died were Investigator John McLaughlin and Officer John Norcross. Detective Richard Norcross, John’s brother, was severely injured. The Camden County Grand Jury indicted defendant for two counts of knowing- or-purposeful murder by her own conduct, eight counts of first-degree attempted murder, third-degree unlawful possession of an assault firearm, and second-degree possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose. The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office served notice of the following four aggravating factors for each capital murder offense: (1) the murders created a grave risk of death to Detective Norcross, (2) each murder was committed for the purpose of escaping detection, apprehension, trial, punishment, or confinement for the unlawful possession of a firearm, (3) each murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the murder of the other officer, and (4) each murder occurred while the officers were engaged in the performance of their official duties.
Defendant did not contest her guilt for the murders. She pled guilty to two counts of murder for the murders of Investigator McLaughlin and Officer Norcross, and she pled guilty to the lesser included count of second degree aggravated assault of Detective Norcross. The only issue that was tried was whether she should be executed for her crimes.
*515A jury was empaneled to consider whether to impose the death penalty, and defendant asked the jury to consider three mitigating factors: (1) she was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance insufficient to constitute a defense to prosecution, (2) her capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired as the result of a mental disease or defect, but not to a degree sufficient to constitute defense to prosecution, (3) and the catch-all factor. The primary focus of the catch-all factor was that the police were inadequately trained to serve a search warrant for weapons in the possession of a person with her degree of emotional and psychological disturbances and that, as a result, their action was needlessly and dangerously threatening and confrontational, thereby provoking rather than averting a violent reaction.
After hearing eight days of evidence and arguments from counsel, the jury voted to sentence defendant to death for the murder of Officer Norcross, but they could not unanimously agree on the sentence for the murder of Investigator McLaughlin.
The Court rules in Part II, III, and IV of its opinion respectively, that the non-disclosure of mitigating evidence requires reversal, ante at 501, 715 A.2d 288, the failure to permit the jury to consider the practical consequences of its decision was error but harmless, ante at 504, 715 A.2d 290, and the prosecutor’s cross-examination of a defense psychiatric expert about defendant’s political beliefs was error, but the Court does not address whether it was reversible error, ante at 510, 715 A.2d 293.
I join Part II of the Court’s opinion, and I agree with the findings of error in Parts III and IV. Nevertheless, the Court concludes that these errors, each significant, substantial and highly prejudicial, do not warrant a reversal of defendant’s death sentence. I disagree, and therefore dissent from Parts III and IV of the Court’s opinion.
*516I
By killing two police officers in the line of duty, defendant committed one of the worst crimes known to our law. The jury did not have to determine whether defendant was guilty of these crimes or whether these crimes rendered defendant eligible for the death penalty. Defendant conceded both. The jury was to decide only defendant’s sentence, and it had the task of weighing the aggravating circumstances of the crime against any mitigating circumstances. Defendant’s mental, psychological and emotional condition were central to her claims for mitigation. Defendant was a failed transsexual who suffered from depression, anxiety, and paranoid disorders. Her guns, in particular a 9 millimeter Browning handgun, had become her primary source of comfort. In the period leading up to April 20,1995, she would retreat to her room four to six times a day and calm herself by going through a ritual in which she would sit and caress the handgun.
Her medical and psychological history paint a pathetic picture. Without sufficient psychological basis, in 1992, defendant underwent sexual reassignment surgery — removing her male genitalia and constructing female genitalia in its place — in an attempt to redress her social problems with being an outcast and a loner. Unlike most people who undergo the surgery as a remedial response to transexuality, defendant did not have the clinically accepted conditions of transsexualism. She did not harbor the persistent, unshakeable sense that she was truly a female even though physically she was a male — that she was a woman “trapped” in a man’s body. Defendant did not want to become a woman in order to reconcile her physical gender with her psychological gender. Rather, she merely wanted to look like a woman so she could attract the attention of men. She believed she could attain that level or form of adjustment by “becoming” a woman. Her plan had been to work as an exotic dancer. However, she was uncoordinated and unpopular with the bar patrons and owners, and her attempt to solve her problems by becoming a sex object was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, she continued to think *517that plastic surgery was the answer; she told one psychologist that her problems could be solved if she had bigger breasts. Defendant’s failure as a woman deepened her depression and her sense of isolation. She became withdrawn. The rituals in which she would sit on her bed listening to music and caressing her handgun were her only refuge for solace.
Defendant’s psychological condition explained her violent response to the police attempts to serve the search warrant. Her acute anxiety and paranoid thinking caused her to feel threatened when the police tried to come into her bedroom to take away her gun. That picture of defendant, her bizarre psychological derangement and profound emotional disturbance, if believed, would serve as a powerful counter-balance to the devastating inference that defendant shot the officers as part of a cold, calculated, premeditated process. The prosecutor undermined the defense’s mitigation evidence based on defendant’s mental health by introducing evidence that defendant was prompted by revolutionary motives rather than by the irrational and delusional need to keep her world intact.
The linchpin of defendant’s mitigation case, however, was her claim that the police were inadequately trained to handle situations involving mentally-ill and emotionally-disturbed people who are armed and dangerous. The defense asked the jury to consider that the situation could have been avoided if the police had known how to minimize the risks involved in controlling the situation. The prosecutor derogated and attacked the defense for even suggesting that the police had acted negligently. He characterized the officers as brave and defendant as a zealous and predatory killer. He said:
Beware of people who sit in the cool of the evening and reflect in the cool of the evening on what better men do in the heat of the day. That man had the nerve to criticize Jack McLaughlin, had to nerve to criticize those officers? That’s not right, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not fair and it’s not right. I urge you respectfully to reject that portion of his testimony. Those officers served honorably. They did their jobs. They served and protected. I urge you to reject that mitigating factor out of hand.
*518Unbeknownst to the defense, at the time the prosecutor was making those very arguments to the jury and stressing that the police were beyond criticism, the State’s chief witness, Detective Norcross had filed a lawsuit blaming his injuries at the hands of defendant on the police department’s failure to provide adequate supervision and training.
II
I concur with the Court’s holding that the failure to disclose Detective Norcross’s lawsuit was a substantial violation of the due process requirements of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 1196, 10 L. Ed.2d 215, 218 (1963). Ante at 501, 715 A.2d 288.
We accept as true the prosecutor’s assertion that he had no personal knowledge of Detective Norcross’s lawsuit. That cannot serve as an excuse for withholding vital evidence from a defendant. The prosecutor’s office cannot avoid the consequences of its knowledge of material evidence by disclaiming its obligation to inform its lawyers of all relevant matters in the case. Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154, 92 S.Ct. 763, 766, 31 L. Ed.2d 104, 109 (1972). Prosecutor’s offices are required to establish “procedures and regulations ... to insure communications of all relevant information on each ease to every lawyer who deals with it.” Ibid. The reason for requiring all information be communicated to the trial prosecutor is to enable the prosecutor to satisfy the overriding obligation to assure the defendant a fair trial. Under Brady, all material that is relevant to a prosecution must be communicated and shared with the trial prosecutor in order to enable the prosecutor to exercise a sound informed judgment on behalf of the State to ensure that the defendant receives a fair trial. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 437-38, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 1567-68, 131 L. Ed.2d 490, 508 (1995).
In this case, the Court has recognized that there are at least two means through which the trial prosecutor should have been informed of Detective Norcross’s lawsuit. Ante at 500, 715 A.2d *519287. First, Detective Norcross was a law enforcement officer working directly with the prosecution, and, as such, he should have informed the prosecutor that he had filed a lawsuit based on the same allegations as those made by defendant regarding police negligence that were crucial to the defense. See State v. Carter, 69 N.J. 420, 429, 354 A.2d 627 (1976) (imputing knowledge of police investigator to prosecutor); State v. Lozada, 257 N.J.Super. 260, 274, 608 A.2d 407 (App.Div.1992) (imputing knowledge of police to prosecutor); United States v. Thornton, 1 F.3d 149, 158 (3d Cir.1993) (imputing knowledge from “all enforcement agencies that had a potential connection with the witness” to prosecutor); United States v. Perdomo, 929 F.2d 967, 971 (3d Cir.1991) (imputing information known to “some arm of the state” to prosecutor); United States v. Hankins, 872 F.Supp. 170, 172 (D.N.J.1995) (imputing knowledge that is known to “some arm of the state”); United States v. Galvis-Valderamma, 841 F.Supp. 600, 608 (D.N.J.1994) (imputing knowledge from “prosecution team”). Second, the acting Camden County Prosecutor had knowledge of Detective Norcross’s tort claim notice and was aware of its relevance to this case. He also should have communicated that information to the trial prosecutor.
Additionally, it cannot be doubted that the evidence that Detective Norcross had brought a law suit satisfies the “materiality” requirement of a Brady claim. The materiality standard is specifically designed to encourage prosecutors to disclose information to the defense in close cases. Kyles, supra, 514 U.S. at 439-40, 115 S.Ct. at 1568, 131 L. Ed.2d at 509. The prosecutor was required to disclose Detective Norcross’s law suit so long as there was “reasonable probability” that the result would have been different. United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 3383, 87 L. Ed.2d 481, 494 (1985). Evidence that Detective Norcross believed that the police had acted negligently, and presumably was prepared to prove as much, would have powerfully supported the defense’s mitigating factor that alleged that the police were ill-prepared and inadequately trained. There was at least a reasonable probability that it would have influenced the jury’s evaluation *520of the mitigating factor’s existence and weight. In addition to the fact that Detective Norcross had filed a complaint charging the police department with negligence, that information would have provided defendant with additional avenues of investigation to develop evidence to demonstrate that the police were inadequately trained and acted negligently in confronting defendant, thereby contributing to the homicidal violence that occurred when they attempted to confiscate her guns.
The defense’s claim that the police mishandled the situation was central to the case in mitigation of the two murders. By returning a death verdict for the murder of Officer Norcross but not for the murder of Investigator McLaughlin, the jury found that the evidence about defendant’s emotional and mental distress mitigated only the events that occurred inside the house. The claim that the police mishandled the situation was vital because it had the potential to mitigate both murders if the jury believed that the police, if properly trained, could have averted the outbreak of violence.
The defense, however, was faced with the difficult task of trying to present this mitigating evidence without creating the appearance of insulting the police, who where the tragic victims of defendant’s violence. The defense presented three expert witnesses, who criticized the manner in which the police handled the situation, on this point. The prosecutor characterized this as an unfair attack. He attacked the defense for daring to suggest that the police mishandled the situation. The prosecutor impugned these experts for their criticism of what “better men do in the heat of the day,” and he admonished the jury to reject “out of hand” the mitigating factor that was predicated on that criticism.
If the defense had been able to present evidence that Detective Norcross had not only alleged that the police mishandled the situation, but filed a lawsuit to back up that claim and, in addition, had defendant been able through discovery to develop evidence to support that position, defendant would have been able to provide powerful support for the opinions of her experts. The jury would *521have been hard put to reject defendant’s claim “out of hand” for the reason urged by the prosecutor. Unlike the experts presented by the defense, Detective Norcross was one of the officers at the scene and the State’s chief eyewitness during the trial; he was not a paid expert hired to render an opinion after the fact. Given the Detective’s own expertise and credibility, his assessment of the manner in which the police handled the situation would have been given great weight by the jury. Detective Norcorss’s views could hardly be lumped together with the “cool reflection” by “outsiders” that the prosecutor ascribed to the defense.
We cannot be confident that the jury did not accept the prosecutor’s argument and reject the mitigating factor out of hand because the witnesses hired by the defense were the only sources of evidence to support it. To the contrary, it is likely that the jury would have given more weight to the position that the police acted negligently if they understood that Detective Norcross himself agreed with it. That, indisputably, could have induced the jury to accord greater weight to the mitigating factor and the ultimate balance struck between mitigating and aggravating factors. Therefore, the availability at trial of Detective Norcross’s complaint would have created at least a reasonable probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. Bagley, supra, 473 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. at 3383, 87 L. Ed.2d at 494.
The dissent, explaining that the defense could have asked Detective Norcross about his evaluation of the events, even though they were not aware of the complaint, finds that knowledge of Detective Norcross’s lawsuit was not likely to alter the outcome of the case. Post at 535-36, 715 A.2d 305-06. The dissent assumes that the defense should have been confident that his answers would have been motivated by a desire to enhance a civil claim. Post at 537, 715 A.2d 306. That reasoning ignores the perils of cross-examining a hostile witness. Without knowing that Detective Norcross had filed a civil complaint, it would have been reckless of defense counsel to assume that Detective Norcross would agree with defendant’s primary mitigating factor. The *522defense should not be required, particularly in a life-and-death contest, to engage in such a high-stakes gamble. If the defense had known about the civil complaint, as it had every right to know, it could have used the complaint not only as a basis for developing additional evidence, it could also have asked the Detective about the lawsuit, and used the complaint to impeach him if he tried to deny that the police were negligent.
The dissent, saying that this “single” mitigating factor could not have outweighed the “sum” of the aggravating factors, also downplays the importance of the mitigating factor. Post at 537-38, 715 A.2d 306-07. However, this “single” factor that the dissent dismisses so readily constituted the bulk of defendant’s mitigating case. The determinative process of assessing the severity of a capital defendant’s sentence is not a numbers game. The number of aggravating factors versus mitigating factors plays no role in the weighing process. A single mitigating factor may outweigh any number of aggravating factors. If the jurors had found that the police could have prevented the violent confrontation with defendant, they might have found that factor alone to be a sufficient reason to spare her life. It is not the responsibility of this Court to say that the factor could not have mitigated the crime.
Finally, the dissent asserts that the evidence from Detective Noreross would have been cumulative and that the other evidence was more helpful than Norcross’s complaint would have been. Post at 538, 715 A.2d 307. However, the prosecutor unfairly attacked the defense’s evidence by challenging its source, the status of the experts as defense witnesses. Thus, the source of the evidence about the police negligence was central to the jury’s evaluation of that evidence. The complaint would have provided a non-cumulative, and likely more trustworthy, source. Its probative worth cannot be minimized.
Accordingly, I strongly concur in the Court’s holding that the withholding of that evidence warrants the reversal of defendant’s death sentence.
*523III
It was error for the trial court to instruct the jury to disregard the likelihood that defendant would be sentenced to consecutive terms with at least a total of sixty years parole ineligibility. I concur with the Court’s holding that the jury instruction was error. Ante at 505, 715 A.2d 290. I dissent, however, from its determination that this error was harmless.
In order to ensure that the jury is “fully informed about their sentencing options,” including the “practical effect of a life sentence,” the Court in State v. Loftin, 146 N.J. 295, 373, 680 A.2d 677 (1996), ordered that
in future cases, if the court, based on the evidence presented!,] believes that there is a realistic likelihood that'it will impose a sentence to be served consecutively to any of defendant’s prior sentences, in the event the jury does not return a death sentence, the jury should be so informed.
[Id. at 372, 680 A.2d 677.]
Today, we clarify that not only must the jury be told of the sentencing options and their practical consequences, but the jury must also be permitted to consider those practical consequences when weighing its options. Ante at 505, 715 A.2d 290. I agree that “[t]he jury should not be told that in choosing between life and death, it may not consider the fact that a forty-year-old defendant is likely to spend the next sixty years in prison if the verdict is life.” Ibid. Informing the jury of the sentencing consequences of its decision would be of little value if the jury were not permitted to take those consequences into account when making its decision.
I strongly endorse the principle that the jury must be permitted to consider the practical sentencing consequences of its decision. Nonetheless, I am concerned that the proposed jury instruction that attempts to limit the use of the other sentences would serve only to confuse and perhaps mislead the jury. The instruction creates an artificial distinction between considering the other sentences as aggravating or mitigating factors, on the one hand, and considering undefined effect of the other sentences on the options that are the subject of the jury’s deliberations, on the *524other hand. There should be no difference in principle between telling the jury to take into account the punitive effect of other sentences as compared to a death sentence in considering the practical consequences of its sentencing decision, as the Court now requires; and permitting the jury to consider the other sentences as “mitigating” evidence, as the Court now disallows. The majority of the Court has always been concerned that it would be unseemly to refer to other sentences as “mitigating” because the fact that a person has committed multiple crimes does not make the person less blameworthy. See State v. Feasier, 156 N.J. 85, -, 716 A.2d 395 (1998); State v. Cooper, 151 N.J. 326, 405, 700 A.2d 306 (1997); State v. Martini, 131 N.J. 176, 311, 619 A.2d 1208 (1993) (Martini I); State v. Bey, 129 N.J. 557, 603, 610 A.2d 814 (1992) (Bey III); State v. Biegenwald, 126 N.J. 1, 49, 594 A.2d 172 (1991) (Biegenwald IV). I understand the Court’s compunctions. It would be a perverse morality to think that someone could be less “blameworthy” because he or she has committed multiple offenses. In the context of a capital prosecution, however, the issue is not one of morality. Rather, the issue is whether evidence may be classified and considered as “mitigating” for the purpose of determining the severity of the defendant’s sentence. Mitigating evidence under the law may be any relevant circumstance that supports a reasonable and acceptable alternative to a death sentence, and hence a factor that would militate against imposition of the death sentence. A relevant circumstance may relate to the character and condition of the individual defendant that can persuades a jury not to impose the death sentence. In the lexicon of capital murder jurisprudence, the word “mitigation” is a term of art. It is not a philosophical concept or an expression of morality or moral values. The Court becomes enmeshed in semantics when it interprets “mitigating” evidence essentially as that which renders a defendant less “blameworthy.” Mitigation evidence is not limited simply to evidence that would make the defendant seem less morally culpable or blameworthy (although it usually does that), but rather mitigation is anything that bears on the defendant’s circumstances, his character and condition, that would tend *525to make the jury less inclined to impose the sentence of death for his crime. Mitigating,and aggravating, factors are those that help the jury gauge the severity of the defendant’s sentence. As the Court recognized in State v. Davis, 96 N.J. 611, 477 A.2d 308 (1984):
It must be acknowledged that in the sentencing phase of a capital proceeding — a life or death contest — a defendant is entitled to the use of all reliable, helpful information. The determinative discretion that is invoked in criminal sentencing is extremely sensitive. A sentencing judge may exercise a far-ranging discretion as to the sources and types of evidence used to assist him or in determining the kind and extent of punishment to be imposed.
[Id. at 619-20, 477 A.2d 308.]
How then can the fact that a defendant, if spared from the death penalty, will never see the light of day outside of prison because he is guilty of multiple murders not be considered a factor that supports a reasonable and acceptable alternative to the death sentence?
As the Court has unequivocally recognized, it is error to tell the jury not to take into account the practical consequence of the defendant’s other sentences. This admonition is given to guide the jury in its sentencing determination. It follows that it would be confusing to give the jurors this admonition and, in the same instruction, tell them that the other-sentences factor is not aggravating or mitigating. Jurors in capital cases are told to measure the severity of the sentence by weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors. In State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 123, 548 A.2d 887 (1988) (Bey II), the Court said: “The court should have expressly instructed the jury that a consequence of finding one or more of the aggravating factors and no mitigating factors meant that the jury thought that the death penalty was a fitting and appropriate punishment.” Id. at 164, 548 A.2d 887. Thus our sentencing standard requires that the jury be instructed that a consequence of their finding that there are mitigating factors and those mitigating factors are outweighed by aggravating factors means that the jury thought that the death penalty was a fit and appropriate punishment. That sentencing standard would be incomplete if the jury could not include in that weighing process as a mitigating *526factor the likelihood, if not virtual certainty, that the defendant would spend the rest of his or her life in prison if not sentenced to death. If the jury is told that the consequences of the defendant’s other sentences are not mitigating, many jurors will be left wondering what role, if any, the other sentences are to play in their decision. If the jury is told to arrive at its decision by weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors and also instructed that the defendant’s other sentences are not mitigating, there is a substantial risk that the jury will think that it is not supposed to consider the effect of the defendant’s other sentences in determining the severity of defendant’s sentence and whether it should be death.
Therefore, I think that the sounder rule is to instruct the jury to consider the defendant’s other sentences as a mitigating factor.
I also very much disagree with the Court’s harmless error analysis of the instruction on the consequences of defendant’s other sentences. The court told the jury, “[Y]ou shall not consider the likelihood [that the sentences will be consecutive], that likelihood as a basis for your decision to impose the death penalty or sentence of life imprisonment.” (Emphasis added.) As already discussed, the Court recognized that it was error to tell the jury to disregard the likelihood of consecutive sentences. Nonetheless, the Court finds that the instruction was harmless error because the defense attorney argued that the jurors should consider that defendant would spend her life in prison and the jurors knew that the sentences would likely be consecutive. Ante at 504, 715 A.2d 290.
In other words, the Court finds the judge’s erroneous instruction harmless because its presumed prejudice was ostensibly rebutted and negated by defense counsel’s argument. That reasoning inverts the doctrine harmless error in death penalty cases. The Court has repeatedly held that improper arguments of counsel are rendered harmless by the court’s correct instructions because the jury is presumed to follow the court’s instruction rather than counsel’s argument. See, e.g., Bey III, supra, 129 *527N.J. at 622, 610 A.2d 814 (holding that prosecutorial misconduct in summation was rendered harmless in part by the court’s corrective instruction). The converse surely cannot be true. It cannot follow that correct arguments of counsel can be substituted for incorrect instructions of the court. If that were so, instructions and arguments would always be rendered harmless so long as either the court or counsel got it right. In fact, when there is a conflict, the court’s instructions must prevail. As the Court recognized recently in State v. Afanador, 151 N.J. 41, 56, 697 A.2d 529 (1997): “[Arguments of counsel cannot substitute for correct instructions of law. The trial judge is the most authoritative figure in the courtroom.” Thus, an attorney’s summation, no matter how correct on a salient point that bears vitally on the jury’s understanding of the law can never acquire the force of law if it is not expressly iterated by the court through proper and accurate jury instructions. Moreover, the error cannot be minimized or trivialized. It cannot be argued that the court’s instructions that failed to inform and direct the jury to consider the consequences of defendant’s other sentences in determining the severity of her sentence was a minor or incidental omission. That omission goes to the very heart of the most fundamental issue this jury had to determine — should the defendant be put to death. The Court’s omission clearly constituted an “incorrect instruction.” Cf. State v. Sewell, 127 N.J. 138, 150, 603 A.2d 21 (1992) (striking down charge that did not fully explain essential elements of crime); State v. Anderson, 127 N.J. 191, 205, 603 A.2d 928 (1992) (same).
Therefore, I would also reverse defendant’s death sentence because the court’s erroneous instruction telling the jury not to consider the practical consequences of defendant’s other sentences on its decision was not harmless.
IV
The defense presented the expert testimony of a psychiatrist, Dr. Kenneth Weiss, who reviewed defendant’s medical records and *528met with her at least five times for the purpose of evaluating her. On direct examination, Dr. Weiss testified about defendant’s psychological development culminating with the day of the murders. One of the things Dr. Weiss testified about was defendant’s obsessive psychological attachment to her guns. This testimony was offered in mitigation in an attempt to provide a psychological explanation for defendant’s homicidal reaction to the police attempt to take away her guns. Capital defendants have a right to present mitigating evidence relevant to “any aspect of their character or record or circumstances of their crime.” State v. DiFrisco, 137 N.J. 434, 506, 645 A.2d 734 (1994) (citing Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 604, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 2964, 57 L. Ed.2d 973, 989 (1978)). Defendant raised three mitigating factors, including her extreme mental or emotional disturbance and her significant impairment from mental disease or defect. It was thus essential that defendant be given a full opportunity to ask the jury to consider this expert testimony as a reason to spare her life.
On cross-examination, the prosecutor elicited testimony that during Dr. Weiss’s psychological examinations of defendant, she told him that she believed that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was sacrosanct and that the founding fathers had thought the right to bear arms was important because they expected another revolution. Then, in a series of argumentative and leading questions, the prosecutor took Dr. Weiss far afield from his area of expertise and personal knowledge. Through tendentious, leading questions, the prosecutor extracted the expert’s opinion that defendant herself was a revolutionary who wanted to kill police officers.
It was highly improper and grossly unfair for the prosecutor to attempt to taint defendant’s mitigation by suggesting that her views on the Second Amendment demonstrated that she was a revolutionary. There was absolutely no logical connection between defendant’s statements about the Second Amendment and the prosecutor’s argumentative questions that strongly implied that she was a radical. The inflammatory suggestion that defen*529dant had a calculated desire and plan to kill police officers because they represented the government was highly prejudicial. One of the aggravating factors presented to the jury was the contention that defendant killed the officers because of their status as police officers. If the jurors believed that defendant was a revolutionary bent on killing police officers, it is highly likely that they would have found the murders extremely aggravated.
Perhaps more important than the effect of this evidence to augment that State’s key aggravating factor is the potential effect that the testimony had on defendant’s mitigating evidence, namely, that her violence was triggered by her mental and emotional impairment. If the jury believed she was carrying out a revolutionary plan directed against the police as government authority, it would likely discount defendant’s contention that she was acting under extreme emotional disturbance or that her judgment was seriously impaired by mental disease or defect. The prejudicial impact of this evidence of a revolutionary motive as undermining and negating defendant’s mitigation evidence was heightened by the.fact that the prosecutor used one of defendant’s psychology experts as the vehicle for introducing the evidence of her revolutionary motives. As noted, after Dr. Weiss testified that he believed defendant was suffering from mental and emotional problems, the jury heard him say on cross examination in response to a series of leading questions that he believed defendant was a revolutionary. Clearly, there was no medical basis for this testimony, yet it was brazenly elicited and flagrantly emphasized. The jury almost certainly could not help but be affected by hearing from defendant’s own expert that she was a revolutionary. Most recently, in State v. Jamerson, 153 N.J. 318, 342, 708 A.2d 1183 (1998), the Court recognized that juries cannot properly evaluate the weight to give “expert” testimony from an expert who testified outside the realm of his or her expertise. “By definition, a jury cannot give the ‘proper’ amount of weight to an expert’s opinion when they labor under the erroneous assumption that the expert is testifying to an area within his expertise. Furthermore, ‘[t]he aura of special reliability and trustworthiness surrounding expert *530testimony, which ought to caution its use, especially when offered by the prosecution in criminal cases, poses a special risk’ when it involves the question of defendant’s guilt.” Ibid, (citations omitted). Dr. Weiss had no knowledge or expertise regarding the revolutionary tendencies of people who believed that the Second Amendment gives them the right to own weapons. Yet, as an expert, he was asked by the prosecutor to express his opinion on that subject and his testimony likely had a telling impact on the jury.
The Court agrees that the evidence was improper but declines to reach the issue of whether it constituted plain error. I believe its admission was plain error, which is error that is “clearly capable of producing an unjust result.” R. 2:10-2. Whether an error was sufficiently prejudicial depends on whether it “had the capacity materially to affect the jury’s deliberations or produce an unjust result.” Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 616, 610 A.2d 814.
Whether erroneously admitted evidence is likely to affect the jury’s determination depends greatly on the amount of other evidence available to the jury on the same point. See State v. Marrero, 148 N.J. 469, 496, 691 A.2d 293 (1997) (finding no plain error where the evidence of guilt independent of the erroneously admitted evidence was “nearly overwhelming”); State v. J.Q., 252 N.J.Super. 11, 15, 599 A.2d 172 (App.Div.1991) (finding that erroneously admitted expert testimony on Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome was plain error because the jury’s determination of the witnesses’ credibility was “based in great measure” upon the evidence), aff'd 130 N.J. 554, 617 A.2d 1196 (1993). Defendant, in this case, could not escape the prejudicial fallout from this testimony. Indeed that prejudice was reinforced and driven home by the prosecutor who argued that, “here on the twentieth of April, 1995, she found something she could be successful at. She found success because she clearly wanted to kill police officers and she did it. She was successful and she did it. She was successful and killed them.” (emphasis added). The evidence elicited from Dr. Weiss was virtually the only evidence *531available to support that argument. It enabled the prosecutor to argue to the jury that defendant was a revolutionary committed to killing police officers and that her motive was to kill the police officers because they were police officers. That evidence and the prosecutor’s powerful argument based on it were in no way palliated. An instruction from the court telling the jury to disregard erroneously admitted evidence may counteract the potential prejudicial effect of improper evidence and support a finding of no plain error. See State v. Harvey, 151 N.J. 117, 226, 699 A.2d 596 (1997) (finding that prosecutor’s improper argument did not constitute plain error because court instructed jury on the proper use of evidence); Cooper, supra, 151 N.J. at 403, 700 A.2d 306 (same). That was not done here.
There was a substantial risk that the jury inferred from the improper evidence that defendant had a calculated desire to kill police officers. That inference would have increased the likelihood that they would return a death verdict. Therefore, I would find that the elicitation of such testimony from Dr. Weiss was reversible error.
V
Defendant’s penalty trial contained three grave reversible errors. First, defendant’s death sentence must be reversed, as determined by the Court, because of the failure to inform the defense that Detective Norcross had filed a civil lawsuit alleging negligence in the same manner that defendant alleged as one of her primary mitigating factors. I also agree that it was erroneous to inform the jury not to consider the likelihood of consecutive sentencing, but I dissent from the finding that it was harmless error. Finally, it was grossly improper for the prosecutor to elicit unfounded testimony from a defense expert that defendant was a revolutionary and killed out of revolutionary zeal. Therefore, I would reverse on all three grounds.
It is clear that this defendant, guilty of committing terrible murders, was not given a fair penalty trial. It is precisely *532defendants of this ilk, those whose guilt is clear, whose crimes are horrible, and whose characters are grossly unsympathetic, who put our judicial system to its severest test. The challenge to accord such a defendant due process and fundamental fairness, though present in any case, is most daunting and formidable in a capital prosecution. The State did not meet that challenge here.