Court Opinion

ID: 9728725
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:15:12.68144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:51.457181
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
During the evening hours of December 4, 1975, two elderly victims were terrorized, abused, threatened, and robbed at gunpoint in their home. The police apprehended the juvenile gunman, G. K., on the spot. At the same time they encountered *423defendant, Manning, slumped down in the driver’s seat of his automobile, parked at the curb just two doors away from the victims’ home, with the engine running, lights out, and driver’s door open. After protesting that “he didn’t do nothing,” defendant proffered a ludicrous excuse for his presence at the scene. On the back seat of his car was a hat which defendant claimed was his but which was obviously too small when placed on his head, both at the scene and before the jury at his trial. In addition, the police recovered from the inside of the rear passenger door on Manning’s vehicle a fingerprint identical to the juvenile’s.
Small wonder that with this evidence before it the jury convicted defendant. Under the circumstances it did not require a Scotland Yard criminologist to make the connection between defendant, the juvenile, and the crime. Nevertheless, in the face of the overwhelming inculpatory proof, the majority reverses the conviction because it concludes the jurors, in flagrant violation of the trial court’s specific and detailed instructions, gave “probative effect” to” a “crucial statement” of an investigating officer, Detective Dilkes. Ante at 422.
That statement was made by Dilkes in response to a question on direct examination as to what he had said to Manning while interviewing him. Dilkes said:
At that time I advised him that he was being charged with armed robbery at the home of the Braun residence and that he had been implicated in the incident by [G.K.],
Thereupon the trial court immediately issued the explicit limiting instruction. Detective Dilkes then testified as to Manning’s response to that statement:
I don’t have it in my report exactly, but he shook his head in a negative way and stated to me that he should have ought to let the kid steal that lady’s pocket and then he cut himself short and that was the end of the interview.
*424The claim of error is directed only at Dilkes’s statement that the juvenile had implicated Manning (which was the fact). No one suggests that defendant’s response, characterized by the majority as “cryptic,” ante at 420, was inadmissible for any reason.
Initially, I perceive that while that remark — “[I] should ought to let the kid steal that lady’s pocket * * * ” is wanting in a certain elegance of expression, there is nothing “cryptic” about it. Given the context in which it was made, it unmistakably tied defendant to G.K. — if, in the face of the other abundant evidence, there remained any doubt on that score. Its meaning and import are entirely clear.
But the detective’s reference to G.K.’s having implicated Manning is assailed by the Court on the grounds that its “potential for prejudice was devastating,” and the trial court’s instruction failed either to cleanse the detective’s statement of its hearsay taint or avoid the denial of defendant’s right of confrontation. Ante at 421. This, despite the Court’s acknowledgement “that the comment was admitted for a limited purpose and that the jury was promptly and emphatically so instructed * * Ante at 421.
As authority for its conclusion that the jury would give the detective’s “crucial” statement about G.K. implicating Manning “some probative effect,” the majority relies upon State v. Bankston, 63 N.J. 263 (1973). For its determination that the statement constitutes prejudicial hearsay and violates defendant’s right of confrontation, the Court looks to Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), and State v. Young, 46 N.J. 152 (1965). In my view of the instant case the cited authorities are simply inapplicable.
In Bankston the prosecutor told the jury in his opening statement that detectives had been actively investigating the defendant. A detective testified that the arresting officers, after speaking with an informant, had gone to look for a described person known to have narcotics in his possession, and that they found an individual who fit this description. The *425prosecutor’s summation included still another reference to the fact that the detectives were looking for a person who fit a particular description. The trial judge then instructed the jury to disregard references to the investigation or description. 63 N.J. at 266-67. He did not, however, instruct them that it was impermissible to draw an inference of guilt from this testimony. Id. at 268. Even though the detectives never specifically repeated what the informer had told them, the Bankston Court found that the jury was inescapably led to conclude that an informer had told the detectives that defendant was committing a crime. The Court distinguished this from the merely possible inference when an officer testifies that an arrest was made “based on information received.” Because the informer was not in court and was not subject to cross-examination, the statement was hearsay. Moreover, the judge addressed his curative instructions only to the prosecutor’s remarks and said nothing to limit the detective’s testimony. Therefore, the instructions were viewed as insufficient to “remove the prejudicial effect of that testimony from the minds of the jury.” Id. at 272.
By comparison there is nothing in the record before us to suggest that the prosecutor’s opening statement touched upon any objectionable material. More importantly, the limiting instructions here were given, as the majority notes, “promptly and emphatically.” The trial court, having been forewarned of the problem and having obviously deliberated in advance on the way to deal with it, told the jurors in explicit and forceful terms that Dilkes’s “statement as to the defendant being implicated by [G.K.] is allowed into evidence * * * only for the purpose of giving you the background for * * * any response the defendant may have made to what Detective Dilkes said to him.” This was followed immediately with the admonition that “[yjou’re not to consider this in any way as proof that somebody else, specifically the juvenile, implicated the defendant in this crime.” And then, to top it off, the court suggested to the-*426jurors that police have been known to tell someone under investigation something not entirely true, to the end that the suspect may incriminate himself, the implication being that that might very well be what happened in this case. In so doing the court proffered a perfectly plausible alternative explanation for Dilkes’s comment to Manning.
The instructions could not have been clearer. I do not know what more could have been asked of this trial judge under the circumstances. As long as we continue to have faith in a jury’s ability generally to follow a trial court’s directives, see State v. Manley, 54 N.J. 259, 270 (1969), we should not hesitate to give effect to the instructions in this case. The proposition put to the jurors involved no occult theory of law. It called upon them to do no more than bring a measure of plain common sense to their important civic duty.
It remains only to point out that while the Court’s reference to Bruton and Young is couched in hypothetical terms, ante at 422, and is accurate for that purpose, the hypothesis does not fit this case. Dilkes’s comment was not offered as proof of the fact that G.K. had implicated Manning, and, as I have endeavored to demonstrate, the jury was so instructed.
I would affirm.
SCHREIBER and POLLOCK, JJ., join in this dissent.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices SULLIVAN, PASHMAN and HANDLER — 4.
For affirmance — Justices CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER and POLLOCK — 3.