Court Opinion

ID: 9859139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 18:50:01.533188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:06:39.004830
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
dissenting.
The Court reverses defendant’s conviction of capital murder on the ground that there was a “slim but rational basis,” ante at 426, 575 A.2d at 446, in the evidence on which the jury could have convicted defendant of serious-bodily-injury murder, pursuant to our decision in State v. Gerald, 113 N.J. 40, 549 A.2d 792 (1988). Accordingly, the Court remands the matter for a new trial and concludes that issues concerning the penalty phase of the case are moot.
I would affirm the capital-murder conviction, and proceed to determine on the merits defendant’s challenges to the death sentence. We held in Gerald that under our state constitution, one who takes the life of another with “an intent to inflict only serious bodily injury with no intention that death be the result” cannot be subjected to the death penalty. 113 N.J. at 89, 549 *528A.2d 792. I cannot find evidence in this record that affords a rational basis for a jury to conclude that defendant purposely or knowingly caused only serious bodily injury “with no intention that death be the result.”
As the majority opinion acknowledges, there was no testimony adduced at trial describing how the murder of Albert Compton occurred. A customer found the victim’s body lying immobile behind a counter in the Holiday Liquor Store. Compton died at the hospital one hour later. Ballistic evidence indicated that the hollow-nosed bullet found in the victim’s body had been fired from a .25 caliber handgun. The State’s ballistic expert testified that the discharged shell casing, found in a calculator on the liquor-store counter, would have traveled six to ten feet from the point of firing. The Atlantic City Medical Examiner, who performed an autopsy on the victim, testified to the presence of a bullet wound on the front of the chest, close to the heart. He stated that the bullet “had passed through the front of the body, went underneath the rib cage, went through the liver, through the pancreas * * *, through the aorta * * * and came to rest in the soft tissues next to the spinal column.” The medical examiner concluded that the victim bled to death from the bullet wound. The State also offered evidence that $795.71 was missing from the liquor store’s cash register.
The only other evidence about the shooting came from Paul Pettigrew, whom defendant had met in the Atlantic County jail. According to Pettigrew, defendant admitted shooting Compton, relating that he and his cousin had gone into the store to buy liquor. He told Pettigrew that Compton got the liquor he asked for, then reached under the counter, and that he shot him “because he didn’t know what the man was reaching for, a bag to put the alcohol in or getting a gun.” Pettigrew testified that defendant said “he had to shoot him anyway because he didn’t want to leave [a] witness behind.” Defendant denied making any such statements to Pettigrew.
*529Unlike the instructions on capital murder in State v. Coyle, 119 N.J. 194, 574 A.2d 951 (1990), and State v. Pennington, 119 N.J. 547, 575 A.2d 816 (1990), in which murder was defined as “purposely” or “knowingly” causing death or serious bodily injury resulting in death, the trial court’s instruction on capital murder in this case was as follows:
Criminal homicide constitutes capital murder when the actor purposely or knowingly causes, by his own conduct * * * the death of another.
Conceding that “[t]he question is a close one,” ante at 460, 575 A.2d at 445, the Court concludes that a jury could infer that defendant intended to cause Compton serious bodily injury but not death. I disagree. No evidence in the record suggests that the defendant’s “conscious object” was to cause only serious bodily injury and not death, or that defendant was “practically certain” that only serious bodily injury and not death would result. See N.J.S.A. 2C:2-2b(l) and (2) (defining “purposely” and “knowingly”). It is a matter of common experience that a handgun fired at close range and aimed at or near the heart of a victim is likely to cause death. The risk of death under such circumstance is so great, I submit, as to be virtually incompatible with an intent merely to inflict serious bodily injury. Put differently, one whose “conscious object” was to inflict serious bodily injury but not death, or who wished to be “practically certain” that only serious bodily injury but not death would result, would never attempt to achieve that objective by shooting the intended victim in the chest at close range. Absent explanatory testimony that the gun was pointed at a less vulnerable area of the victim’s body or that the lethal wound was caused unintentionally, the evidence in this record is irreconcilable with an intention to cause only serious bodily injury, but not death.
In Gerald we held that under our state constitution the death penalty cannot be imposed on “those who act with a less culpable state of mind, i.e., an intent to inflict only serious bodily injury with no intention that death be the result.” 113 N.J. at 89, 549 A.2d 792. We have never held that Gerald *530precludes the imposition of the death penalty on a defendant who shoots and kills a victim at close range, intending either death or serious bodily injury, but indifferent to which of those consequences actually occurred. My reading of Gerald is that such a defendant remains subject to the death penalty.
As I observed in State v. Coyle, supra, 119 N.J. at 201, 574 A.2d at 954, “homicide cases in which the killing was committed with a gun fired at close range * * * ordinarily will not fit within the class of serious-bodily-injury murders that we immunized from the death penalty in Gerald.” Because I conclude that this record does not provide a rational basis for a charge on serious-bodily-injury murder, I would sustain defendant’s conviction of capital murder.
Justice GARIBALDI joins in this opinion.
For reversal, vacation and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK and O’HERN — 4.
Dissenting — Justices GARIBALDI and STEIN — 2.
Concurring in part, dissenting in part — Justice HANDLER — 1.