Court Opinion

ID: 9861811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:36:37.980368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:07.292038
License: Public Domain

*540Justice ALBIN,
dissenting.
A basic precept of our system of justice is that the accused is entitled to be tried solely on the charges contained in the indictment, and not be convicted merely because of his prior bad acts. We know that other-crime evidence has the significant potential to inflame a jury. For that reason, trial courts must act as gatekeepers and take great care before admitting evidence of a defendant’s prior crimes or bad acts. In this case, the trial court admitted other-crime evidence without conducting a N.J.R.E. 104 hearing1 or making any findings concerning the evidence’s relevance or whether its probative value was outweighed by its prejudicial value. Without an adequate record or findings by the trial court, we cannot know whether the other-crime evidence met the rigorous standards demanded by our case law. Because the jury may have convicted defendant of knowingly possessing cocaine for no reason other than the damning admission extracted from him on the stand — that he previously had possessed cocaine — and because the trial court did not follow the procedural safeguards set forth in our ease law, I respectfully dissent.
We have long recognized that other-crime evidence, even when probative of an issue in dispute, has the strong potential to cause irreparable prejudice to a defendant because of its natural “tendency to demonstrate a criminal predisposition.” State v. G.S., 145 N.J. 460, 468, 678 A.2d 1092 (1996). Other-crime evidence has the capacity to “blind the jury from a careful consideration of the elements of the charged offense” and so tarnish a defendant that he may be convicted on the basis of what he once was rather than what he has recently done. State v. Blakney, 189 N.J. 88, 93, 912 A.2d 140 (2006). To avoid the misuse of other-crime evidence, we have required our trial courts to adhere to strict standards before admitting such evidence and, typically, to conduct a N.J.R.E. 104 *541hearing out of the presence of the jury. State v. Hernandez, 170 N.J. 106, 127, 784 A.2d 1225 (2001).
At that hearing, the trial court is required to determine by clear and convincing evidence that the other crime is relevant to a material issue and that its probative value is not outweighed by its prejudicial effect. State v. Cofield, 127 N.J. 328, 338, 605 A.2d 230 (1992) (providing factors for admissibility of other-crime evidence); see also State v. Williams, 190 N.J. 114, 122, 919 A.2d 90 (2007) (citations omitted). Critical to the court’s determination is the “specific content of the other-crime testimony,” which must be fully developed at the N.J.R.E. 104 hearing to allow an appropriate assessment of the evidence’s relevance and to balance its probative value against the prejudice to the defendant. Hernandez, supra, 170 N.J. at 127, 133, -784 A.2d 1225 (ordering new trial and remand for N.J.R.E. 104 hearing “on all aspects of the precise other-crime testimony”); see also State v. Bakka, 176 N.J. 533, 547, 826 A.2d 604 (2003) (holding that before introducing “evidence of a defendant’s [license] revocation along with the reasons for that revocation” in vehicular homicide case, “trial court should hold an evidentiary hearing and apply” Cofield factors); State v. Stevens, 222 N.J.Super. 602, 614, 537 A.2d 774 (App.Div.1988) (noting that court must conduct hearing outside presence of jury when other-crime evidence is in dispute), aff'd, 115 N.J. 289, 302-03, 558 A.2d 833 (1989); State v. Moorman, 286 N.J.Super. 648, 662, 670 A.2d 81 (App.Div.1996) (noting that trial court properly conducted N.J.R.E. 104 hearing to determine whether prior bad act evidence should be admitted).
Without a N.J.R.E. 104 hearing, an evidentiary decision on the admissibility of other-crime evidence may be so fatally flawed and the resulting prejudice so grievous that the reversal of a conviction will be mandated. See State v. Beckler, 366 N.J.Super. 16, 29, 840 A.2d 271 (App.Div.) (reversing conviction because, in part, disputed prior bad act evidence admitted without N.J.R.E. 104 hearing), certif. denied, 180 N.J. 151, 849 A.2d 184 (2004); see also State v. Collier, 316 N.J.Super. 181, 196, 719 A.2d 1276 (App.Div.*5421998) (holding that on retrial following reversal of conviction, court must hold N.J.R.E. 104 hearing if parties dispute extent to which other-crime evidence admissible), aff'd o.b., 162 N.J. 27, 738 A.2d 369 (1999).
The need for a hearing in this case was not a procedural nicety, but a precondition to a fair trial. The facts perfectly illustrate that point. Defendant was charged with third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance, cocaine. At trial, a Jersey City police officer testified that he observed defendant and Daniel Veal engage in a conversation and then exchange currency. Afterwards, Veal placed an object beside a tree, and then defendant appeared to pick up the object and put it in his pocket. The police arrested defendant and confiscated from him four vials of what was later determined to be cocaine.
Defendant testified that he was walking near his home when he came across the four vials lying on the ground. He explained that all too often drug remnants and paraphernalia, such as vials, syringes, and empty marijuana bags, littered the street. On this occasion, he suspected that the vials “could have been drugs or dangerous substances, rat poison, anything.” Fearing that curious school children might find the suspected drugs, he lifted the vials from the ground, intending to throw them down a sewer. Before he could dispose of the objects, he was placed under arrest.
To impeach defendant’s credibility, the prosecutor at first requested permission to confront defendant with his 1990 conviction for possession of cocaine. The trial court determined that the conviction was too remote in time and therefore barred its introduction for impeachment purposes. See N.J.R.E. 609; State v. Sands, 76 N.J. 127, 144-47, 386 A.2d 378 (1978). Interestingly, even if the court had found the conviction to be admissible, the nature of the crime — a previous drug conviction — would have been sanitized and kept from the jury to ensure that the impeachment evidence was not used improperly to show criminal propensity. See State v. Branson, 132 N.J. 377, 391-92, 625 A.2d 1085 (1993).
*543Although barred from introducing the conviction as impeachment evidence pursuant to N.J.R.E. 609, the prosecutor later argued that the criminal conviction was admissible as other-crime evidence pursuant to N.J.R.E. 404(b) to prove that defendant knew that the vials contained cocaine. Under N.J.R.E. 404(b), other-crime evidence is inadmissible to prove criminal disposition or that defendant is a bad person. Such evidence, however, is admissible “as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident when such matters are relevant to a material issue in dispute.” Ibid.
The prosecutor claimed that defendant’s knowledge of the contents of the vials was in dispute and that defendant’s prior encounter with cocaine would show that he knew precisely the character of those vials. Defendant objected. The court refused to allow admission of the prior cocaine conviction unless the prosecutor could demonstrate “that the actual drugs involved in 1990 were similarly packaged and that [defendant] pled guilty to a charge of having them.” The court repeated that point for emphasis, stating that reference to the conviction was “inappropriate” in the absence of a showing that the “substance” possessed by defendant in the 1990 case “looked similarf ] to the substance that we have today.”
The trial court, it appears, decided that unless defendant’s earlier encounter with cocaine involved similar packaging — similar type, shape, size, or color vials — defendant would not have been in a position to recognize or know to any degree of certainty the exact character of the vials, which defendant believed may have contained “drugs or dangerous substances, rat poison, anything.” That was the basis for excluding the cocaine conviction.
Inexplicably, the trial court failed to follow the simple logic of its holding, allowing the jury to hear that defendant previously held a vial of cocaine without ever determining whether the vials in this case were “similarly packaged” or “looked similarf ] to the substance that we have today.” Fairness would dictate that if the vials held by defendant, ten years apart, differed entirely in size, *544shape, and color, then knowledge of the vials’ contents in the present case should not be imputed to defendant based on the earlier bad act. Therefore, the trial court should have conducted a N.J.R.E. 104 hearing and required the prosecutor to prove by clear and convincing evidence the relevant connection between defendant’s prior bad act and the present case. In other words, the prosecutor should have established that defendant must have known the character of the vials because of his prior experience with similar vials.
In contravention of our well-established case law, and without a N.J.R.E. 104 hearing, the trial court permitted the prosecutor to cross-examine defendant on his decade-old possession of cocaine and to elicit from defendant that “prior to July 26th in the year 2000” he had “held a vial with cocaine in it in [his] hand.” The jury never learned whether that vial previously held by defendant looked anything like the vials he scooped off the ground in Jersey City.2 Without that critical information, there was no way for the court to make an informed decision on relevance or to properly weigh whether the probative value of the evidence was outweighed by its prejudicial effect. In short, the court did not have an appropriate record to make a determination concerning the admissibility of the other-crime evidence. See Hernandez, supra, 170 N.J. at 127, 784 A.2d 1225.
The majority in this case conducted a “plenary review” because the trial court did “not analyze the admissibility of other-crimes evidence under [Cofield].” Ante at 534, 933 A.2d at 1284. However, the trial court’s primary error was rendering a decision without an adequate record. Here, the majority used the same inadequate record on which the trial court based its misguided *545ruling. Therefore, the findings of the majority cannot have any sounder foundation than that undergirding the trial court’s flawed decision.
For the most part, this trial involved a credibility contest between a police officer and defendant. I cannot conclude that the evidence of defendant’s “guilty” knowledge was overwhelming, particularly in light of the question raised by the jury during its deliberations: does defendant “have to know it is cocaine? Or does he have to know it is a dangerous substance (narcotics)?” Moreover, I find that the testimony compelled from defendant— that he previously held a vial of cocaine — had the capacity to turn the jury against him and thoroughly infect the proceedings with irreparable prejudice.
Based on the inadequate record before us, it is impossible to say that defendant was not convicted merely because of a ten-year old violation of the law that bore little or no relevance to the charges contained in the indictment. For the reasons I have expressed, defendant did not receive a fair trial, and the judgment of the Appellate Division should be reversed. I therefore respectfully dissent.
Justices LONG and WALLACE join in this opinion.
For affirmance — Chief Justice RABNER and Justices LaVECCHIA, RIVERA-SOTO, and HOENS — 4.
For reversal — Justices LONG, ALBIN, and WALLACE — 3.

 N.J.R.E. 104 directs trial courts to make preliminary determinations regarding the admissibility of evidence. In a case involving other-crime evidence, such a determination should be made after a hearing out of the presence of the juiy. See State v. Hernandez, 170 N.J. 106, 127, 784 A.2d 1225 (2001).

 Additionally, the jury never learned when defendant had previously held the vial of cocaine, whether it was on the occasion that resulted in his criminal conviction more than 10 years earlier, or some more recent date. Because there was no evidentiary hearing, this important point was never explored. Presumably, defense counsel saw no profit in eliciting further information on this highly prejudicial subject.