Court Opinion

ID: 9749020
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:21:27.998758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:42.296673
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
dissenting.
Defendant was indicted for murder, felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree aggravated sexual assault, and second-degree sexual assault. The prosecution’s theory of the case was that defendant took his victim to a secluded area, raped her, and then intentionally killed her. The theory that the killing was intentional was based on the supposition that because defendant had committed prior sexual offenses, he believed that it was necessary to kill his victim in order to escape detection for his crime. Thus, prior to the commencement of trial, the prosecution moved to introduce evidence that defendant was awaiting sentencing on a prior sexual assault to which he had pled guilty in order to demonstrate that defendant intended to kill the victim.1 The trial court reserved decision. At the close of the prosecution’s case, the court denied the motion. The Appellate Division granted the prosecution’s motion for leave to appeal this ruling and, over the dissent of one judge, ordered the admission of the other-crimes evidence that the trial court excluded. This Court denied defendant’s motion for leave to appeal the appellate order, and the evidence was subsequently admitted during examination of the defendant. Defendant was convicted of murder, felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree aggravated assault by a jury-
*500The majority concedes, as it must, that it was error for the appellate court to order the admission of this highly inflammatory evidence. The majority then concedes, as it also must, that the portion of the jury instruction related to this very evidence — prior sexual assaults in a prosecution for sexual assault and murder— failed to satisfy the demands of our prior decisions. Despite these two concessions of error, the majority still manages to conclude that this defendant was provided the fair trial to which he is entitled. To reach its seemingly predetermined outcome, the majority employs a seriously flawed harmless-error analysis.
I
This Court has carefully and extensively developed the standards that govern the admissibility and use of other-crimes evidence in criminal prosecutions. In State v. Cofield, 127 N.J. 328, 605 A.2d 230 (1992), we synthesized the principles of the two relevant evidentiary rules, now N.J.R.E. 403 and N.J.R.E. 404 (formerly Evid. R. 4 and Evid. R. 55, respectively), into a four-part standard of admissibility:
1. The evidence of the other crime must be admissible as relevant to a material issue;
2. It must be similar in kind and reasonably close in time to the offense charged;
3. The evidence of the other crime must be clear and convincing; and
4. The probative value of the evidence must not be outweighed by its apparent prejudice.
[Cofield, supra, 127 N.J. at 338, 605 A.2d 230.]
The majority correctly identifies that the first and fourth prongs of the formulation are at issue in this case. However, the majority inappropriately concentrates its harmless-error analysis on the first prong. Seemingly only as an after-thought and with scant attention does it turn to the fourth prong; yet that prong was the trial court’s actual reason for exclusion and is the crux of this case — that “admission [of the other crimes evidence] would be so prejudicial that the jury could not possibly follow the court’s instructions----”
*501In this case, the trial court conceded that evidence regarding the prior sexual offenses may be relevant to demonstrate that the defendant had a motive to kill his victim. At the pre-trial evidentiary hearing on this issue, the prosecution presented four witnesses in support of its position that the other-crimes evidence was admissible at trial: K.N. (allegedly victimized by defendant on March 12, 1988) and State Trooper Andrew Lopez (the trooper who investigated the incident), I.F. (allegedly victimized by defendant on March 19, 1988) and Vineland Police Officer Benny Velez (the officer who investigated this incident). After presenting the testimony of those four witnesses, the prosecution argued that the other-crimes evidence was admissible to prove motive, intent, state of mind, identity, and absence of mistake. The prosecution’s primary argument, however, was that the prior crimes were admissible to demonstrate that defendant had a motive to kill: to silence his victim and thereby avoid a return to prison. The court denied the motion, but reserved decision as to whether the evidence could be admitted to demonstrate that defendant had a motive to kill the victim.2
At the conclusion of its case, the prosecution renewed the motion to admit the other-crimes evidence. After having heard the testimony of thirty-eight witnesses over the course of five days of trial, the court concluded that:
I’m going to deny [the motion]. I don’t think that I’m going to allow it in. It may be admissible superficially on the basis of Rule 55, but because of the type of trial we’re involved in and the charges, that I think to admit them for the limited purposes under Rule 55 would be so prejudicial that the court is going to deny your motion.
In response to the protest of the prosecution, the court elaborated that:
I remember your argument____ I remember it very clearly, and although I reserved decision on it at that time to see what the State presented to support the sexual assault charge in the matter, I’ve reflected on it. I have concluded that in *502this case, because of the circumstances, the admission of prior sexual assault convictions even for Rule 55 purposes while it may satisfy the requirements generally of Rule 55 — and I’m not so sure that it does — but that it may, by the same token, the court feels that because of the charges in this matter, that admission would be so prejudicial that the jury could not possibly follow the court’s instructions that it could reasonably be used for a very limited purpose. Therefore, the court is not going to let it in.
It is clear that the court excluded the other-crimes evidence on the ground that any probative value was outweighed by its potential to prejudice the jury against the defendant. The trial court never wavered from its determination that the other-crimes evidence would be overwhelmingly prejudicial. After the Appellate Division reversed its exclusionary ruling, the trial court reiterated and reemphasized its ground for exclusion:
I think the prejudice is just so great that it should not come in. So what’s going to come in is ... the fact that he was awaiting sentence on a sexual assault, that the period of time that he was in jail just prior to this incident, and the fact that he pled guilty to it.
The majority correctly recognizes that it was error for the appellate court to have ordered the admission of the other-crimes evidence after the trial court so deliberatively concluded it should not be admitted. Ante at 488, 691 A.2d at 300. The trial court’s decision was entitled to respect, not because the evidence was without logical relevance, but because the trial court had engaged in the kind of contextual evaluation of the prejudicial impact of that evidence that warrants deference and ratification by an appellate court. As we have said previously, “th[e] inflammatory characteristic of other-crime evidence ... mandates a careful and pragmatic evaluation by trial courts, based on the specific context in which the evidence is offered, to determine whether the probative worth of the evidence outweighs its potential for undue prejudice.” State v. Stevens, 115 N.J. 289, 303, 558 A.2d 833 (1989). Thus, when “reasonable minds can and [do] differ about the R. 55 decision to admit other-crime evidence based on the probative-prejudicial balancing test,” ante at 490, 691 A.2d at 303, these fundamental principles of evidence law require that the trial court decision take precedence.
*503The majority seeks to salvage the patently mistaken ruling by the Appellate Division. It purports to succeed in its mission by embarking on a harmless-error analysis of a sort totally foreign to this Court’s jurisprudence. In an extraordinary effort to preserve this conviction, it feigns indifference to the internal inconsistencies in its own analysis. The majority cannot logically concede that the Appellate Division erred when it ordered the admission of this evidence, ante at 484, 69 A.2d at 300 (‘We agree with defendant that the Appellate Division erred when it overturned the trial court’s decision not to admit the other-crime evidence”), and then rely on that erroneous order as support for its result. See Ante at 493, 691 A.2d at 304 (“Although a trial court’s ruling concerning Rule 55 evidence is entitled to deference, that ruling does not preclude appellate review. The Appellate Division in the interlocutory appeal found that the trial court had abused its discretion in excluding the other-crime evidence.”). That’s not all. It conducts a referendum to validate its conclusion, counting as votes in support of its result the two Appellate Division judges who “erred ... [by] overturning] the trial court’s decision not to admit the other crime evidence.” See ante at 491-92, 691 A.2d at 303-04 (“At least two judges in the Appellate Division and five members of this Court have disagreed with the trial court’s decision that the prejudicial effect of that evidence required exclusion.”)
The majority’s analysis focuses unduly on the logical relevance of the controverted evidence. The fallacy in the Court’s approach is its equation of logical relevance with admissibility; in effect, it gives determinative weight to the first-prong of Cofield, neglecting the kind of balancing that is required by the fourth prong. The majority thus cites and discusses a great many eases that support the position that this evidence is relevant. See ante at 486-90, 691 A.2d at 301-03. Those cases do support the conclusion of the trial court that the evidence is logically relevant and satisfies the first-prong of Cofield. That decisional law, however, does not address the issue of whether the error in this case — the admission of such logically relevant evidence, the prejudicial impact of which outweighs its probative worth — was harm*504less. Moreover, other cases cited by the majority where this or another appellate court found on distinctive facts that prejudice did not sufficiently outweigh probativeness are distinguishable. See ante at 490, 691A.2d at 303.
II
“The test of whether an error is harmless depends upon some degree of possibility that it led to an unjust verdict. The possibility must be real, one sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt as to whether the error led the jury to a result it otherwise might not have reached.” State v. Bankston, 63 N.J. 263, 273, 307 A.2d 65 (1973). This standard requires the reviewing court to examine the trial itself to determine whether the error may have led to an unjust verdict. It neither requires nor permits an analysis of whether, in another case with facts similar to the present one, it would have been permissible for the trial court to admit the other-crimes evidence here proffered by the prosecution.
A proper analysis of whether or not the error was harmless in this case should begin with the findings of the trial court. The trial court did not base its determination that the prejudice emanating from the other-crimes evidence unavoidably outweighed its probative worth on an abstract analysis made in advance of the prosecution’s evidence. It prudently deferred ruling on admissibility until provided the opportunity to consider the evidence of the prosecution at the conclusion of its case; it is in that context that the court found that admission would unduly prejudice the jury against defendant. The court felt that “because of the circumstances of this case” — referring to the nature of the prior offenses and the fact that this was a prosecution for aggravated sexual assault and murder — the jury would be unable to follow an instruction that the evidence could be considered to determine only the degree of homicide perpetrated by the defendant.
Because of its familiarity with the progress of the trial, the nature and quality of the prosecution’s evidence, the feel of the *505courtroom, and sense of the jury’s impression of the defendant, the trial court’s opinion as to the impact of a particular piece of evidence should be given great weight in the retrospective harmless error analysis undertaken by a reviewing court. That is especially so when it is the decision of the trial court to keep certain evidence from the jury, although a decision to admit certain evidence is also entitled to broad deference under the abuse of discretion standard. See State v. Carter, 91 N.J. 86, 106, 449 A.2d 1280 (1982) (“On appellate review, the decision of the trial court must stand unless it can be shown that the trial court palpably abused its discretion, that is, that its finding was so wide of the mark that a manifest denial of justice resulted.”). This asymmetrical proposition is borne out by the empirical fact that it is the rare case in which an appellate court orders the admission of evidence over the objection of the trial court. See Richard J. Biunno, New Jersey Rules of Evidence, comments on N.J.R.E. 403 (1995). It is much less rare for a reviewing court to reverse a trial court’s decision to admit such “double-edged” other crime evidence.
Clearly relevant to the determination of whether an erroneous admission of other-crimes evidence is harmless is the other evidence before the jury on the issue for which the evidence was wrongfully admitted. Here, the appellate court in its initial interlocutory ruling ordered the admission of the other-crimes evidence on the ground that it could be used to determine the type and degree of homicide committed by defendant. That, to repeat, has only to do with the logical relevance of the evidence, and that ruling, we all agree, was error. An analysis as to whether it was harmless error cannot, however, look to overwhelming evidence of guilt, that is, the commission of the homicidal act; rather, the analysis should focus on whether there was overwhelming evidence of defendant’s intent to commit murder — the issue for which the erroneously admitted evidence was proffered. It is therefore inappropriate for the majority to point to the overwhelming evidence that the prosecution “got the right man,” such as the jailhouse statement and circumstantial evidence, such as the *506similar groove pattern of the tire tracks left at the scene, and the debris recovered from the defendant’s vehicle.
The court charged the jury on both manslaughter and purposeful murder, and thus the defendant’s intent to commit murder was a crucial issue in the case. As the majority candidly admits, the record is virtually barren of any indication that this defendant intended to commit murder aside from the other-crimes evidence. See ante at 496, 691 A.2d at 306. In closing, the prosecution argued to the jury that defendant’s intent to kill was evident based on two facts: (1) an interpretation of defendant’s statement to Guy Bishop, and (2) the motive to kill provided by the two prior sexual assault convictions and the fear of going back to prison. Of course, defendant’s statement to Guy Bishop — that the victim died during rough sex — in and of itself would support only a manslaughter conviction. Indeed, it supports defendant’s position that the victim’s death was not purposeful. The prosecution, however, argued that the testimony of Guy Bishop was an attempt by defendant to minimize his intentional act. The prosecution’s main argument on this issue derived from its motive theory:
Well, now you know what the motive is, ladies and gentlemen. Now, you [know] why he had to Mil her. If he didn’t silence her, he was going to be put in jail right away and he was going to get more time. He had just pled guilty to a sexual assault, a rape. That’s what a sexual assault is — on August 25,1988. He had been released ROR (on his own recognizance) which meant that he had to be good and if he — he raped her, but he couldn’t let her live, because if he had let her live, she would go to the police and what that would mean is that he would get back in jail, and he would get more time than what he had been told he would get---- So he couldn’t let her live. He had to silence her. That’s why, ladies and gentlemen, he killed [F. C]____that is his motive for Mlling her.
In light of the fact that this jury had a choice between convicting defendant of either purposeful murder or reckless manslaughter, the record inescapably raises the real possibility that the erroneous admission of the other-crimes evidence “led the jury to reach a result that it otherwise might not have reached.” Bankston, supra, 63 N.J. at 273, 307 A.2d 65.
Also relevant to the harmless-error inquiry are the instructions provided to the jury. At first it may seem somewhat counter-*507intuitive to think that an instruction appropriate to a situation where the evidence is properly before the jury could operate to “save” a conviction from the taint of erroneously admitted evidence. The problem may be more acute, however, where the ground for exclusion is that the evidence was not relevant to prove a material issue in the case. After all, it is difficult to comprehend how a trial court would go about instructing the jury on how to handle properly a piece of evidence not relevant to any issue in the case. In this case, however, the ground for exclusion was the trial court’s sense that the evidence was too unduly prejudicial to be safely before the jury. We have recognized that other-crimes evidence is almost always prejudicial. State v. G.S., 145 N.J. 460, 468, 678 A.2d 1092 (1996). Any finding that prejudice does not substantially outweigh probative worth necessarily is dependent on correct and effective jury instructions that will guarantee that the balance struck by the court in determining admissibility will be maintained by the jury in its assessment of that evidence. Consequently, the role of the instruction becomes even more critical and determinative in the retrospective harmless-error inquiry. That inquiry demands an examination of the adequacy and efficacy of the instruction in the context of the entire case.3 It is a flaw in the majority’s analysis, therefore, that it fails to consider the concededly inadequate jury instruction as a part of and within its analysis of whether the admission of the other-crimes evidence itself was harmless error. Only by performing a logically artificial “bifurcation” of the analysis — and then subjecting its treatment of the jury instruction to the more demanding “plain error” stan*508dard — can the majority purport to claim that the error in the use of the other-crimes evidence was harmless.
Ill
On many occasions this Court has emphasized the critical importance of a sound instruction to guide the jury’s use of inherently prejudicial other-crimes evidence. See, e.g., State v. Oliver, 133 N.J. 141, 627 A.2d 144 (1993) (holding that other crimes evidence was properly before jury but finding charge inadequate to properly guide jury’s use of that evidence); Cofield, supra, 127 N.J. 328, 605 A.2d 230 (reversing conviction because the charge failed to narrowly focus jury’s attention on the specific permissible uses of the properly admitted other crimes evidence); Stevens, supra, 115 N.J. at 304, 558 A.2d 833 (finding instruction on properly admitted other crimes evidence wanting, although not reversible error, and stating that “... a limiting instruction addressed to the use of the other-crime evidence admitted under Rule 55 should be formulated carefully to explain precisely the permitted and prohibited purposes of the evidence, with sufficient reference to the factual context of the case to enable the jury to comprehend and appreciate the fine distinction to which it is required to adhere”); see also G.S., supra, 145 N.J. 460, 678 A.2d 1092 (emphasizing necessity of detailed and comprehensive limiting instruction in cases involving other crimes evidence).
As noted by the majority, ante at 496, 691 A.2d at 306, “incorrect instructions of law are poor candidates for rehabilitation under the harmless error theory.” State v. Wilson, 128 N.J. 233, 241, 607 A.2d 1289 (1992) (quoting State v. Weeks, 107 N.J. 396, 410, 526 A.2d 1077 (1987). This is especially so when the incorrect instructions relate to how the jury is to handle evidence that poses “special dangers” of improper influence. G.S., supra, 145 N.J. at 469, 678 A.2d 1092; see also Stevens, supra, 115 N.J. at 309, 558 A.2d 833 (“The inherently prejudicial nature of such evidence casts doubt on a jury’s ability to follow even the most precise limiting instruction.”); Cofield, supra, 127 N.J. at 343, 605 A.2d 230 (Stein, *509J., concurring) (questioning efficacy of even perfect limiting instruction in some other crimes cases). I would place an extraordinarily heavy burden on the State to justify a conviction obtained in a case where an insufficient limiting instruction relates to such inflammatory evidence. A good example of a case in which the conviction was sustainable despite an insufficient instruction is G.S., supra, 145 N.J. 460, 678 A.2d 1092. There, we found the charge to be insufficient because it failed to focus properly the jury’s attention on the specific permissible uses of the other crimes evidence; the charge did, however, specifically warn — on three separate occasions — against the forbidden inference that defendant was a bad person or predisposed to commit the charged offense. Because the charge in G.S. “successfully delivered the essential point,” id. at 474, 678 A.2d 1092, we were able to find that the insufficient charge did not amount to plain error. See also Stevens, supra, 115 N.J. 289, 558 A.2d 833 (finding that insufficient charge, which failed to properly identify the permissible uses of the other-crimes evidence, was harmless error because it contained several admonitions against the forbidden inference). Even a specific direction to not consider other-crimes evidence for purposes of predisposition might not be enough to save an otherwise insufficient instruction. See Cofield, supra, 127 N.J. 328, 605 A.2d 230 (holding reversible error where, although charge informed jury it could not use other-crimes evidence to show defendant’s predisposition to commit charged offense, it did not sufficiently inform jury as to specific purposes for which evidence could be used).
IV
The message of our prior decisions is that even where other-crimes evidence is properly before the jury, a near-perfect instruction is essential. In those rare cases where we have found an insufficient instruction to be harmless error or an otherwise inappropriate ground for reversal, it has been because the charge thoroughly emphasized the “negative side” of the ideal instruction: *510that the jury could not use the evidence as indicative of defendant’s bad character or criminal predisposition. See, e.g., G.S., supra, 145 N.J. 460, 678 A.2d 1092; Stevens, supra, 115 N.J. 289, 558 A.2d 883. This is sensible because such an inference is the primary threat to defendant’s fair trial right whenever other crimes evidence is before the jury. In this case, however, the instruction did little to convey “the essential point” of the ideal instruction; the court merely told the jury that it could not use the other crimes evidence “on any of the charges that have been presented by the State with the exception of the homicide charge.”4 Cf. Cofield, supra, 127 N.J. 328, 605 A.2d 230 (finding reversible error where charge informed jury that other crimes evidence could only be considered for “some other fact in issue”).
Disregarding the standard that has evolved from our prior decisions, the majority views the instruction provided in this case as falling somewhere between the approved instruction provided in Cusick and the insufficient instruction rejected in Oliver. It is totally inappropriate to view our prior decisions as creating such a legal limbo; rather, our decisions create a threshold beyond which no instruction may traverse. These decisions could not be more emphatic in underscoring the necessity for clear and express instructions to foreclose the misuse of other-crimes evidence. It is, therefore, sophistic and disingenuous for this Court to fob off the absence of clear and express statements in these instructions by saying that they “implicitly told the jury not to use the other crimes evidence for propensity.” Ante at 496, 691 A.2d at 306. That ruling is both a departure from and an unfortunate obfuscation of the firm lesson established by our prior decisions on this issue.
*511VI
At the conclusion of its opinion, the majority states that all of the errors committed with regard to this trial are either harmless or not plain error because there was overwhelming evidence of defendant’s “guilt.” See ante at 496, 691 A.2d at 806. Although likely guilty of some crime, defendant surely was entitled to a fair trial to determine the actual extent of his legal responsibility.
The only inquiry this Court should undertake is whether the several conceded trial and appellate errors had the capacity to lead the jury to reach a result it otherwise might not have reached. Surely it did. An aggravated manslaughter conviction was a distinct possibility in this case. The majority answers the wrong question when it concludes that the appellate order was harmless error essentially because the trial court would not have abused its discretion had it decided to admit the evidence. The fact is that the trial court did not abuse its discretion to exclude the evidence. The majority exacerbates its error when it skews the law to support its conclusion that the instruction in this case was not in and of itself reversible error.
The various trial and appellate errors that occurred in this case unquestionably denied defendant of his right to a fair trial. I cannot join in the opinion of the Court that disregards that denial.
I dissent.
For affirmance — Chief Justice PORITZ, and Justices POLLOCK, O’HEARN, GARIBALDI, STEIN and COLEMAN— 6.
Dissenting — Justice HANDLER — 1.

 Defendant had actually been charged in two separate prior sexual assault incidents, but pled guilty to one in exchange for which the prosecutor agreed to drop all charges related to the other incident.

 The court also left open the possibility that the other crimes evidence might be relevant to demonstrate intent to commit the charged offense of aggravated sexual assault.

 It is unclear, though, whether even an ideal instruction could by itself render harmless the erroneous admission of other crimes evidence in a case such as this. When a trial court takes the relatively extraordinary step of excluding relevant evidence on the ground that it is too prejudicial, the court presumably does so on the assumption that it plans to provide a comprehensive and detailed instruction. When the person most familiar with the trial itself concludes, on this assumption, that even an ideal instruction would not sufficiently protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial, I am hard pressed to see how an appellate court could reach a contrary conclusion in hindsight.

 The only elaboration on the "negative” side of the other crimes instruction was a recital of those non-homicide charges for the jury: “So that, ladies and gentlemen, my instructions to you are that you may not use that evidence in your considerations for any purpose in connection with your considerations of the charges of kidnapping or aggravated sexual assault____”