Court Opinion

ID: 9735239
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:06:33.024831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:38.864878
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
I join in Justice Stein’s dissent. Because part of the debate on the accuracy of the trial court’s charge seems to have ripened into a disagreement on, of all things, correct grammar, I write separately only to take up the cudgels in defense of linguistic hygiene. See Pico v. State, 116 N.J. 55, 64, 560 A.2d 1193 (1989) (concurring opinion). I hasten to add that I approach the task with but the slenderest of credentials, particularly in the face of the sophisticated analyses spun out in my colleagues’ opinions. My own primitive frame of reference is limited pretty much to what I learned around 1935-36 from Miss Doane in the sixth grade at Franklin School No. 3, Passaic, New Jersey. Miss Doane was not one to brook sloppy grammar.
The “grammar” issue originates in the following passage from the trial court’s jury charge on passion/provocation manslaughter:
[I]f you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly or purposely caused the victim’s death, but you have a reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant did so in the heat of passion upon a reasonable provocation, then you should find the defendant guilty of manslaughter. (Emphasis added).
Justice Stein’s dissent argues that among the shortcomings in the foregoing passage is the absence of “not” in the specification of what the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt before the jury can find a defendant guilty of murder, namely, that the defendant did not knowingly or purposely cause the victim’s death in the heat of passion on a reasonable provocation. Put differently, the offending passage misstates the subject on which the “reasonable doubt” focuses: whether the defendant did kill in the heat of passion, as contrasted with whether he did not kill in the heat of passion. The propositions are not at all the same, and the *339Court does violence to both the law and the English language in suggesting, ante at 325-326, 639 A.2d at 1103-1104, that they are.
When the evidence would permit a jury to find a defendant guilty of passion/provocation manslaughter as well as of knowing or purposeful murder, the State can gain a murder conviction only by persuading the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not kill in the heat of passion on reasonable provocation. The State’s burden is to prove a negative. If the jury has a reasonable doubt that the State has proven that negative—that is, that the defendant did not Mil in the heat of passion—then the jury should return a passion/provocation manslaughter verdict. In effect, the State “backs into” a passion/provocation manslaughter conviction by its failure to carry its burden to prove murder.
A trial court simply cannot convey to a jury the State’s burden as stated above through an instruction that defines the subject on which it may entertain a reasonable doubt in terms of, as in tMs case, whether the defendant did knowingly or purposely kill in the heat of passion. Nor, in the Court’s transposition of the charge, in terms of “whether or not” defendant did Mil in the heat of passion. Assuming, as the Court does, ante at 325-326, 639 A.2d at 1103-1104, that “‘whether’ would encompass the statement that the dissent would prefer” (emphasis added), it also unfortunately—and fatally—“encompasses” the entirely inaccurate instruction that plainly misstates the nature of the State’s burden. And in putting that burden up for grabs, the charge runs the risk of creating the impression that the defendant must carry the burden of proving that he did Mil in the heat of passion. We should not dispose of those concerns with the breezy—and to me (to Miss Doane, too, I will wager) almost incomprehensible—declaration, ante at 326, 639 A.2d at 1104, that “the instructions * * * left the jury with the overall impression that the State’s overriding burden to prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt would encompass the absence of passion/provocation as a constituent aspect of the element of purposeful/knowing murder.”
*340Part of the problem in the charge in this case inheres in the trial court’s resort to the expression “as to whether.” “As to,” as Miss Doane taught me years ago, and as confirmed by my later exploration of Fowler, “is usually either a slovenly substitute for some simple preposition,” including “of,” “about,” “on,” or “concerning,” or it is “entirely otiose.” F.W. Fowler, Fowler’s Modem English Usage 36-37 (Sir Ernest Gowers 2d ed. 1985). Fowler continues:
As might be expected, those who put their trust in a phrase that is usually either vague or otiose are constantly betrayed by it into positive bad grammar * * *. The popular favourites: The question as to whether, The doubt as to whether, may almost be included among the ungrammatical developments, since the doubt or question demands an indirect question in simple apposition (The question whether, The doubt whether); in such forms as Doubts are expressed as to whether, the “as to” is not incorrect, but merely repulsive.
[Id at 37.]
The uncertainties posed by the clumsy “as to whether” language are obviated by the use of Justice Stein’s simpler, more direct formulation of the charge, ante at 334-335, 639 A.2d at 1108, which is faithful to the law and respectful of the English language, namely:
Correctly stated, the concluding phrase of the second paragraph should have read “but you have a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not do so in the heat of passion on a reasonable provocation, then you should find the defendant guilty of manslaughter.” (First emphasis added).
The foregoing is consistent as well with the Model Jury Charge that was in effect when this case was tried. That model charge reads in pertinent part:
[To gain a murder conviction] the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt * * * that the defendant did not act in the heat of passion resulting from a reasonable provocation.
**#***}{«*
If you determine that the State has disproved beyond a reasonable doubt that there was adequate provocation or that the provocation actually impassioned the defendant or that the defendant did not have a reasonable time to cool off or that the defendant did not actually cool off, and, in addition to disproving one of those four factors, you determine that the State has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant purposely or knowingly caused death or serious bodily injury resulting in death, you must find the defendant guilty of murder.
*341If, on the other hand, you determine that the State has not disproven at least one of the factors of passion/provocation manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt, but that the State has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant purposely or knowingly caused death or serious bodily injury resulting in death, then you must find him/her guilty of passion/provocation manslaughter.
[Model Jury Charges (Criminal), Murder, Passion/Provocation and Aggravated/Reckless Manslaughter (June 24, 1991).]
Had the trial court simply resorted to the model charge, it would have avoided error.
Finally, when the difference between precision in speech and what is at best ambiguous terminology becomes the difference between, on the one hand, a term of between five and ten years with a maximum parole disqualifier of five years and, on the other hand, thirty years without parole eligibility, we should not tolerate slovenly expression.
Miss Doane would flunk the majority.
For affirmance—Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, O’HERN and GARIBALDI—4.
For reversal—Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK and STEIN—3.