Court Opinion

ID: 9638645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:49:31.042881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:07.542143
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring.
The Court reverses the capital-murder conviction and death sentence of defendant, Walter Oglesby. It bases its reversal of the conviction primarily on the mishandling of the diminished-capacity defense. Ante at 528-532, 585 A.2d at 919-921. It reverses the death sentence because the trial court charge during the penalty phase, most notably that involving the c(4)(e) aggravating factor, was seriously flawed. Ante at 532-534, 585 A.2d at 921-922.
I concur in those reasons for the reversals. The Court discusses other issues only briefly, i.e., defendant’s right to remain silent and right to counsel, the failure to charge manslaughter, and penalty-phase instructions. Ante at 534-537, 585 A.2d at 922-924. Although I do not entirely subscribe to the Court’s analysis and disposition of those issues, I see no need to elaborate on my differences except as they implicate another, more significant issue, namely, effective assistance of counsel. Nor do I find it necessary to explain further any differences that I may have with the Court with respect to the constitutionality of the capital-murder law, or to assert again grounds that, in my view, invalidate the capital-murder law. See, e.g., State v. Di Frisco, 118 N.J. 253, 284, 571 A.2d 914 (1990) (Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Nevertheless, the Court ignores one issue in particular, defendant’s constitutional entitlement to effective assistance of counsel. Ante at 534, 585 A.2d at 922. That issue deserves attention.
Defense counsel was a single practitioner, without any experience in capital cases and without any aid or resources to bolster him in his representation. The record discloses many serious shortcomings in the trial, many of them attributable to the performance of defense counsel. For example, defense *538counsel failed to assure an adequate voir dire of the jury or, at best, acquiesced in a voir dire that was only minimally adequate. In addition, counsel failed to object at trial to the prosecutor’s repeated and extensive references to defendant’s exercise of his Miranda rights as constituting evidence of his sanity. Defense counsel also failed to request that the lesser-included offenses of reckless and passion/provocation manslaughter be submitted to the jury. Indeed, in large part because of counsel’s problematic performance, twenty-one out of twenty-two issues on appeal were not raised below.
The case thus poses the question whether defense counsel’s performance was so deficient as to justify a reversal of the capital-murder conviction and death sentence. That, in turn, requires us to address and, I submit, reexamine our current rule governing effective assistance of counsel in capital-murder prosecutions.
The current rule originated with Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2A 674 (1984). Strickland announced a two-pronged test, which we adopted with slight modification in State v. Fritz, 105 N.J. 42, 519 A.2d 336 (1987). We have since decided that that test is to be applied to capital-murder cases. State v. Davis, 116 N.J. 341, 561 A.2d 1082 (1989). The test requires, first, that the defendant establish that counsel’s performance was deficient as measured by an objective standard of reasonableness under “prevailing professional norms.” Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 690, 104 S.Ct. at 2066, 80 L.Ed.2d at 695. The defendant must overcome a presumption that counsel engaged in “the exercise of reasonable professional judgment.” Ibid. Second, the defendant must, in the majority of circumstances, show that he or she was prejudiced by counsel’s errors and that, “but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d at 698.
*539The test is one that is likely to demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel in only the most egregious cases. Thus, in State v. Savage, 120 N.J. 594, 577 A.2d 455 (1990), the Court concluded that the defendant had not received effective assistance of counsel. However, there the defense attorney met with his client only once, failed to explore or present an insanity defense under circumstances clearly indicating the plausibility of such a defense, and even introduced evidence that prejudiced his client. Here, the circumstances surrounding counsel’s performance are not nearly as extreme as those in Savage. Defendant’s attorney met with his client, prepared an insanity defense, and presented an expert witness to attest to his client’s insanity. Nevertheless, trial counsel committed professional errors that, when taken together, present a picture of an attorney ill-prepared to handle the defense of a capital-murder prosecution, perhaps overwhelmed with the task of representing a client who had hacked and stabbed his lover and left her to bleed to death.
In State v. Davis, supra, the Court found that counsel’s good intentions and conscientious efforts on behalf of his client were sufficient to establish reasonable competence. 116 N.J. at 359-60, 561 A.2d 1082. Counsel in this case obviously was conscientious in his representation of defendant. He continued to represent defendant even after his health faltered and after defendant had run out of funds to pay him. In addition, even if the attorney was ineffective, it is arguable that the outcome at trial would not have been different had defendant had ordinarily-competent counsel. As in Davis, however, such an analysis does not come close to dealing with the standards defining counsel’s professional responsibilities, let alone the level of competence that should be brought to bear when a client’s life is at stake. State v. Davis, supra, 116 N.J. at 402-03, 561 A.2d 1082 (Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
It may be assumed that the Court remains confident that the standard endorsed in Davis will assure the levels of professional representation demanded in capital proceedings. That confi*540denee is ill-founded. Certainly the professional challenges in this case differed fundamentally from those presented in an ordinary criminal case. The task confronting counsel involved numerous complexities, substantive and procedural, that are posed in virtually all death-penalty trials. Such complexities attend the indictment, pretrial events, and jury selection, and continue through two sequential trials that have distinctively different functions, yet are predicated on overlapping evidence. As in Savage, in this case counsel’s inexperience and ineptitude with respect to the nuances of capital litigation are obvious. See State v. Savage, supra, 120 N.J. at 645, 577 A.2d 455 (Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The several glaring instances of incompetence here can be attributed in great part to counsel trying the case without any experience, special training, or focused preparation in the defense of capital cases, and without additional resources vital to the defense of a defendant charged with capital murder. Overall, counsel’s trial performance fell well below that which would have been achieved by a highly skilled, experienced attorney with established expertise in capital trials.
The attorney here failed to file a single pretrial motion challenging any aspect of New Jersey’s capital sentencing statute, even though defendant’s trial predated this Court’s validation of the State’s death-penalty statute in Ramseur and State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 524 A.2d 130 (1987). Especially in light of the fact that so many aspects of the statute have been successfully attacked, it is astonishing that counsel raised no objection on behalf of his client challenging in any respect the constitutionality and validity of the death-penalty statute.
Further, counsel’s professional representation in the course of jury qualification was grossly inadequate. Counsel did not submit questions for inclusion in the jury questionnaire. He failed to ask follow-up questions during voir dire concerning jurors’ views on the death penalty or on psychiatry. See State *541v. Moore, 122 N.J. 420, 454, 585 A.2d 864, 881 (1991) (voir dire “should screen out prospective jurors who [cannot] consider an insanity defense due to their prejudices or biases against it”). With respect to the qualification of individual jurors, counsel failed to make any motions except one, namely, a mistrial motion made after the jury had been chosen and based generally on the inadequacy of the death-qualifying process. Moreover, counsel displayed a grave misunderstanding of the principles governing the death-qualification of jurors. He thus asked that jury panels be pre-screened on the issue of the death penalty to produce a jury composed of 50% of persons who were in favor and 50% who were against the death penalty.1 Counsel’s view of impartiality was not premised on each juror being open-minded about whether to impose the death penalty and capable of following the law. Thus, because of his misunderstanding of the requirements for death qualification, counsel failed to object to jurors favoring the death penalty, with only a word to the prosecutor that when it came time to qualify a juror who stood against the death penalty, then the prosecutor should show him the same deference. Counsel even appeared hostile when the State asked follow up questions regarding jurors’ ability to impose the death penalty, apparently out of *542fear that the jurors would then feel pressed to impose the death penalty.
One cannot infer that counsel simply sought to prevent juror over-exposure to the death-penalty issue. Counsel may not waive death-qualification when defending a capital defendant. Compare State v. Hunt, 115 N.J. 330, 558 A.2d 1259 (1989) (some flexibility allowed counsel in death-qualification as long as ultimate jury qualification can be fairly determined). As noted, counsel here was singularly inept during the voir dire.
Jury impartiality is indispensable in capital cases. Turner v. Murray, 476 US. 28, 33-34, 106 S.Ct. 1683, 1686-1687, 90 L.Ed.2d 27, 35 (1986) (in capital cases the jury has broad discretion during the penalty phase, and the risk of improper sentencing is specially serious); State v. Williams II, 113 N.J. 393, 445, 550 A.2d 1172 (1988) (“No matter how convinced we may be of defendant’s guilt, unless we are similarly convinced of the jury’s impartiality, we cannot allow the death penalty to be imposed.”); State v. Williams I, 93 N.J. 39, 60-61, 459 A.2d 641 (1983) (“the right of defendant to be tried by an impartial jury is of exceptional significance in cases in which the defendant faces death”). That impartiality requires thorough, comprehensive, and searching voir dire. See Williams II, supra, 113 N.J. at 409-10, 550 A.2d 1172. I do not believe the voir dire process met constitutional standards.
Defense counsel’s lack of competence appears in other aspects of the trial. Counsel failed to object when the State elicited testimony regarding defendant’s exercise of his Miranda rights. In Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284, 106 S.Ct. 634, 88 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the State could not use the fact that the defendant exercised his right to counsel and to remain silent after having been apprised of his Miranda rights in order to prove at trial that the defendant was sane or even to impeach the defendant’s testimony. In this case the prosecutor repeatedly commented on defendant’s request for counsel and his exercise of the right to *543remain silent as evidence of defendant’s sanity. Because defense counsel did not object to those references, the trial court issued no curative instructions to the jury.
Moreover, it appears that defense counsel failed to prepare defendant’s psychologist adequately for trial. As a result, the witness appeared ignorant of the diminished-capacity statute and equivocated in his testimony. Nor did counsel request that the lesser-included offenses of manslaughter be charged to the jury. Additionally, counsel did not object to the trial court’s charge on mitigating factors and on aggravating factor c(4)(c), nor did he request that the trial court tell the jury that its verdict need not be unanimous. Finally, on appeal and after substantial delay, trial defense counsel (who was eventually replaced by public defenders for the appeal) filed an inadequate twenty-two page brief that failed to address all but one of the issues now considered by this Court.
This case points up the patent insufficiency of the standards of professional competence required in a capital-murder prosecution. The basic test or definition of professional competence is that which is “reasonable” in terms of an average attorney or is measured by the “task to be accomplished.” The Court’s definitions do not provide adequate guidance. The unmanageability of the Court’s standard is exemplified by the confusion and incoherence that witness its application. Thus, in this case, counsel’s problematic representation equates with effective assistance of counsel because his level of competence is “average” or “ordinary.” The Court’s loose and permissive application of the test of attorney competence lends substance to Justice Marshall’s objection to that performance standard: “[the standard] is so malleable that, in practice, it will either have no grip at all or will yield excessive variation in the manner in which the Sixth Amendment is interpreted and applied____ To tell lawyers and the lower courts that counsel for a criminal defendant must behave ‘reasonably’ and must act like ‘a reasonably competent attorney’ ... is to tell them almost nothing.” Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 707-08, 104 S.Ct. at *5442074-75, 80 L.Ed.2d at 706 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (citations omitted).
More importantly, the Court’s standard for assessing attorney competence does not assure a sufficiently high level of attorney performance in the defense of a capital-murder prosecution. I believe the special considerations present in capital cases demand specialized competence on the part of counsel. Counsel in these cases must provide competence grounded in experience, training, and professional skill that will suffice to provide a defendant with the full measure of all the heightened protections a capital-murder prosecution engenders. State v. Davis, supra, 116 N.J. at 402, 561 A.2d 1082 (Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The level of competence sufficient for general criminal defense work cannot satisfy the heightened fair-trial standards that apply to capital-murder prosecutions. Capital counsel must be held to an exacting standard of competence. State v. Savage, supra, 120 N.J. at 644, 577 A.2d 455 (Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The American Bar Association Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases recognizes the distinction between capital and non-capital prosecutions:
The quality of counsel’s “guiding hand” in modern capital cases is crucial. At every stage of a capital case, counsel must be aware of specialized and frequently changing legal principles and rules, and be able to develop strategies applying them in the pressure-filled environment of high-stakes, complex litigation. [Commentary to Guideline 1.1.]
The extraordinary circumstances that magnify the difficulties of capital-murder prosecutions reasonably require, according to the ABA, no fewer than two highly-qualified attorneys be appointed to represent each capital defendant. Commentary to Guideline 2.1. Id. at 646, 577 A.2d 455. This is consistent with the policy of the New Jersey Public Defenders, who assign two attorneys to each capital defendant to assure adequate representation.
The substantial and numerous differences between capital and non-capital criminal prosecutions compel, as a matter of state constitutional law, the adoption of an enhanced standard *545by which to measure the competence of counsel and the degree of prejudice sufficient to find a violation of the right to such assistance. In considering an enhanced standard by which to measure the performance of counsel and to determine whether such assistance is effective, we should recognize that counsel representing a defendant in a capital-murder prosecution must have more than average ability and skill in advocacy to apply in the defense of his client. Such aptitude must include special knowledge, expertise, training, and experience, not simply the skills of an average practitioner. In a given case, attorney competence must encompass careful and thorough preparation. Further, it cannot be overstressed that the demands placed on trial attorneys during a sentencing phase are unique; defense counsel must present to the jury a portrait of the defendant demonstrating his or her worthiness to remain alive. The crafting of such a humanizing presentation requires consultation between counsel and a defendant and exhaustive investigation in order to prepare a psychological defense. See Burger v. Kemp, 483 U.S. 776, 810, 107 S.Ct. 3114, 3134, 97 L.Ed.2d 638, 667, 671 (1987) (Blackmun, J., dissenting); Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 717-18, 104 S.Ct. at 2080-81, 80 L.Ed.2d at 712-13 (Marshall, J., dissenting); see also Goodpaster, “The Trial for Life: Effective Assistance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases,” 58 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 299 (1983). In light of such demands, the Court can ill-afford to dismiss casually the problem of assessing attorney performance.
In sum, the profound and material differences between capital and non-capital criminal prosecutions demand, as a matter of state constitutional law, the adoption of an enhanced standard by which to measure the competence of counsel and the degree of prejudice sufficient to find a violation of the right to such assistance. That enhanced level of performance was not achieved in this case. It greatly exceeds that which suffices for an average attorney. Defendant did not have effective assistance of counsel.
*546Concurring in result — Justice HANDLER.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 6.
For affirmance — None.

 The motion produced this exchange:
[COUNSEL]: I feel that the [death qualifying] system is defective in that the juror should be death-qualified in terms of their views on the death penalty prior to even coming in here, so that a panel could be generated that would have an equal number of people that are in favor of the death penalty and opposed, and that is the basis of my objection.
THE COURT: Well, how would one do that?
[COUNSEL]: How would one do that Judge, would be that if a capital case is going to be tried, then when the daily list of the jurors are made up, prior to the actual bringing in the panel to the courtroom, there should be some way that we would be able to ascertain their views on the death penalty, either by boxes they are in favor, opposed, or whatever ...
THE COURT: So you are saying the Constitution requires that if there is a panel of 50, you should have 25 in favor of the death penalty and 25 against the death penalty? ... I don't know of any authority for that proposition.