Court Opinion

ID: 9862595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:23:48.07489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:01.142213
License: Public Domain

POLLOCK, J.,
dissenting.
Because the rule requiring a unanimous verdict of guilt in criminal trials is “fundamental,” doubt about the jury’s consen-, sus strikes at the heart of a defendant’s right to a fair trial. See State v. Reynolds, 41 N.J. 163, 187, 195 A.2d 449 (1963), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 1000, 84 S.Ct. 1930, 12 L.Ed.2d 1050 (1964); State v. Cordasco, 2 N.J. 189, 202, 66 A.2d 27 (1949); R. 1:8-9. I agree with the majority that generally the trial court must give a specific unanimity instruction when confronted with the danger of a fragmented verdict. Ante at 637. I differ, however, with the application of that rule to this case. Consequently, I would reverse defendant’s conviction for official misconduct and remand for retrial on that charge.
For several years before the present incident, defendant, Ruth Parker, had taught perceptually-impaired nine- to eleven-year-old students in North Bergen. On February 19, 1986, in response to a parental complaint, two school administrators searched Parker’s classroom. In her closet, the two administrators found a bottle of rum and an envelope containing several pornographic magazines. The principal suspended Parker and interviewed her students. During these interviews and before the grand jury, the students recounted incidents in which Parker had solicited certain students to bring liquor and pornographic magazines from their homes, had instructed students to make collages and drawings from the pornography, had participated in the pornographic artwork, had cursed at students, had *643enclosed students in cardboard boxes or made them write words or phrases one hundred times when they misbehaved, had changed students’ answers on tests and homework, had told the class when a student was menstruating, had told students that she wanted to sleep with the school principal, and had told students that the art teacher was a drug addict and that the gym teacher was a lesbian.
A Somerset County grand jury indicted Parker, charging her with four counts of sexual assault, one count of attempted sexual assault, five counts of endangering the welfare of children, and one count of official misconduct. On the official misconduct count, the indictment repeated the statutory elements of the crime and stated that Parker had engaged “in a continuing course of conduct which sexually abused, humiliated and otherwise endangered the welfare of children while [she] had a legal duty to care for the children.” Although the indictment contains eleven counts of criminal conduct, it never specifies even the superficial details of that conduct. Except for the counts involving physical sexual abuse, the indictment leaves to speculation how Parker “humiliated” or otherwise “endangered” the welfare of her students. Her attorney neither challenged the indictment nor requested a bill of particulars.
At trial, moreover, without objection from Parker’s attorney, the State elicited from the student witnesses the details of the alleged crimes. Their testimony was problematic. It deviated significantly from their taped interviews and their grand jury testimony. Several of the students who had claimed that Parker had touched them sexually or that they had witnessed Parker touching other students recanted their earlier statements. On cross-examination, many admitted to having lied before the grand jury and to having fabricated parts of their stories. As the Appellate Division noted, the State’s case was “replete with recantation, contradiction, inconsistencies and confusion.”
*644At the close of trial, the jury was faced with a pastiche, of discrete acts, any of which could arguably support convictions for official misconduct and child endangerment. The trial court charged the jury that to convict Parker of official misconduct it must find that (1) she had been a public servant; (2) she had acted with a purpose to gain a benefit; (3) the act had related to her office; (4) the act had been unauthorized or performed in an unauthorized manner; and (5) she had known the act was unauthorized or performed in an unauthorized manner. Although the court instructed the jury on the need for a unanimous verdict, it never explained that the jury must unanimously agree on the conduct constituting the requisite “unauthorized act.” The charge indicated that to convict Parker of official misconduct, the jury need only agree unanimously that Parker had committed some undefined “unauthorized act.” Defense counsel neither objected to the charge nor requested a specific instruction on unanimity.
After deliberating over a period of three days, the jury acquitted Parker of all of the sexual assault charges and could not reach a decision on either the attempted sexual assault charge or the five counts of endangering the welfare of children. It convicted her of official misconduct. The trial court sentenced Parker to five years in prison.
In an unreported decision, the Appellate Division affirmed the conviction, with one judge dissenting. Although Parker did not raise the issue of jury unanimity before the Appellate Division, that issue was the focus of the dissent. The dissent argued that the peculiar circumstances of this case were “the perfect setting for a patchwork verdict.” Finding that the failure to give a specific “unanimity” instruction violated Parker’s right to a unanimous jury, the dissent would have reversed Parker’s conviction. I agree.
I share the majority’s revulsion at the acts charged. Nonetheless, every defendant, even one charged with loathsome offenses, is entitled to a fair trial. The vagueness of the *645indictment, the confusing and contradictory trial testimony, the disturbing nature of the numerous allegations, and the vagueness of the official misconduct statute created a real danger of jury confusion. Parker’s actions, moreover, were not sufficiently similar to constitute one continuing offense. These circumstances lead me to conclude that the trial court committed plain error in not providing a specific charge on unanimity. In sum, the charge deprived defendant of the right to a fair trial.
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As the majority recognizes, trial courts must give specific “unanimity” instructions when a jury is likely to be confused or to render a “fragmented verdict.” Ante at 637. A general charge on unanimity may not suffice “ ‘where the allegations in a single count [of an indictment] are either contradictory or only marginally related to one another * * * or where there is a variance between the indictment and the proof at trial * * * or where there is a tangible indication of jury confusion.’ ” Ante at 636-37 (citing United States v. Ryan, 828 F.2d 1010, 1020 (3d Cir.1987)). Although the Ryan factors offer guidance, the ultimate test is whether a genuine potential for jury confusion existed. Ante at 636; see United States v. Beros, 833 F.2d 455, 460 (3d Cir.1987).
Neither the majority nor I can identify the act or acts that the jury unanimously found Parker had committed. In short, the jury may have convicted Parker without agreeing unanimously on what wrong she had committed. Various considerations suggest that result. For example, the State alleged numerous alternative methods of committing the single crime of official misconduct. See State v. Lomagro, 113 Wis.2d 582, 592, 335 N.W.2d 583, 589 (1983) (right to unanimous verdict implicated when State alleges alternative means of committing one crime). In that context, as the majority correctly notes, a specific “unanimity” instruction is required if the modes are *646“conceptually distinct.” Ante at 634; see United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453, 458 (5th Cir.1977); Lomagro, supra, 113 Wis.2d at 592, 335 N.W.2d at 587. Like the majority, ante at 636, I recognize the analytical limitations of the “conceptual distinction” test, see Schad v. Arizona, — U.S.-,-, 111 S.Ct. 2491, -, 115 L.Ed.2d 555, - (1991). That test, however, is as useful as any other articulation to determine whether a defendant’s trial was fundamentally fair.
The rationale of the “conceptual distinction” test is that in certain cases, separate acts are so similar that they are essentially one continuous act for the purposes of jury unanimity. See United States v. Frazin, 780 F.2d 1461, 1468 (9th Cir.), (no specific instruction required because although government alleged different acts, acts comprised continuing scheme), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 844, 107 S.Ct. 158, 93 L.Ed.2d 98 (1986); Lomagro, supra, 113 Wis.2d at 593, 335 N.W.2d at 590. If the acts share continuity in time, victim, manner, and perpetrator, that the jury mentally separated them and somehow disagreed on which of the different acts defendant had committed is unlikely. Cf. United States v. Payseno, 782 F.2d 832, 836-37 (9th Cir.1986) (specific instruction required because government alleged three alternative acts involving separate victims, occurring at different times and different locations, and using different methods); United States v. Echeverry, 698 F.2d 375, 377, modified, 719 F.2d 974 (9th Cir.1983) (specific instruction necessary when jury mentally separated one conspiracy charged in indictment into two different conspiracies).
The majority agrees with the Attorney General that the acts alleged in the official misconduct charge are not conceptually distinct. Ante at 639. I disagree. As pointed out by the dissent below, “the alleged incidents ranged over fifteen weeks and included conduct of widely varying quality and gravity.” The incidents involved different students, who testified with differing levels of credibility. More importantly, the alleged acts were substantively different, and some of them were more believable than others. The State’s proof involved numerous *647discrete acts falling within wholly different conceptual groupings. Some of the incidents are arguably “conceptually similar” in that they all involved sexual misconduct: the distribution of pornographic magazines, the touching, the discussions of Parker’s and other teachers’ sexual proclivities, and the announcement of a student’s menstrual cycle. In addition to the charges of sexual misconduct, however, the State sought to prove that Parker had punished the class by enclosing them in cardboard and by forcing them to write phrases 100 times, that she had solicited a student to bring liquor to class, that she had changed the answers on certain students’ tests and homework, and that she had cursed at the class. The difference in the acts is obvious. They differ in their nature, seriousness, and motivation. Even if the alleged acts of sexual misconduct were similar, the other acts could not be consolidated for the purposes of jury unanimity.
By consolidating acts that share only a general similarity within the same conceptual grouping, the majority eviscerates the rule requiring unanimity on the underlying act. Its conclusion that the acts alleged “formed a core of conceptually-similar acts relating to the students’ educational relationship with the teacher and her abuse of that relationship,” ante at 638-39, essentially means that juries need agree on only the general elements of the crime, not the underlying acts. Thus, under the majority’s analysis, to convict Parker of official misconduct, the jury need have agreed only that she had committed “unauthorized acts” in her teaching position. Such an analysis renders meaningless the rule requiring unanimity on the underlying act. Essentially, the majority authorizes a jury to convict when it has only a generalized suspicion that the defendant did something bad but cannot agree what the defendant did.
In addition to the myriad of discrete acts alleged by the State, other factors contributed to the potential for jury confusion in this case. The vagueness of the misconduct statute permitted the jury to convict Parker without agreement on the substantive basis for the conviction. That statute does not criminalize *648any specific behavior; rather, it prohibits any intentional “unauthorized” act by a public official acting within the scope of employment. See N.J.S.A. 2C:30-2. It is “necessarily broad” so as to cover a wide variety of misbehavior by public officials. State v. Begyn, 34 N.J. 35, 49, 167 A.2d 161 (1961). In the absence of more specific jury instructions, that breadth creates the risk that a jury may convict a defendant of official misconduct simply because it finds that he or she acted immorally. See State v. Cohen, 32 N.J. 1, 11, 158 A.2d 497 (1960) (Weintraub, C.J., concurring) (broad construction of official misconduct statute would result in tyranny of vagueness); State v. Winne, 12 N.J. 152, 183, 96 A.2d 63 (1953) (Wachenfeld, J., dissenting) (act not crime merely because it is wrong). In this case, the breadth of the statute may have caused the jury to convict Parker based on a vague notion that she had done something immoral. As the dissenting judge below stated, the jury, confronted by a disturbing array of acts, understandably may have been “attracted to a charge that seemed expansive and vague enough to absorb and express the individual doubts each juror had about defendant’s general behavior.”
As the United States Supreme Court recently acknowledged, the notion that “no person may be punished criminally save upon proof of some specific illegal conduct” is “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.” Schad, supra, — U.S. at-, 111 S.Ct. at -, 115 L.Ed.2d-. Schad is a plurality opinion in which the Court held that due process did not require a specific “unanimity” instruction when the state murder statute characterizes premeditated and felony murder as a single crime and the prosecution presents both theories to the jury. Id. at-, 111 S.Ct. at-, 115 L.Ed.2d at-. Writing for the plurality, Justice Souter acknowledged that due process would not permit a crime “so generic that any combination of jury findings of embezzlement, murder, tax evasion or littering would suffice for conviction.” Id. at-, 111 S.Ct. at -, 115 L.Ed.2d at -. On the facts of that case, however, he *649concluded that states could reasonably define felony and premeditated murder as alternative means of committing the single crime of murder. See ibid.
In the present case, the offense of official misconduct is so vague that it conjures up Justice Souter’s generic crime. Ibid. The problem here, however, is not merely the vagueness of the statute, indictment, and jury charge, but also the contradictory nature of the State’s proofs. That combination engendered the genuine possibility that the jury did not agree what “specific illegal conduct,” id. at-, 111 S.Ct. at-, 115 L.Ed.2d at -, Parker had committed. See McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 449 n. 5, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 1237 n. 5, 108 L.Ed.2d 369, 385 n. 5 (1990) (Blackmun, J., concurring) (general requirement that jury need not agree on preliminary factual issues limited by exception requiring substantial agreement on principal factual elements underlying specified offense). The effect was to deprive Parker of her fundamental right to a conviction based on proof of specific illegal acts. See Schad, supra, — U.S. at-, 111 S.Ct. at-, 115 L.Ed.2d at-.
Neither the indictment, the summations, nor the jury charge narrowed the circumstances under which the jury could convict Parker. On the contrary, they contributed to the erroneous notion that the jury need agree only that Parker had committed an unauthorized act relating to her duties as a teacher.
The indictment vaguely alleged that Parker had engaged in a continuing course of conduct that sexually abused, humiliated, and endangered the welfare of her students. The differing verdicts on the several counts suggest that the jury thought that it could choose among the alleged acts. After acquitting defendant of sexual abuse and disagreeing on the other charges, the jury could have concluded that “humiliating” students constituted official misconduct.
Finally, the jury instructions exacerbated the potential for a fragmented verdict. The trial court charged the jury that its verdict must be unanimous. The court informed the jury, *650however, that to convict of official misconduct, it need find only that Parker had committed an “unauthorized act” relating to her position as a public servant. On the second day of its deliberations, the jury asked the trial court to repeat the charge on official misconduct and endangerment. It also asked to see a copy of the official misconduct and endangerment statutes. Parallelling the elements of the broad statute, the supplemental charge, like the original one, served only to reinforce the premise that the jury could convict Parker of official misconduct if it unanimously found that she had “humiliated” her students in some undefined, undescribed way.
Because defense counsel did not object to the charge, the matter arises as one of plain error. The test is whether the error “possessed a clear capacity to bring about an unjust result.” State v. Hock, 54 N.J. 526, 538, 257 A.2d 699, cert. denied, 399 U.S. 930, 90 S.Ct. 2254, 26 L.Ed.2d 797 (1970). Here, the described error had that capacity. The charge directed the jury that to convict Parker of official misconduct, it need not unanimously agree on the act that she had committed. The indictment, the testimony, the jury charge, and the elements of the crime reinforced the error that the jury could convict Parker of official misconduct simply if it believed that she had done some undefined bad acts. Apparently, the despicable nature of the charged conduct impelled the jury towards conviction, but the State’s case was so weak that the jury could not convict defendant of a specific substantive crime. Following the court’s charge, however, the jury may have gravitated toward the generic crime of official misconduct, which enabled them to convict her without agreeing on the basis of that conviction. Under these circumstances, I am constrained to find that Parker was denied her right to a unanimous jury verdict.
Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and remand for a new trial.
CLIFFORD, J., joins in this opinion.
*651For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, O’HERN and GARIBALDI — 4.
For reversal — Justices CLIFFORD and POLLOCK — 2.