Court Opinion

ID: 9629475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:43:21.75754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:19.890348
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The Court holds that defendant’s oral confession was illegally coerced, that his subsequent taped confession, other statements to police and consent to search are tainted fruits of that illegality, and that this evidence was material to defendant’s prosecution, thereby necessitating reversal of the convictions. Ante at 268, 576 A.2d at 837. I concur in that judgment. Further, I base my concurrence on constitutional grounds that render invalid the capital-murder statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3.
I dissent, however, from the Court’s judgment that aggravating factor N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c) may be re-presented at a subsequent penalty phase with respect to the murder of Alice Sharp. Ante at 301, 576 A.2d at 854. Beyond my previously-expressed estimation that N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c) is constitutionally infirm, see State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 394-404, 524 A.2d 188 (1987) (Handler, J., dissenting), I believe that the State proffered insufficient evidence on the c(4)(c) factor at the penalty hearing in this case and that double jeopardy and fundamental fairness principles therefore preclude the State from at*303tempting to re-establish the factor with previously undiscovered or undisclosed evidence. State v. Biegenwald, 110 N.J. 521, 542, 542 A.2d 442 (1988); State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 51, 524 A.2d 130 (1987).
In order to establish aggravated battery/torture, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant intended to cause, and did in fact cause, gratuitous suffering in addition to the death of the victim. See State v. McDougald, 120 N.J. 523, 584, 577 A.2d 419, 450 (1990) (Handler, J., dissenting). Here the State introduced evidence that the victims caught defendant in the act of burglarizing their home and that he then killed them to prevent detection and prosecution for that crime. Defendant’s various statements to friends and police describe his efforts to kill Alice Sharp, first with a gun and then with a fireplace poker as she tried to escape. There was no evidence that defendant intended to cause Alice Sharp severe physical or mental suffering in addition to death, the precise supplementary intent that makes a killing more condemnable and therefore the subject of an aggravating factor. Accordingly, I would bar the State from advancing N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c) in the event defendant is re-convicted of the capital murder of Alice Sharp.
HANDLER, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.
For reversal and remandment—Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN—6.
Opposed—None.