Court Opinion

ID: 9925350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-19 15:08:31.063208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:01.781560
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
                               APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
        This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court ." Although it is posted on the
     internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

                                                        SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
                                                        APPELLATE DIVISION
                                                        DOCKET NO. A-2227-22

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

          Plaintiff-Respondent,

v,

LARRY DUKES, a/k/a
LAKEEM DUKES,
LAWRENCE DUKES, LARRY
DUKE, TERRY T. FOWLER,
and TERRY FOWLER,

     Defendant-Appellant.
___________________________

                   Submitted January 9, 2024 – Decided January 19, 2024

                   Before Judges Smith and Perez Friscia.

                   On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law
                   Division, Middlesex County, Indictment No. 17-06-
                   0718.

                   Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for
                   appellant (Frank J. Pugliese, Designated Counsel, on
                   the brief).
            Yolanda Ciccone, Middlesex County Prosecutor,
            attorney for respondent (Nancy Anne Hulett, Assistant
            Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

      Defendant appeals the order denying his petition for post-conviction

relief. After a trial, defendant was convicted on robbery, aggravated assault,

and drug possession charges and was sentenced to an aggregate term of thirty-

four years subject to the No Early Release Act (NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2.

We affirmed on direct appeal, and defendant filed his petition, which the trial

court denied without an evidentiary hearing. Defendant contends the PCR court

erred by rejecting his claims that he was denied ineffective assistance of counsel.

He contends, among other things, trial counsel failed to:        investigate alibi

witnesses; file certain motions; and obtain a plea offer from the State. For the

reasons that follow, we affirm.

                                        I.

      We glean the facts and relevant procedural history in part from our opinion

affirming defendant's conviction and sentence, State v. Dukes, No. A-4668-17

(App. Div. Mar. 26, 2021) (slip op. at 4).

                  During the early morning hours of April 10,
            2017, [the three victims] Rodriguez, Ramos-Sanchez,
            and Paz left a nightclub and headed towards a
            restaurant. A nearby surveillance camera captured

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them on film as they passed by shortly before the
robbery. At trial, Rodriguez identified the man, seen
wearing a hat, walking behind the group almost
immediately after they went out of camera range, as the
person who punched him in the head from behind,
knocking him to the ground. Paz screamed for help,
somehow fell, broke her ankle, and rolled beneath a
parked car. Rodriguez attempted to get up to help her,
but [he] was struck again by the man with a hat, this
time with an object. That blow left a laceration on
Rodriguez's forehead requiring twelve stitches that left
a visible scar shown to the jury. The man with the hat
demanded Rodriguez's money and searched his
pockets.

      ....

      Paz's recollection was that as the group was
walking, someone demanded their money. She thought
the assailants were in front of the group but could not
be certain.

      Ramos-Sanchez said she saw two men approach
from the rear and heard them demand money; she was
sprayed in the face with an irritant. She immediately
ran to an intersecting street, and the men chasing her
turned away. Ramos-Sanchez encountered pedestrians
leaving a bar, who called the police on her behalf. Her
eye remained cloudy after the incident, although she
refused medical attention at the time.

      None of the victims, who had been drinking,
could identify their attackers. Rodriguez remembered
only that the man who struck him in the forehead wore
dark clothes and a cap. He initially thought he was hit
with a gun, but over time became uncertain as to the
nature of the object. Rodriguez and Ramos-Sanchez

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                           3
           were sure there were only two assailants; Paz thought
           there may have been three or four.

                 New Brunswick Police Sergeant Theirry
           Lemmerling obtained the surveillance videos, shown to
           the jury, from two neighborhood stores.                He
           downloaded them onto a flash drive, then transferring
           them to a disc. During trial, all three victims identified
           themselves on the video. The person walking closest to
           the group as it leaves camera range was wearing a hat.
           Lemmerling made still photographs from the video
           footage of the two men walking behind the victims,
           including the man with a hat. A few days later, two
           New Brunswick police officers drove by defendant
           standing at a corner. They had been shown the still
           photograph that morning and knew there was an
           outstanding warrant for his arrest related to the robbery.
           The officers stopped, and when one of them told
           defendant he had an arrest warrant, defendant fled. A
           third officer saw defendant running, saw him discard
           ten glassine envelopes containing heroin and fiorinal
           fentanyl, and caught him. When arrested, defendant
           was carrying a can of pepper spray.

                 At the station, New Brunswick Police
           Department Detective Brandt Gregus questioned
           defendant and showed him the still photo. Defendant
           admitted he was the man wearing a hat walking a few
           paces behind the three victims[,] moments before the
           robbery. That picture was admitted into evidence and
           shown to the jury when Gregus testified.

     Defendant was indicted by a grand jury, and charged, along with a co-

defendant, Ricky Greene, with: three counts of first-degree robbery, N.J.S.A.

2C:15-1; second-degree conspiracy to commit robbery, N.J.S.A. 2C:5-2(a) and

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                                       4
2C:15-1; and two counts of second-degree aggravated assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-

1b(1). Defendant alone was also charged with third-degree possession of heroin,

N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10a(1), and fourth-degree resisting arrest, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-2a(2).

      The State made a joint plea offer to defendants. The proposed agreement

was conditioned upon each defendant pleading guilty. One defendant would

plead guilty to second-degree aggravated assault, with a recommended eight-

year sentence subject to NERA, while the other defendant would plead to

second-degree conspiracy to commit robbery, for which the State would

recommend a sentence in the third-degree range. Co-defendant Greene rejected

the dual plea offer and elected to proceed to trial.

      Defendant continued his plea negotiations, and eventually at a pretrial

conference he advised the court through trial counsel that he did not want to go

to trial and was willing to plead to second-degree aggravated assault in exchange

for a five-year sentence. However, the State indicated that it would agree to

those terms only if defendant agreed to inculpate Greene. Plea negotiations with

defendant ceased, as the State conditioned defendant's plea on getting a plea

from Greene. The following colloquy between the trial court and defendant took

place at a pretrial conference:

            THE COURT: Mr. Dukes, you know what the deal is
            here. I can't force the prosecutor to give you a deal that

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                                         5
he doesn't want to give you. You want – he wants to
give you five years. . . . Mr. Dukes you were present in
court when I spoke to Mr. Greene, you understand
what's at risk here, right? You have priors?

DEFENDANT: Yes.

THE COURT: All right. So you understand what's at
risk here. If you're convicted, conceivably you can go
to prison for the rest of your life, right? The
prosecutor's offering you five years, but he wants you
to inculpate Mr. Greene who's seated right next to you.
Because the prosecutor thinks that he was involved to
the same extent that you were involved in this robbery.
I understand your position is . . . I want the deal, I want
to tell the truth, but the truth is, Mr. Greene wasn't
involved to the same extent that I was involved in,
right?

DEFENDANT: Exactly.

THE COURT: Right. But I can't give you that deal
because the deals don't come from me, the deal comes
from the prosecutor. You understand that? So right
now – and you know what the proofs are in this case,
because the prosecutor just laid it out on the record
when we spoke about Mr. Greene. So all we can do
here is schedule this matter for trial. You have two
choices. We can go to trial, you know what the risks
are. Or you can take the deal, but the deal that the
prosecutor is demanding is that you give up Mr. – you
give up Mr. Greene, you understand that? All right. So
what we're [going to] do is, we're scheduling this for
trial.

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                            6
      After defendant's trial, a jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree

robbery, second-degree conspiracy to commit robbery, two counts of second-

degree aggravated assault, third-degree heroin possession, and resisting arrest.

The court sentenced defendant to an aggregate thirty-four-year term of

incarceration.   We affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence on direct

appeal. Dukes, slip op. at 6-10.

      Defendant petitioned for post-conviction relief, alleging: his ability to

accept a lesser plea was hindered by personal conflict between his trial counsel

and the assistant prosecutor representing the State; his attorney failed to

investigate potential alibi witnesses; and other errors by his trial attorney

amounted to cumulative error contrary to his right to effective assistance of

counsel. Defendant also argued that "inconsistent and questionable" witness

testimony compromised his right to a fair trial.

      The PCR court denied the petition without an evidentiary hearing, making

oral findings. The court rejected defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel

claim, finding the record did not support the theory that a personal dispute

between counsel and the prosecutor caused negotiations to fail. The court also

found defendant presented no facts to support a potential alibi, and that if he

had, any testimony regarding an alibi would have been undermined by

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                                        7
defendant's admission he was at the scene. The court also found that other errors

alleged by defendant, such as failing to file certain pre-trial motions, did not

constitute a prima facie cause of ineffective assistance of counsel, and concluded

there was no cumulative error. Finally, the court determined that certain of

defendant's arguments were inapposite for PCR because they should have been

raised on direct appeal.

      Defendant raises the following points in his appeal:

            POINT I:

            THE PCR COURT ERRED IN FINDING THAT
            DEFENDANT WAS NOT DENIED THE EFFECTIVE
            ASSISTANCE     OF    TRIAL    COUNSEL.
            ALTERNATIVELY, DEFENDANT ESTABLISHED
            A PRIMA FACIE CLAIM OF INEFFECTIVE
            ASSISTANCE OF TRIAL COUNSEL WHICH WAS
            SUPPORTED BY MATERIAL ISSUES OF
            DISPUTED FACTS LYING OUTSIDE THE
            RECORD. THE RESOLUTION OF THE DISPUTED
            FACTS NECESSITATED AN EVIDENTIARY
            HEARING. THE PCR COURT ERRED IN FAILING
            TO CONDUCT SUCH A HEARING.

            POINT II:

            FOR THE REASONS EXPRESSED IN POINT I,
            SUPRA, THE PCR COURT ERRED WHEN IT
            RULED THAT DEFENDANT FAILED TO
            ESTABLISH A PRIMA FACIE CASE OF
            INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF TRIAL COUNSEL.
            THIS ERROR LED IT TO ERRONEOUSLY REJECT
            DEFENDANT'S CLAIM OF CUMULATIVE ERROR.

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                                        8
            POINT III:

            DEFENDANT      WAS     CONVICTED     BY
            INCONSISTENT     AND      QUESTIONABLE
            WITNESSES' TESTIMONIES. BASIC FAIR PLAY
            AND FUNDAMENTAL FAIRNESS REQUIRED
            THAT HE BE GRANTED A NEW TRIAL BY THE
            PCR COURT.

                                 II.

      We use a de novo standard of review when a PCR court denies relief

without an evidentiary hearing. State v. Aburoumi, 464 N.J. Super. 326, 338

(App. Div. 2020); see also State v. Nash, 212 N.J. 518, 540-41 (2013). Our rules

require a court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on a PCR petition, "only upon

the establishment of a prima facie case in support of post-conviction relief." R.

3:22-10(b). "A prima facie case is established when a defendant demonstrates

'a reasonable likelihood that his or her claim, viewing the facts alleged in the

light most favorable to the defendant, will ultimately succeed on the merits.'"

State v. Porter, 216 N.J. 343, 355 (2013) (quoting R. 3:22-10(b)).

      To establish a prima facie claim of ineffective assistance of counsel,

defendant must show: (1) counsel's performance was deficient; and (2) the

deficiency prejudiced the defense. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687; State v. Fritz,

105 N.J. 42, 52 (1987) (adopting Strickland). A successful showing requires

defendant to establish "by a preponderance of the credible evidence" entitlement

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                                       9
to the requested relief. Nash, 212 N.J. at 541 (quoting State v. Preciose, 129

N.J. 451, 459 (1992)).

      To satisfy the first Strickland prong, "a defendant must overcome a 'strong

presumption' that counsel exercised 'reasonable professional judgment' and

'sound trial strategy' in fulfilling [their] responsibilities." State v. Hess, 207 N.J.

123, 147 (2011) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689-90). "[I]f counsel makes

a thorough investigation of the law and facts and considers all likely options,

counsel's trial strategy is 'virtually unchallengeable.'" State v. Chew, 179 N.J.

186, 217 (2004) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91).

      Because prejudice under Strickland's second prong is not presumed, Fritz,

105 N.J. at 52, a defendant must demonstrate "how specific errors of counsel

undermined the reliability" of the proceeding. United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S.

648, 659 n.26 (1984). To establish prejudice, “[t]he defendant must show that

there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the

result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is

a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.”             State v.

Gideon, 244 N.J. 538, 550-51 (2021) (alteration in original) (quoting Strickland,

466 U.S. at 694).

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                                         10
                                       III.

                                       A.

      Defendant argues he did not receive effective assistance of counsel during

plea negotiations. Specifically, he contends that he wanted to accept a plea

offer, but the offer was rescinded because of interpersonal conflict between trial

counsel and the assistant prosecutor. He alleges trial counsel informed him of

this ongoing conflict. Plaintiff posits this issue at least represents a factual

question which justifies an evidentiary hearing. We disagree.

      "A defendant asserting plea counsel's assistance was ineffective may meet

the first prong of the Strickland standard if the defendant can show counsel's

representation fell short of the prevailing standards expected of criminal defense

attorneys." State v. Vanness, 474 N.J. Super. 609, 624 (App. Div. 2023) (citing

Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 366-67 (2010)). "Plea counsel's performance

will not be deemed deficient if counsel has provided the defendant 'correct

information concerning all of the relevant material consequences that flow from

such a plea.'" Id. at 624 (quoting State v. Agathis, 424 N.J. Super. 16, 22 (App.

Div. 2012)); see also Nuñez-Valdez, 200 N.J. 129, 138-39 (2009).

      Defendant fails to establish a prima facie claim for ineffective assistance

of counsel during his plea negotiations. His claim that his plea was rescinded

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                                       11
due to personal issues between the lawyers is not borne out in the record. Even

accepting defendant's claims about conflict as true, the record shows defendant's

predicament was entirely attributable to either Greene's refusal to plead or his

refusal to testify against Greene.

      The colloquy at his plea hearing shows defendant clearly understood the

requirements of the proposed plea agreement and the potential ramifications of

going to trial. His decision to proceed to trial was knowing and voluntary. The

record further shows trial counsel worked diligently to obtain a non-contingent

plea offer from the State, even requesting a meeting with the assistant

prosecutor's supervisor. Defendant failed to present proof that trial counsel

provided him with inaccurate or incomplete information during plea

negotiations.   On this question, defendant has failed to show ineffective

assistance of counsel.

                                       B.

      Defendant argues his trial counsel failed to fully investigate his case. He

alleges that he asked his attorney to speak with two alibi witnesses, but counsel

never did. He contends this was ineffective assistance of counsel. We are not

persuaded.

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                                      12
      "Failure to investigate an alibi defense is a serious deficiency that can

result in the reversal of a conviction." Porter, 216 N.J. at 353. "Indeed, 'few

defenses have greater potential for creating reasonable doubt as to a defendant's

guilt in the minds of the jury [than an alibi].'" Ibid. (quoting State v. Mitchell,

149 N.J. Super. 259, 262 (App. Div. 1977)). A PCR petitioner asserting that his

trial attorney inadequately investigated a potential witness "must assert the facts

that an investigation would have revealed, supported by affidavits or

certifications based upon the personal knowledge of the affiant or the person

making the certification." Ibid. (quoting State v. Cummings, 321 N.J. Super.

154, 170 (App. Div. 1999)).

      Defendant's claim has no merit, as he fails to assert any specific facts

which an investigation of his alibi witnesses would have revealed. Even if

counsel erred in failing to contact these witnesses, any potential testimony they

might have offered regarding an alibi would be critically undermined by

defendant's own admission placing himself at the scene, so he cannot show

prejudice under the second prong of Strickland.

      In a related argument, defendant suggests the PCR court erred by rejecting

his claim that his admission placing himself at the scene of the crime was not

probative of his guilt. Defendant's attempt to persuade the PCR court, and now

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                                       13
us, that this fact is not dispositive on a Strickland prong two analysis has no

merit. His argument that being present at the scene of the crime does not

conclusively establish guilt misses the point. While true, it is not relevant in a

Strickland analysis, as an alibi witness could not credibly support a theory that

defendant was present at the scene, but was somehow not the assailant.

Defendant failed to present proof of ineffective assistance of counsel on this

question and, if he had, he could not have overcome his own admission in order

to show prejudice.

                                        C.

        Defendant argues his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to file

motions for suppression, dismissal of the indictment, and for a Wade1 hearing.

We disagree.

        A motion to suppress evidence seized at the scene of the arrest would have

failed as the heroin, which he was observed discarding while fleeing the police,

was lawfully seized as abandoned property. See State v. Johnson, 193 N.J. 528,

548-549 (2008).      Similarly, a Wade hearing to challenge his out-of-court

identification by witnesses would have been futile, as witnesses were never able

1
    United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967).
                                                                            A-2227-22
                                        14
to identify defendant. Defendant placed himself at the scene. See Pressler &

Verniero, Current N.J. Court Rules, cmt. 2 on R. 3:11 (2024).

      Finally, a motion to dismiss the indictment would not have succeeded as

defendant has not alleged any defect in the indictment. See State v. Bell, 241

N.J. 552, 560 (2020) ("[A] court should dismiss [an] indictment 'only on the

clearest and plainest ground, and only when the indictment is manifestly

deficient or palpably defective.'" (quoting State v. Twiggs, 233 N.J. 513, 531-

32 (2018))).

      Again, defendant has not established a prima facie case for ineffective

assistance of counsel under Strickland.

                                       D.

      Defendant argues a new trial is warranted based on the doctrine of

fundamental fairness pursuant to Rule 3:20-1, because he was convicted based

on inconsistent evidence.    Defendant specifically submits that none of the

victims were able to identify him as an assailant. A petition for PCR is not the

proper vehicle for these arguments.

      Grounds for a motion for post-conviction relief are limited and include:

(1) deprivations of defendant's constitutional rights; (2) lack of jurisdiction by

the trial court; (3) illegal sentences; (4) collateral attack by habeus corpus or

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                                       15
other common-law or statutory remedy; and (5) ineffective assistance of

counsel. R. 3:22-2. Issues that could have been raised in prior proceedings are

generally barred from being brought in a PCR. R. 3:22-4(a).

      Defendant's fundamental fairness claims are not cognizable on this record.

To the extent defendant argues for a new trial in the interest of justice pursuant

to Rule 3:20-2, defendant's argument claim is time barred, as he did not raise it

within 10 days of the jury's verdict or offer newly-discovered evidence. To the

extent defendant argues sufficiency of the evidence, it was argued in his direct

appeal, and cannot be raised again in a motion for post-conviction relief pursuant

to Rule 3:22. The PCR court properly rejected these claims.

      To the extent we have not addressed defendant's remaining arguments, we

conclude they lack sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion.

R. 2:11-3(e)(2).

      Affirmed.

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