STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. WALTER A. TORMASI
DOCKET NO. A-3830-13T4
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY, APPELLATE DIVISION
December 3, 2015
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION December 3, 2015 APPELLATE DIVISION
Before Judges Fisher, Espinosa and Currier.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Somerset County, Indictment No. 97-04-0234.
Walter A. Tormasi, appellant pro se.
Geoffrey D. Soriano, Somerset County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (James L. McConnell, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).
The opinion of the court was delivered by
FISHER, P.J.A.D.
In this appeal of the denial of post-conviction relief, defendant argues that the judge erred in finding inadmissible a thirty-eight-page document which purports to be an affidavit - lacking its last page - authored by defendant‘s father in which he takes responsibility and proclaims defendant‘s innocence of
The record on appeal reveals that in January 1998, defendant was tried and convicted, among other things, of the March 1, 1996 murder of his mother. Although sixteen years old at the time of the murder, defendant was tried as an adult and sentenced to a term of life in prison subject to a thirty-year period of parole ineligibility. We affirmed by way of an unpublished opinion, State v. Tormasi, No. A-5530-97 (App. Div. July 20, 2001); the Supreme Court denied defendant‘s petition for certification, 171 N.J. 42 (2002).
On July 8, 2002, defendant filed a post-conviction relief (PCR) petition, which was supplemented on December 8, 2005 and again on December 29, 2006. By way of these submissions, defendant argued the ineffective assistance of counsel because of his trial attorney‘s performance during the investigation
Defendant filed another PCR petition on December 22, 2011. This time defendant argued that newly-discovered evidence - what he refers to as the “affidavit” of his father (Attila Tormasi, Sr.) - demonstrates his innocence. That is, the document in question purports to contain Attila, Sr.‘s acknowledgement that he hired a private detective to commit the murder for which defendant was convicted. In addition, as cogently explained by defendant‘s PCR counsel at the start of the evidentiary hearing:
[t]here‘s a second aspect to the claim which is based in part on the affidavit that [Attila, Sr.] paid funds to [defendant‘s] appointed counsel . . . in order that he [Attila, Sr.] not be implicated in the murder and that the defense that it was [Attila, Sr.] who had orchestrated the murder not be presented to the jury . . . .
The judge conducted a two-day hearing limited to examining “the significance of [the] document and whether or not it is evidential as well as whether or not [defendant‘s trial attorney] had an un-waivable conflict during the term of his representation.” After hearing defendant‘s three witnesses and the State‘s two witnesses, the PCR judge found, by way of a written decision, that the document was inadmissible. In
For those reasons, the PCR judge looked no further into the allegations of the PCR petition, which was denied by order entered on April 9, 2014. Defendant appeals, arguing:
I. ATTILA SR.‘S SELF-INCRIMINATORY AFFIDAVIT CONSTITUTES NEWLY-DISCOVERED EVIDENCE ENTITLING DEFENDANT TO THE REVERSAL OF HIS CONVICTIONS UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.
II. ATTILA SR.‘S UNILATERAL FEE ARRANGEMENT WITH DEFENSE COUNSEL CREATED AN IMPERMISSIBLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND DEPRIVED DEFENDANT OF EFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL.1
We reverse and remand.
Newly-discovered evidence of the type that would require a new trial must be “(1) material to the issue and not merely cumulative or impeaching or contradictory; (2) discovered since the trial and not discoverable by reasonable diligence beforehand; and (3) of the sort that would probably change the jury‘s verdict if a new trial were granted.” State v. Carter, 85 N.J. 300, 314 (1981);
There can be no doubt that another person‘s confession is material and constitutes the sort of evidence that would probably change the jury‘s mind. The PCR judge recognized this, observing in his written opinion that “if true” the document “places full responsibility for Frances Tormasi‘s murder on Attila, Sr., and exonerates [defendant].”
Ultimately, however, defendant was denied relief because the judge determined the document was inadmissible. This ruling was based on a misinterpretation of both
I
If the document can be authenticated as Attila, Sr.‘s statement, it is admissible. In reaching this conclusion, we start by acknowledging that the document constitutes “hearsay” because it purports to be “a statement, other than one made by
was at the time of its making so far contrary to the declarant‘s pecuniary, proprietary, or social interest, or so far tended to subject declarant to civil or criminal liability, . . . that a reasonable person in declarant‘s position would not have made the statement unless the person believed it to be true.
Even though the document fits within the parameters of this hearsay exception, the judge relied on the exception‘s next and last sentence: “Such a statement is admissible against an accused in a criminal action only if the accused was the declarant.”
In the present case, [defendant] does not allege that he authored the writing; he is claiming that his father Attila is the declarant. Therefore, exception 803(c)(25) does not apply.
This conclusion was erroneous.
The evidence rule‘s last sentence, upon which the judge relied, deals with a discrete issue not applicable here because it only prohibits the use of a statement against interest when the declarant is someone other than the accused and only when offered “against an accused” in a criminal action.
The rule does not apply equally in reverse. An accused is entitled to offer a statement against interest made by another, usually for the purpose of demonstrating the guilt of another, so long as the statement falls within the other parameters of
The document in question purports to be a statement by Attila, Sr., against his interests - in that it expresses his responsibility for the murder of his wife - and snugly fits the requirements of
II
For two reasons we reject the judge‘s conclusion that “there is no way of authenticating” the document: (a) the
A
We start by recognizing, as the judge observed, that the thirty-eight-page document is incomplete; the thirty-eighth page ends mid-sentence and the document lacks a signature line, a signature, and a jurat. Defendant provided the testimony of his brother (Attila, Jr.) and sister (Sophia), as well as an investigator who took custody of the document in December 2010 upon its discovery by Attila, Jr. soon after his father‘s death on November 16, 2010.
Defendant‘s siblings both testified they saw the document at some point years after the trial.3 Attila, Jr., testified that in 2003, when he was twenty-two years old, he confronted his father about the document:
Q. And how did that conversation go? If we were listening to the conversation, what did you say and what did he say to you?
A. I don‘t remember exactly what was said.
Q. In sum and substance?
A. But I did tell him that I found [the complete version of the document] and I read it, and he was very upset, but I asked him if what was contained in there was the truth and he said yes but that he didn‘t - I shouldn‘t be snooping around his stuff and don‘t mention it to anybody and he got pretty upset.
Sophia similarly testified that she spoke to her father about the document she saw years earlier:
Q. . . . You went to your father and as you just said -
A. Yes, I -
Q. - asked him why he signed this and what did he tell you?
A. Yes. He - he told me that he signed it because it was true, and then from there he didn‘t want to talk about it. He got very agitated and very, very upset. So I just left it.
Both Attila, Jr., and Sophia testified they did not mention the affidavit to defendant or anyone else; as Sophia explained, her father “was not the type of person that liked to be doubled crossed.”
Instead of making findings about the credibility of defendant‘s siblings, the PCR judge concluded only that the document could not be admitted because it “was not hand-written, not signed, and there is no way of authenticating it.” We discern from the judge‘s opinion that, due to the lack of either a signature or jurat, the document was not self-authenticated. Although not cited, we assume the judge meant that the authentication problem could not be resolved by resort to
We agree the document was not self-authenticated, but that conclusion does not bar authentication through other means.
B
As Professor McCormick observed, “[a] writing may . . . be authenticated from a percipient witness that other connections exist between the writing and a particular person, and it is those connections that make that writing relevant.” McCormick on Evidence § 222 at 86 (Bourn ed., 7th ed. 2013). Here, defendant provided the testimony of his siblings; they not only claimed to have seen the document in its complete, executed and notarized state, but they also described interactions with their then-living father that arguably suggested his familiarity with the document and his acknowledgement that its contents were “true.”
“The fundamental idea of authentication is to connect the writing with the person alleged to be its author.” In re Blau, 4 N.J. Super. 343, 351 (App. Div. 1949) (quoting 5 Wigmore on Evidence § 1496 at 319 (Chadbourn rev. 1974)). When such extrinsic evidence is presented, a judge in his gatekeeping role, Konop v. Rosen, 425 N.J. Super. 391, 411 (App. Div. 2012), may, to some degree, consider the credibility of the authenticating witnesses. That never occurred here. Absent a finding that Attila, Jr., and Sophia‘s testimony regarding the purported links between the document and their late father was
III
We are mindful the “gatekeeper” and “factfinder” here are one and the same. Considering that
We lastly emphasize what we are not deciding. In responding to this appeal, the State forcefully argues that the jury was presented with overwhelming evidence of defendant‘s guilt. That contention is not presently relevant. Today we consider only whether the reasons given by the PCR judge for excluding the document were mistaken. They were.5
Reversed and remanded. We do not retain jurisdiction.
CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION