State v. LassiterState v. Lassiter
After a trial by jury defendant was convicted of aggravated assault,
According to the State‘s evidence, Josephine Branch worked for defendant as a prostitute. She had apparently determined to leave him and on Friday, July 16, 1982 he was engaged in a
At around 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. of the same day defendant picked up Branch from the hospital where her head and leg had been sutured and bandages had been placed on her head, arm and leg. He then delivered her to her apartment on Elizabeth Avenue in Newark where he left her in the company of Towanda Whitfield. Whitfield had also been formerly employed by defendant. Defendant then left the apartment and returned the following morning, Sunday, July 18 at about 6:00 a.m. Whitfield testified that Branch‘s physical ordeal had weakened her to the point where she required assistance even to reach the bathroom.
When defendant returned to the apartment, Branch, who was a narcotics user, was in considerable pain and was asking for drugs. An argument developed between Branch and defendant, and Whitfield was ordered into another room of the apartment.
The events of the following period of approximately fifteen minutes were then recounted not only by Whitfield, but by a number of neighbors in the building. The words “bumping” and “thumping” were used to describe the sounds of a body repeatedly hitting the bedroom wall. In the melee, Branch‘s voice was heard screaming for help. She called for her mother,
Defendant‘s contention which we first consider is that the trial judge erroneously permitted Byron Richards to testify that he had been shot in the back twice on November 5, 1982, some three days before the case was originally scheduled for trial. Citing Evid.R. 55, defendant argues that the testimony was evidence of “other crimes” which did not qualify for admissibility under that rule and, further, that the evidence fell short of demonstrating that defendant was responsible for the shooting.
The purpose of the testimony was to demonstrate defendant‘s determination to deprive the court of highly incriminating evidence. As such, it was clearly admissible as illuminating defendant‘s consciousness of his own guilt and on the theory that any conduct of the defendant inconsistent with his claim of innocence is admissible in evidence. See State v. Rechtschaffer, 70 N.J. 395, 413-415 (1976) and State v. Hill, 47 N.J. 490, 500-501 (1966). It was not subject to the restriction of Evid.R. 55, which only excludes evidence of other crimes as proof of defendant‘s “disposition to commit crime” as the basis for an inference that he committed the crime for which he was on trial.
Evidence that the shooting occurred at defendant‘s instigation was adequate. Commencing around the end of October 1982, defendant, both personally and through intermediaries, importuned Richards with offers of bribe money to make himself unavailable to the State when the case was moved for trial.
Also connecting defendant to the shooting is Richards’ response on cross-examination by defendant to the question, “Who shot you?” His answer was “Wayne‘s partner, Rob.”
Finally, as to this issue, we observe that the State declared in its opening statement to the jury that the proofs would show that Richards had been offered a bribe which he did not accept and was thereafter shot. This was not then objected to by defendant. Instead, he accepted the challenge and in his opening statement told the jury that “the evidence will also show you that Wayne Lassiter had nothing to do with Shampoo [Richards] getting shot; that nobody knows who shot Shampoo; that Shampoo does not know who shot him.” A hearing was not requested under Evid.R. 8; instead, defendant made the strategic decision to meet this factual contention on the evidence. This aspect of the case developed with the acquiescence of the defendant and may not provide the basis for a reversal on appeal. State v. Harper, 128 N.J. Super. 270, 277 (App.Div.), certif. den. 65 N.J. 574 (1974). Moreover, it is evident to us that within the context of the trial the claimed
We next consider defendant‘s contention that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that defendant “under these facts could be found guilty of murder by purposely or knowingly causing the decedent to jump or fall out of the window.”
The murder indictment was returned under
(1) Purposely. A person acts purposely with respect to the nature of his conduct or a result thereof if it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result. A person acts purposely with respect to attendant circumstances if he is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist. “With purpose,” “designed,” “with design” or equivalent terms have the same meaning.
(2) Knowingly. A person acts knowingly with respect to the nature of his conduct or the attendant circumstances if he is aware that his conduct is of that nature, or that such circumstances exist, or he is aware of a high probability of their existence. A person acts knowingly with respect to a result of his conduct if he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result. “Knowing,” “with knowledge” or equivalent terms have the same meaning.
Insofar as applicable
a. Conduct is the cause of a result when:
(1) It is an antecedent but for which the result in question would not have occurred; and
(2) The relationship between the conduct and result satisfies any additional causal requirements imposed by the code or by the law defining the offense.
b. When the offense requires that the defendant purposely or knowingly cause a particular result, the actual result must be within the design or contemplation, as the case may be, of the actor, or, if not, the actual result must involve the same kind of injury or harm as that designed or contemplated and not be too remote, accidental in its occurrence, or dependent on another‘s volitional act to have a just bearing on the actor‘s liability or on the gravity of his offense.
The two theories of murder submitted to the jury were that defendant either threw decedent from the window or that
In addition to the excerpt from the court‘s instructions which we quoted at the outset of the preceding paragraph, the jury was also instructed in the following language:
To put it another way, which is what you must find if you are to [find] this way: Would the hitting or beatings, and verbal abuse knowingly or purposely committed by this defendant, cause to compel Rasheeda [Josephine Branch] to jump from the window?
I tell you that, because no one can be said to have acted reasonably if she subjects herself, by jumping out of a window to a certain death, unless she did so to avoid the actions of Lassiter, which she reasonably feared threatened and posed an immediate danger to her life.
Now if you find beyond a reasonable doubt that your answer to those questions is yes, then this defendant must be found guilty of murder.
First, we note our satisfaction that the language of the charge correctly embodied the “but for” test set forth in
Within the given setting, we find unpersuasive defendant‘s argument that a reasonable person would not have chosen “certain death given decedent‘s circumstances.” Decedent had just been released from the hospital and was weakened by defendant‘s brutal behavior to the point where she could not walk unaided to the bathroom. She had been mercilessly beaten with a shovel and with defendant‘s fists and her pleas and entreaties were repeatedly heard by a number of witnesses during the last fifteen minutes of her life. She was calling for drugs, and it was open to the jury to conclude that in her despair and pain the only visible choices were between being beaten to death and a swifter, more merciful demise at her own hands. If she mis-judged her circumstances it was because defendant had caused her powers of perception to become impaired, an eventuality which was clearly foreseeable to defendant, if not within his actual design.*
Defendant also contends that the verdicts were contrary to the weight of the evidence. He concedes that he failed to move for a new trial on this ground as required by R. 2:10-1, but urges that we consider this argument under R. 2:10-2 as
Also raised as plain error by defendant is the trial judge‘s failure to instruct the jury on the offense of “aiding suicide as a plausible theory of homicide.” While it is true that the trial court was obliged to submit to the jury those theories of homicide involving a lesser degree of culpability which find reasonable support in the evidence, State v. Selby, 183 N.J. Super. 273, 280 (App.Div. 1981), such evidence was completely lacking herein. The offense of “aiding suicide,” proscribed by
We have also considered defendant‘s contention, raised in his pro se supplemental brief, that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of manslaughter,
Finally, we find no merit in defendant‘s contention that sentencing considerations were “commingled” in sentencing defendant for the aggravated assault. This conviction was based upon the beating administered following the discovery of Branch on the morning of the 17th. It was properly described by the sentencing judge as brutal and for sentencing purposes constituted an offense separate and distinct from the homicide which was committed more than twenty-four hours later. Moreover, we find the sentences imposed on both convictions to be within statutory limits and within the guidelines enunciated in State v. Hodge, 95 N.J. 369 (1984) and State v. Roth, 95 N.J. 334 (1984).
Affirmed.