State v. ReedState v. Reed
A jury found defendant John Reed guilty of having “knowingly cause[d] death or serious bodily injury resulting in death” contrary to
Defendant‘s two most substantial grounds of appeal are that his statements to the police were obtained in violation of his constitutional rights and should have been suppressed and that the trial court‘s charge to the jury on the lesser included crime of passion-prоvocation manslaughter was erroneous. The defendant also alleges that he was prejudiced by other errors in the trial court‘s instructions to the jury, by the exclusion of material evidence from the jury, and by misconduct on the part of the prosecutor in his opening and summation.
Defendant‘s victim was a friend of his. Defendant had met her at work and had introduced her to Francis Varga, the woman with whom he was living. The three of them had gone out to dinner together.
On Monday morning, March 16, 1987, Ms. Varga and defendant telephoned the police from their house and reported that еarlier that morning defendant had found the victim1 slain in her town house. Defendant and Ms. Varga were told to meet the police outside the victim‘s town house. They were waiting there when a policeman arrived, and defendant related what he claimed had occurred.
According to the defendant, the victim had called him at 11:45 on the previous Friday night and had told him that an intruder was looking through her window and pounding on it. Because of the call, he visited the victim Saturday morning and they arranged to have dinner together that evening. When he arrived at her home to take her to dinner, hеr television and a
After giving this statement to the pоlice, defendant and Ms. Varga returned home. Some other police officers arrived at their house some time later that morning. After about twenty minutes of questioning, defendant and Ms. Varga were asked to go to the prosecutor‘s office. Defendant alone was taken to а closed room. Four police officers were present. After the police officers gave defendant his Miranda warnings, he signed a Miranda card and gave a statement.
About an hour later, one of the police officers again read defendant his Miranda rights and had him sign a card which asked questions about the Miranda warning. These questions were intendеd to elicit answers which would show that the defendant understood his Miranda rights. The officer then interviewed defendant. Defendant‘s statement was inconsistent with his previous statements and included elements that seemed unbelievable. After defendant had told his story, the officer began to question him about somе of the details. Defendant began to change his version of what had occurred. He was accused of the murder and he admitted killing the victim, but he claimed that he had not really intended to kill her. Defendant then repeated his confession and it was tape recorded.
As the basis for objecting to the introduction of his statements, defendant claimed that he was mentally retarded and that he had, therefore, been unable to understand his Miranda rights or to knowingly waive them. He also claimed that because of his mental disability, the police should not have interviewed him without Ms. Varga present.
Defendant presented two psychologists and a psychiatrist who testified that he was retarded. The defendant had a
Defendant argues that he should not have been interrogated without Ms. Varga present. That argument, however, is premised on his claim of mental retardation. It therefore falls together with its premise.
When the police took defendant for interrogation, leaving Ms. Varga behind to wait for him, she called an attorney whose name had been given to her by her aunt. That attorney told her that he would send an associate to the proseсutor‘s office. The attorney to whom Ms. Varga spoke directed his associate to the prosecutor‘s office and told him that he would be free to represent defendant if Ms. Varga asked him to. Ms. Varga then told a police officer that an attorney was on his way and that defendant should not be questioned until the attorney was present. When the attorney arrived, Ms. Varga asked him to go and help defendant through the investigation. The attorney understood the request to mean that he should act as defendant‘s attorney, accompanying him during his interrogation and giving him lеgal advice. The attorney then presented himself to the county prosecutor and said that he was there to
Defendant contends that the refusal by the police to permit the attorney to meet with him before or during his interrogation violated his constitutional rights. For that proposition, defendant relies primarily upon State v. Elmore, 205 N.J. Super. 373, 500 A.2d 1089 (App.Div. 1985), a case in which this court suppressed a defendant‘s statement because the police prevented an attorney retained by the defendant‘s sister from seeing the defendant before the interrogation was completed. Defendant also cites a number of out-of-state casеs for the same principle. See People v. Houston, 42 Cal.3d 595, 724 P.2d 1166, 230 Cal. Rptr. 141 (1986); State v. Stoddard, 206 Conn. 157, 537 A.2d 446 (1988); Bryan v. State, 571 A.2d 170 (Del. 1990); Commonwealth v. Sherman, 389 Mass. 287, 450 N.E.2d 566 (1983); Lewis v. State, 695 P.2d 528 (Okla. Crim. App. 1984); Commonwealth v. Hillard, 471 Pa. 318, 370 A.2d 322 (1977); State v. Murphy, 44 Wash. App. 290, 721 P.2d 30 (1986).
The State relies on Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986) for the proposition that the defendant‘s rights were not violated by the failure of the police to give the attorney called by Ms. Varga access to defendant before or during his interrogation. In Moran, the United States Supreme Court squarely held, as a matter of federal constitutional law, that the police had no obligation to advise a defendant that a third party had summoned an attorney to advise him and that, in the absence of a request by the defendant himself, an attorney‘s presence at the police station does not affect the right of the police to interrogate him.
We agree with the trial judge in the present case that State v. Elmore is inapplicable because in Elmore the defendant herself, unlike defendant Reed, had requested an attorney. Furthermore, Elmore was based on federal constitutional
We turn now to the defendant‘s cоntention that his conviction should be reversed because of erroneous instructions to the jury about passion-provocation manslaughter,
The confusion has arisen because
Criminal homicide constitutes manslaughter whеn: (1) It is committed recklessly; or (2) A homicide which would otherwise be murder under section 2C:11-3 is committed in the heat of passion resulting from a reasonable provocation.
The crime described in
In the present case, when the trial judge told the jury that they should consider the crime of “manslaughter” only if they first found defendant not guilty of wilful or purposeful murder, the judge had not yet mentioned passion-provocation manslaughter. The context of his instructions adequately informed the jury that when he told them not to consider whether defendant was guilty of aggravated manslaughter and manslaughter until they had first found defendant not guilty of murder, the judge was referring to the reckless homicide offenses defined by
After correctly instructing the jury about the lesser included offenses of aggravated manslaughter and reckless manslaughter, the trial judge then proceeded to deal with passion-provocation manslaughter.4 He accurately charged the jury in accordance with the terms of
However, we agree with the defendant that he was substantially prejudiced by the verdict sheet which the court supplied to the jury for their deliberations. The form should have explicitly given the jury the opportunity to return a verdict with respect to passion-provocation manslaughter. It did not do so. The only manslaughter offenses to which the verdict sheet referred were “the lesser included offense of Aggravated Manslaughter” and “the lesser included offense of Manslaughter.” It directed the jury to consider the latter offense only if they found the defendant not guilty of purposeful murder, of knowing murder and of aggravated manslaughter. The court‘s explanation of the verdict sheet to the jury told them:
Now, only if your answеr to both the first count and the second count are not guilty, do you consider the lesser included offenses of aggravated manslaughter and manslaughter.
And only if your determination is not guilty of aggravated manslaughter do you go on to manslaughter.
The effect of the erroneous form of the verdict sheet was to prevent the jury from considering whether the defendant was guilty of passion-provocation manslaughter if they found that, but for his having acted in the heat of passion as the result of reasonable provocation, he would have been guilty of purposeful or knowing murdеr. The jury found that defendant knowingly killed the victim, and the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain that verdict is not questioned. If there was also evidence in the record on the basis of which the jury could have harbored a reasonable doubt whether the defendant killed his
Since the trial judge instructed the jury with respect to passion-provocation manslaughter, he was necessarily of the opinion that the еvidence was sufficient to require giving the jury the opportunity to find the defendant guilty of that crime as an alternative to first degree murder. In its argument before us, the State conceded that there was evidence from which the jury could have formed a reasonable doubt whether the defеndant had acted in the heat of passion resulting from reasonable provocation. Our review of the defendant‘s statement, which was the only direct evidence of what occurred between him and his victim, leads us to the same conclusion. Accordingly, his conviction of knowing murder must bе reversed.
Defendant‘s remaining grounds of appeal are without merit.
The error in the verdict sheet does not affect defendant‘s conviction of aggravated criminal sexual contact, and that conviction is affirmed. His conviction of having knowingly caused the death of his victim in violation of