State v. Brabham

994 A.2d 526, 413 N.J. Super. 196
CourtNew Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division
DecidedApril 30, 2010
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 994 A.2d 526 (State v. Brabham) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Brabham, 994 A.2d 526, 413 N.J. Super. 196 (N.J. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

994 A.2d 526 (2010)
413 N.J. Super. 196

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
Orion T. BRABHAM, a/k/a Theron Brabham, Jason Brandon, Orion Theron, Defendant-Appellant.

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.

Submitted September 22, 2009.
Decided April 30, 2010.

*527 Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, for appellant (Karen E. Truncale, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, of counsel and on the brief).

Wayne J. Forrest, Somerset County Prosecutor, for respondent (Eric Mark, Assistant Prosecutor, on the brief).

Appellant filed a pro se supplemental brief.

Before Judges GRALL, MESSANO and LeWINN.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

GRALL, J.A.D.

A jury found defendant Orion T. Brabham guilty of second-degree burglary, N.J.S.A. 2C:18-2a(1), b(1), second-degree robbery, N.J.S.A. 2C:15-1a, and fourth-degree theft, N.J.S.A. 2C:20-3a. The judge merged defendant's conviction for theft with his convictions for burglary and robbery, granted the State's motion for sentencing as a persistent offender on the robbery conviction, N.J.S.A. 2C:44-3a, and sentenced defendant to a ten-year term of imprisonment for burglary and a concurrent eighteen-year term for robbery. Both sentences are subject to terms of parole ineligibility and parole supervision required by the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2. The judge also imposed the appropriate fines, penalties and assessments.

Defendant primarily objects to the denial of his motions to suppress physical evidence seized by a New York parole officer during a search of his home and statements he made to New Jersey law enforcement officers. Accepting the judge's factual findings, we conclude that the physical evidence was properly admitted but the statements defendant made during a meeting he requested to negotiate a plea should have been excluded pursuant to N.J.R.E. 410.

I

At about half-past eight on the morning of February 21, 2006, Catherine Zahos heard a noise on the second floor of her home, which is located on Martinsville Road in Basking Ridge. After she called upstairs to find out who or what she had heard, a man she did not know ran down the staircase carrying a bundle. As he reached Zahos, he grabbed her hair and necklace, pushed her head down, dragged her to the living room and forced her to the floor. Threatening to kill her, he demanded money. He then went to the kitchen to get cash from her purse. Zahos followed and was again knocked to the floor. The intruder left with the bundle, but Zahos went outside and saw him leave in a green Altima with a New York license plate. An employee working in the Zahos family business, which is located behind the residence, also saw the man leaving with a bundle in a green Altima with a New York license plate.

When the police arrived at the Zahos home, they found damage to the rear door of the house leading from a breezeway to the kitchen and a piece of the broken lock on the kitchen floor. Zahos was shaking, smoking a lot and appeared to be "very distraught." The police were not able to obtain a fingerprint with sufficient detail to permit identification of a suspect. According *528 to Zahos, jewelry, including a gold medallion with a starburst design on one side and a depiction of the Parthenon on the other, as well as rings, pins and crosses were taken. In addition, a .38 caliber handgun and a comforter were missing. Neither Zahos nor her employee was able to give more than a general description of the intruder or provide the number of his New York license plate.

Others saw a green Altima with a New York license plate in the vicinity of the Zahos home on the morning of the burglary. Cheryl Himmelrich, who lives about a five-to-ten minute drive from the Zahos property, was outside with her Labrador Retriever and approached the driver of a blue-green Altima with a New York license plate who backed into her driveway. He left after asking her about a family that did not live on her street. On the same morning, Debra Albanese was driving to work via Martinsville Road. She noticed a green Altima with New York plates in front of her car because it was being driven at varying speeds and saw the driver turn into a driveway and toward the back of the house. The following day, in response to a flier distributed by police stationed near that driveway, Albanese reported what she had seen.

None of these witnesses could identify defendant as the man they saw on the morning of the Zahos home invasion. The evidence linking defendant to the crimes was a gold medallion identified by Zahos as hers, which was recovered during a search of defendant's home conducted by his parole officer in New York, and statements defendant made to New Jersey law enforcement officers after he was incarcerated as a consequence of violating conditions of his parole in New York.

New Jersey law enforcement officers, who testified at trial, repeated what they recalled about statements defendant made during two meetings. In April 2006, defendant told the officers that they had done their job by finding the person that did this, meaning himself. In May, defendant told the officers that he got the idea to use the back door from a television show, described the odor of smoke in the home of an old lady, "laugh[ed] about the fact that [she] kept getting up and coming back after him," and spoke of an encounter in a driveway with a woman accompanied by a large dog that caused him to abandon his plan to burglarize a home in her neighborhood.

Defendant's testimony at trial contradicted the officers' account of their meetings and his statements. He denied meeting with them in April. Although he acknowledged a meeting in May, he contended that he was transported there from Rikers Island, could not refuse to go and, other than asking for his lawyer, had said nothing.

At trial, defendant also described his background and addressed circumstantial evidence pointing to him as the perpetrator of the Zahos burglary. He is a college graduate with a paralegal certificate and works for a real estate management company in Larchmont. He collects jewelry, is part Greek and acquired his gold medallion while visiting family in Greece. He lives with his wife and daughter. His lawyer introduced a "Navy" ring, which was seized by the parole officer along with Zahos's gold medallion, and defendant testified that the ring was a gift from his father-in-law. He also explained that the Altima is his wife's car, and during the work week she leaves it at a ferry terminal.[1]

*529 The jury found defendant guilty of burglary, robbery and theft of property with a value in excess of $500 but not guilty of taking a gun from the Zahos residence.

II

[At the court's direction, its discussion of defendant's challenges to the search has been omitted from the published opinion.]

III

Defendant contends that the trial judge erred in denying his motion to preclude admission of statements he made after his arrest. On appeal his attorney raises these issues:

II. THE DEFENDANT'S CUSTODIAL STATEMENTS SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED BECAUSE THEY WERE OBTAINED WITHOUT MIRANDA WARNINGS, WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE THAT TWO CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS WERE FILED AGAINST HIM, AND WERE GIVEN IN THE CONTEXT OF PLEA NEGOTIATIONS.
A. The failure to administer a complete set of Miranda Warnings requires the suppression of defendant's oral statements.
B.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
994 A.2d 526, 413 N.J. Super. 196, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-brabham-njsuperctappdiv-2010.