State v. Howard Jones(073827)

128 A.3d 1096, 224 N.J. 70, 2016 N.J. LEXIS 8
CourtSupreme Court of New Jersey
DecidedJanuary 20, 2016
DocketA-112-13
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 128 A.3d 1096 (State v. Howard Jones(073827)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Howard Jones(073827), 128 A.3d 1096, 224 N.J. 70, 2016 N.J. LEXIS 8 (N.J. 2016).

Opinion

Justice LaVECCHIA

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In determining the reliability of evidence obtained through a suggestive showup identification procedure, extrinsic evidence of guilt should play no role in the determination of the evidence’s admissibility. An analysis that considers evidence of guilt is no substitute for a proper assessment of the reliability of an identification; for purposes of complying with constitutional due process requirements, a reliability assessment must restrict its focus to the accuracy and trustworthiness of the specific identification. Today we join those federal and state jurisdictions that have expressly so held when applying the due process requirements established in Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977). In this matter, the showup procedure employed was impermissibly suggestive, and evidence from that showup was assessed for reliability under an erroneous analysis. For the reasons expressed, we reverse the conviction of defendant, Howard Jones, and remand for new proceedings.

I.

On August 26, 2009, defendant was charged with third-degree endangering the welfare of a child, N.J.S.A. 2C:24^f, and fourth-degree criminal sexual contact, N.J.S.A 2C:14-3(b). Those charges focused on events that took place on the morning of March 24, 2009, involving C.W., a fourteen-year-old girl. The following facts are gleaned from the evidence presented at trial.

A. The Incident

According to C.W.’s testimony, while walking to school in Trenton and approaching a convenience store, she noticed an adult man who appeared to be following another girl. C.W. said that the man caught her attention because, although he was walking toward her, “[wjhen he saw [her,] he turned around and started *75 walking the other way.” She described the man by what he wore: a blue-and-white-checkered jacket, black pants, and a yellow ski mask.

C.W. briefly entered the convenience store to make a purchase and then continued walking on the same street on which she had been travelling. C.W. testified that she was further along that street when she heard “somebody ... ma[k]e a little whisper sound,” sounding like “Pssst.” She turned toward the direction of the sound and “saw [a] man standing there with his penis out.” C.W. answered affirmatively to the following two questions asked by the prosecutor: (1) “Now, when you said he was playing with it, was he moving his hand on his penis?” and (2) ‘Was he looking at you?” She described the man as wearing a “[b]lue-and-white plaid jacket” and a yellow ski mask, due to which she was unable to see his face. C.W. took flight, running toward her school, and quickly encountered Leonard Wimbush putting a child into a car. She testified that she informed Wimbush that “some man flashed [her].”

Wimbush also testified at trial about his encounter with C.W. and the events that ensued. He stated that on the morning of March 24, 2009, he was putting his son into a family member’s car when a visibly distressed C.W. approached him. Wimbush testified that when he looked in the direction toward which C.W. had pointed, he saw bushes moving and a man emerge from the bushes wearing “an old work lumber jacket, blue and gray and white,” with jeans, blue or black in color. According to Wimbush, the man “had sort of a hood on, but it wasn’t like a masking hood. It was just like trying to cover his face.” Wimbush described the hood as blue with “something orange that stuck out [from it].”

According to Wimbush, he attempted to ask the man what was going on, but the man ran around the back of an apartment building. Wimbush stated that he followed the man, making eye contact with him “for a good three to five seconds” while nothing obstructed the man’s face. After the man jumped a wooden fence, Wimbush was unable to follow him, so, according to Wimbush’s *76 testimony, he returned to the front of his apartment building, instructed a crossing guard to call the police, retrieved a pair of sneakers and cell phone from his apartment, and returned outside to await the arrival of the police. Officer Olschewski arrived first; he also testified at trial.

According to Olschewski’s testimony, Wimbush told him about the girl who, in her distress, had approached Wimbush and stated that a man had exposed himself to her. Olschewski testified that Wimbush had described the man as a “black male, approximately in his 40s. He was wearing black pants, [and] a black coat that was plaid with ... gray stripes in it.” A second responding policeman, Officer Cruz, also testified at trial. According to Cruz’s testimony, he was given a description of the suspect as wearing “a yellow ski mask, blue-and-white plaid jacketf,] and dark jeans.”

Cruz testified that he began searching the area near where the incident reportedly took place but soon received a call to report to Joyce Kilmer Elementary School to investigate another complaint involving an incident of a sexual nature. That turned out to be the same matter involving C.W., who had arrived at her school and had informed school personnel of the incident.

In the interim, Officer Olschewski and Wimbush were searching for the suspect in Olschewski’s patrol car, according to the officer’s testimony. Olschewski testified that near an abandoned railroad track bed that he knew many “people use ... as a shortcut to walk down the road,” he spotted an individual in dark clothing about 200 yards away. According to Wimbush’s testimony, the man they saw was wearing a jacket like the one Wimbush had described earlier, but he was “at least a good football field length away.” The individual saw the patrol vehicle and began walking farther away, in a direction toward Oakland Street. Olschewski drove to 343 Oakland Street and parked while Wimbush ran ahead in search of the suspect. Passing between houses located at 343 and 345 Oakland Street and heading toward the railroad track bed, Wimbush saw a man, later identified as defen *77 dant, handling a trash can. He was not wearing the jacket Wimbush had observed earlier. Wimbush testified that, at the time, he believed the person merely to be a resident taking out the trash, so he kept searching.

According to Olschewski’s testimony, shortly thereafter he came upon the same individual carrying a yellow recycling can and wearing a gray sweatshirt with lettering. The officer asked the man (later identified as defendant) if he had seen anyone suspicious in the area, to which the man responded: “The gentleman who was exposing himself is on the track bed.” Because Olschewski had not mentioned that he was looking for an individual who had “exposed himself,” Olschewski became interested in the man.

Olschewski testified that he asked the man for his name and identification. After first indicating that his identification was inside a house to which he made a passing gesture, Olschewski told the man to obtain his identifying information because he had become a witness. Stating that the front door was locked, the man started to walk toward the back of the house, dropped the recycling can, and ran toward the railroad track bed, away from the officer.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
128 A.3d 1096, 224 N.J. 70, 2016 N.J. LEXIS 8, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-howard-jones073827-nj-2016.