State v. Hyppolite

198 A.3d 952, 236 N.J. 154
Supreme Court of New Jersey·Decided December 11, 2018·No. A-48 September Term 2017; 080302·Published·Cited by 14 cases

Opinion

CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER delivered the opinion of the Court.

**157When the State seeks to detain a defendant pretrial under the Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA), N.J.S.A. 2A:162-15 to -26, prosecutors must disclose "all exculpatory evidence" before the detention hearing, see R. 3:4-2(c)(2)(E). We now consider the appropriate remedy when the State fails to disclose exculpatory evidence before a detention hearing.

In this case, defendant Shaquan Hyppolite was charged with murder and weapons offenses. At the outset, the State relied on a single witness who spoke to the police *954and identified defendant as the shooter. The State successfully moved to detain defendant and **158released a statement by the witness along with other discovery before the detention hearing.

Defendant was indicted two months later, and the State disclosed additional materials afterward. Those materials revealed that the witness initially told the police he did not see the shooter. The witness had also identified two others he claimed were at the scene of the crime, but their newly disclosed statements contradicted him. Other evidence conflicted with the witness's version of events as well.

The trial court correctly found that the additional discovery contained exculpatory evidence that should have been disclosed before the detention hearing, pursuant to Rule 3:4-2(c)(2)(E) (then Rule 3:4-2(c)(1)(B)). The judge concluded the evidence was not material and declined to reopen defendant's detention hearing.

We hold that when exculpatory evidence is disclosed after a detention hearing, judges should use a modified materiality standard to decide whether to reopen the hearing. If there is a reasonable possibility that the result of the detention hearing would have been different had the evidence been disclosed, the hearing should be reopened.

Applying that standard in this case, we reverse and remand to the trial court to reopen the detention hearing.

I.

To recount the facts, we rely on the record of the detention hearing along with discovery the State provided before and after the hearing.

On March 29, 2017, police officers responded to a report of a shooting in a parking lot at Lafayette Gardens in Jersey City. When they arrived, they saw Terrel Smith's lifeless body lying on the pavement behind his car, a Jeep Liberty. According to an autopsy report, Smith had been shot multiple times. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

**159The police identified "Michael Gregg"1 as a witness and interviewed him. Over time, he made two separate -- and inconsistent -- statements to the police. In his first statement, a few hours after the shooting on March 29, 2017, Gregg said that he was in the victim's Jeep around the time of the shooting. After the victim got out of the car, Gregg said he heard three to four gunshots but did not see the shooter. Gregg then ran from the area.

Gregg spoke to the police again on June 8, 2017 and gave a second statement. According to the police report, early in the interview, Gregg said the victim had picked him up on the day of the shooting, and the two were selling drugs. They then drove to Lafayette Gardens to pick up more drugs from the victim's stash location. Gregg said he recognized several other men in the area including Quan, "Bill," and "Frank."

During a break in the interview, Gregg told the police he was worried about his safety and the safety of his family. He provided more details after the break: Quan approached the victim when he left the car to get more drugs; Quan was clutching something inside his hooded sweatshirt, which Gregg thought was a firearm; Quan and the victim had a short conversation on the driver's side of the car before Gregg heard a gunshot; and Gregg ran away as he heard several more gunshots.

Gregg told the police he had known Quan for about seven years and believed his real name was Shaquan. Gregg identified *955defendant Shaquan Hyppolite from a photo array.

On June 20, 2017, defendant was charged and arrested on a three-count complaint that accused him of murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(1) ; possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(a)(1) ; and unlawful possession of a weapon, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(b)(1). The affidavit of probable cause in support of the complaint stated that "an eyewitness ... positively identified **160Shaquan Hyppolite AKA Quan as the actor who" killed Terrel Smith.

The State moved for pretrial detention the next day. Two days later, the State made available fifty-one pages of discovery materials and a DVD recording of Gregg's interview on June 8, 2017. On the day of the detention hearing, July 6, 2017, the State also turned over a four-page written summary of that interview titled "Second Interview of [Gregg]." The State did not disclose Gregg's first statement before the hearing.

Pretrial Services recommended that defendant be detained. The Public Safety Assessment (PSA) scored defendant 1 out of 6 for risk of failure to appear and 2 out of 6 for risk of new criminal activity.

At the detention hearing, the State highlighted that a presumption of detention applied because of the homicide charge. See N.J.S.A. 2A:162-19(b). The State also stressed that defendant, who had recently turned eighteen, had an extensive juvenile history. Defendant did not challenge the existence of probable cause and took no position on detention.

The trial court found probable cause and concluded that defendant had not rebutted the presumption in favor of detention. The court also observed that defendant's PSA scores did not "take into account his extensive and serious juvenile record," which includes adjudications for aggravated assault, assault, and a weapons offense. The court accordingly ordered that defendant be detained.

Two months later, on September 12, 2017, a grand jury indicted defendant on the charges in the complaint. The State turned over additional discovery after the indictment, which included the following materials: Gregg's first statement to the police; a DVD recording of an interview of Bill on June 20, 2017; a police report and DVD recording of an interview of Frank on June 14, 2017; an application for a communications data warrant for Gregg's cell phone; and a report that summarized some surveillance footage **161from the day of the shooting. As noted earlier, Gregg had told the police that he saw both Bill and Frank at the shooting.

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State v. Hyppolite, 198 A.3d 952, 236 N.J. 154 (N.J. 2018).

198 A.3d 952 (State v. Hyppolite) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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