State v. T.J.M.

105 A.3d 1071, 220 N.J. 220
CourtSupreme Court of New Jersey
DecidedJanuary 13, 2015
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 105 A.3d 1071 (State v. T.J.M.) 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. T.J.M., 105 A.3d 1071, 220 N.J. 220 (N.J. 2015).

Opinion

Justice LaVECCHIA

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Defendant, T.J.M., was convicted of two counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child based on events involving his girlfriend’s daughter. The Appellate Division affirmed defendant’s conviction and sentence, but a dissent brings several issues before this Court in an appeal as of right. We now affirm defendant’s conviction.

I.

The following summary provides background to the issues raised by the dissent. The facts summarized were presented during defendant’s trial.

At the time of the events that led to the charges, defendant lived with his girlfriend, who was the mother of Chloe,1 the victim. According to Chloe, defendant, who was deaf but used a combination of hearing aids, sign language, and lip reading to understand and communicate with others, first sexually abused her when she was approximately eight years old. In her testimony, Chloe recalled several instances of abuse, which occurred alternately in the family’s home or in defendant’s van over a roughly four-year period.

The trial testimony revealed that defendant and Chloe’s mother eventually split up and defendant moved out of the home. During the years immediately afterward, Chloe performed poorly in school and had run-ins with the law, resulting in her spending time [224]*224in juvenile detention centers. One instance of detention occurred when Chloe was fifteen years old, after she violated the terms of her probation. While speaking with a social worker at the detention center, Chloe disclosed for the first time that she had been sexually abused, but she did not disclose her abuser’s identity or the nature of the abuse. Eventually, Chloe told her mother about the abuse and identified defendant as the abuser. Chloe subsequently provided a statement to detectives, who arrested defendant.

Relevant to this appeal, defendant was charged with two counts of second-degree sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2(b); one count of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, N.J.S.A 2C:14-2(a)(l); and one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4(a).

At a pretrial hearing, the trial court determined that defendant’s six-year-old conviction for resisting arrest—the result of a guilty plea—would be admissible to impeach him. That conviction stemmed from a vehicle stop on suspicion of driving while intoxicated (DWI). When making its ruling, the court instructed counsel that the prosecutor would be permitted to ask whether defendant had “been previously convicted of a resisting charge that arose out of a DWI stop.” In a related pre-trial ruling, the court also clarified that defense counsel would be limited in any cross-examination regarding Chloe’s involvement with the juvenile justice system.

During the trial, the State presented testimony from Chloe, the counselor to whom Chloe had first made the sexual-abuse allegation, and an expert witness. Chloe recounted particular aspects of the abuse, including specific acts, where on her body they were performed, and the context and locations in which the abuse occurred. Defendant presented character witnesses and testified through an interpreter. Defendant denied abusing Chloe and refuted specifics regarding Chloe’s recitation of the incidents.

Just prior to closing arguments, the prosecutor stated on the record that Chloe intended to be in the courtroom during summa[225]*225tions, but that she could not stay for any afternoon proceedings. After hearing from both parties regarding whether their respective summations should straddle a break for lunch, the trial court determined that both sides would give their closing arguments prior to the lunch break. Immediately after that colloquy, the court brought the jury into the courtroom, gave a brief instruction, and turned the floor over to defense counsel.

At the beginning of defense counsel’s summation, Chloe walked into the courtroom accompanied by a representative of the prosecutor’s office. She remained in the courtroom through the end of the prosecutor’s summation. Defense counsel began his closing argument by referring to Chloe as a “troubled young lady,” and he later referenced Chloe’s probation history.

During the State’s summation, the prosecutor said that Chloe had not wanted to be in court to relive the events, but had nevertheless testified “in front of her grandparents, uncles, [and] godfather.” The courtroom audience to which the prosecutor referred was not information of record. The prosecutor also discussed Chloe’s involvement with the juvenile justice system and asked the jury, “[d]oes it surprise any of you that [Chloe], given her history of just a few years earlier, would end up in the juvenile system? Is that a real shocker?”

Once the prosecutor finished his closing statement, defense counsel objected to Chloe’s entrance during his summation, and the following colloquy ensued:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I want the record to also reflect it was after I started my opening argument that the victim came into the courtroom with some representative I believe from the Prosecutor’s Office and sat down, after defense counsel got started doing the closing argument that they paraded the alleged victim into the courtroom.
THE COURT: You’re making a point that they waited specifically, [counsel]? [DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I believe so, Judge.
[PROSECUTOR]: Judge, first of all I don’t know what that objection is. She certainly has every right to come into the courtroom and be seated and she was not in the least bit distracting and there’s no other objection. Certainly I’m sure he’s not objecting to her coming into the courtroom. I don’t know what that objection is. She’s allowed to be here. His whole family has been here.
[226]*226[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: She is allowed to be here. Let’s address the godfather and the uncle being present when she testified.

Thus, defense counsel did not request or receive a ruling on the issue raised about Chloe’s entrance into the courtroom. Instead, he acknowledged that Chloe had a right to be there and moved on to his objection to the prosecutor’s identification of persons who were present in the courtroom when Chloe testified.

Defense counsel also objected to the prosecutor asking the jurors whether they were “surprised” that Chloe was involved in the juvenile system. In response, the prosecutor noted that defense counsel had led off his closing argument by referring to Chloe as a “troubled young lady.”

Following those arguments and prior to charging the jury on the law, the court instructed the jury regarding the prosecutor’s remarks, stating that the jury’s recollection of the evidence governs, not counsels’ comments.

The jury found defendant guilty of two counts of second-degree sexual assault, N.J.S.A 2C:14-2(b), and one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4(a), and acquitted defendant of aggravated sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2(a)(l). Following defendant’s conviction and sentencing, he appealed, arguing that several prosecutorial and trial errors deprived him of his right to a fair trial.

A majority of an Appellate Division panel affirmed in an unpublished opinion.

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Bluebook (online)
105 A.3d 1071, 220 N.J. 220, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-tjm-nj-2015.