State v. Winder

979 A.2d 312, 200 N.J. 231, 2009 N.J. LEXIS 810
CourtSupreme Court of New Jersey
DecidedJuly 28, 2009
DocketA-34 September Term 2008
StatusPublished
Cited by50 cases

This text of 979 A.2d 312 (State v. Winder) 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. Winder, 979 A.2d 312, 200 N.J. 231, 2009 N.J. LEXIS 810 (N.J. 2009).

Opinions

Justice LaVECCHIA

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Defendant was charged with first-degree murder for the execution-style killing of a cab driver, to whom he apologized before shooting him point blank in the head. At trial, he advanced the affirmative defense of insanity. See N.J.S.A 2C:4-1 (“A person is not criminally responsible for conduct if at the time of such conduct he was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.”). The key issue on appeal concerns the trial court’s jury instruction on insanity.

The court gave the model charge on insanity despite defendant’s request for a Worlock1 variation on the charge, which he asserts would have explained to the jury that a criminally insane person may be capable of comprehending that an act is legally wrong while not understanding it to be morally wrong. Defendant claimed a belief that his parents were trying to kill him and that the only safe place for him was in prison. Although he knew killing to be wrong, defendant claimed not to know that it was morally wrong to have killed to get himself into the safety of jail. Hence he wanted the jury instruction to distinguish between legal and moral wrong. The trial court refused, determining that in [236]*236this matter legal and moral wrong were coextensive, and the jury convicted defendant of first-degree murder. The Appellate Division found the trial court’s jury charge to have been sufficient and affirmed defendant’s conviction and sentence. We granted defendant’s petition for certification, 196 N.J. 461, 957 A.2d 1170 (2008), and, because we reject defendant’s interpretation of Worlock’s import and application, we likewise conclude that the jury instruction in this matter was not legally insufficient. Finding no merit to defendant’s other claims of error, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.

I.

On April 18, 2003, defendant Lavar Winder hailed a cab in Atlantic City, asked the cabdriver to take him to the police station, and, upon arrival, shot the cabdriver twice in the back of the head, killing him instantly. He was charged with first-degree murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11—3(a)(1); second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(a); and third-degree unlawful possession of a handgun, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(b). Because defendant claimed that he was not guilty due to insanity, much of the trial focused on defendant’s background.

At the time of the incident, defendant was twenty-five-years old. Although a high school graduate, he had an IQ in the low seventies, which constitutes borderline mental functioning. He lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he had been employed by an armored car service in a position that legally authorized him to carry a gun. Defendant left the job in January 2003. Some time during the next month, he was shot in the groin, although the record is unclear as to the circumstances of that incident. Defendant provided various inconsistent explanations about it. What is clear is that defendant began exhibiting strange and paranoid behavior after the shooting incident. According to defendant’s parents, who were divorced, and his ex-girlfriend Lillian Andrews, defendant would cry for no reason, talked to himself, and expressed the belief that people were trying to kill him. He [237]*237eventually came to believe that his parents had been responsible for the February 2003, shooting incident.

On April 16, 2003, defendant called his father complaining of bad headaches and his father took him to a local Philadelphia hospital. Doctors examined defendant, but they released him when they found no medical cause for the headaches. On leaving the hospital, defendant told his father that he did not want to return to his apartment because he did not feel sale there, so his father took him instead to a hotel. Later that night, defendant’s father received a phone call from the police, explaining that defendant had been detained for causing’ a disturbance. He had been walking along a busy and dangerous roadway near the hotel, wildly swinging his arms. Defendant’s parents immediately sought to have him involuntarily committed. While defendant’s parents were en route with him to the hospital, defendant threatened to kill himself or someone else if he was not put in jail.

Defendant was admitted at a local hospital, where he tested positive for the controlled dangerous substance of phencyclidine (PGP). Doctors at the hospital diagnosed defendant with psychosis not othei-wise specified (NOS) and possible PGP dependence. Defendant was released from involuntary commitment at the hospital on April 18, 2003.

When defendant’s parents went to pick him up upon his discharge from the hospital on April 18, they had decided that it would be best for him to live with his mother in Virginia, where he could receive assistance for his mental health problems. Defendant thwarted that plan, however. As the three of them exited the hospital, he abruptly ran from his parents, jumped into his car, and drove away. He w^ent to his apartment, retrieved his gun, and departed for Atlantic City. Defendant later explained that he chose Atlantic City because he believed that the jails in New Jersey were safer than those in Philadelphia.

When he arrived in Atlantic City, he drove around awhile as he contemplated killing someone. Defendant then left the city and, while driving on the Atlantic City Expi-essway toward Philadel[238]*238phia, still trying to decide whether to kill someone, stopped at rest area and purchased a snack. After that, he turned back toward Atlantic City and returned to the downtown area. Once there, defendant parked his car, hailed a cab, and requested that the cabdriver take him to the police station. When the cab stopped outside of the police station, defendant pulled out his handgun, said to the driver, “I’m sorry I have to do this,” and shot the driver twice in the back of the head, killing him.

Defendant got out of the cab, walked over to a uniformed police officer sitting in a nearby police car, and calmly announced, “Officer, I just shot someone in that cab over there.” The officer confiscated defendant’s weapon and placed him under arrest. Defendant was taken inside the station and placed in an interview room.

When officers entered the room to speak to him, defendant was crying and knocking his head against the wall. The officers read defendant his Mirandoi2 rights and tape-recorded the confession that defendant gave. Defendant told the officers that he had to kill the cabdriver so he could go to prison for the rest of his life because prison was the only place where he would be safe. Defendant explained that he randomly chose the cabdriver as the victim, but added that he would not have killed a child and that he would not kill his parents.

The officers who had interviewed defendant testified that he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. When they asked him if he had consumed drugs or alcohol, defendant denied having had any alcohol but told them that he had taken medication earlier in the day.

At defendant’s trial in January 2006, three mental health experts testified: Dr. Edward J. Dougherty, psychologist, and Dr. Kenneth J. Weiss, psychiatrist, for defendant; and Dr.

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Bluebook (online)
979 A.2d 312, 200 N.J. 231, 2009 N.J. LEXIS 810, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-winder-nj-2009.