State v. Delgado

• Citation: 902 A.2d 888,188 N.J. 48
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Daniel DELGADO a/k/a Daniel Javier Delgado (birth name), Defendant-Appellant.
• Decision Date: 31 July 2006
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

902 A.2d 888

188 N.J. 48

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Daniel DELGADO a/k/a Daniel Javier Delgado (birth name), Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued March 21, 2006.

Decided July 31, 2006.

James K. Smith, Jr., Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney).

Kenneth P. Ply, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Paula T. Dow, Essex County Prosecutor, attorney).

Michael A. Baldassare argued the cause for amicus curiae Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, attorneys; Mr. Baldassare and Lawrence S. Lustberg, Newark, on the brief).

Linda K. Danielson, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey (Zulima V. Farber, Attorney General, attorney).

Justice ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.

A jury convicted defendant Daniel Delgado of the murder of Daniel Cortez based primarily on eyewitness testimony. At trial, three witnesses testified that defendant shot Cortez. Shortly after the murder, however, two of those witnesses were unable to identify defendant from a photographic array. When the police showed the same array to those two witnesses a little more than seven months later, they positively identified defendant. Defendant contends that the police were required to record or summarize in a report the dialogue between the witnesses and police during the out-of-court identification procedures. The failure of the police to do so, defendant argues, resulted in the loss of critical evidence that denied him a fair trial.

Some witnesses at trial also identified defendant's mother's minivan as the vehicle used by the shooter. Defendant complains that his due process rights were violated because the police showed witnesses only that minivan or photographs of it during the murder investigation. Defendant suggests that the police should have conducted an out-of-court procedure akin to a car lineup or photographic array of cars.

The Appellate Division upheld defendant's convictions. Because defendant knew of the missed and positive out-of-court identifications before trial and fully explored them in questioning witnesses, we conclude that he received a fair trial despite any alleged deficiencies in the police reports. We also reject, as did the Appellate Division, defendant's invitation to impose an unprecedented obligation on the police to conduct lineups of inanimate objects, such as cars, as a precondition to the admissibility of identification testimony concerning such objects.

We therefore affirm defendant's convictions for murder and related crimes. However, given the importance of ensuring the accuracy and integrity of out-of-court identifications, we will exercise our rulemaking authority to require, as a condition to the admissibility of out-of-court identifications, that the police record, to the extent feasible, the dialogue between witnesses and police during an identification procedure.

I.

A.

On November 25, 1998, at approximately 7:00 a.m., defendant shot Daniel Cortez to death outside of Cortez's home on North Ninth Street in Newark.¹ The motive for the murder appears to have been revenge. Defendant met Sandra Jorge in the summer of 1997, and the two began an "off and on" relationship. Approximately one year later, Jorge had a brief romantic interlude with Cortez. When defendant saw Cortez talking to his girlfriend in May 1998, he approached her and asked, "why?" According to one witness, defendant and Cortez exchanged angry words, which threatened to escalate into violence. The police, however, arrived and took defendant, Cortez, Jorge, and their friends to the station house, apparently to cool off. When they left the police station, the same witness related that defendant looked at Cortez, laughed, and said, "I'm going to get you."

One week later, Jorge admitted to defendant that she and Cortez had dated and been intimate. After hearing that, defendant told Jorge that he would "get [Cortez] back." The two never spoke about Cortez again. A week before the shooting, Jorge broke up with defendant because "it wasn't working out." Although "a little upset," defendant amicably parted with Jorge, telling her, "if that's what you want."

On the morning of November 25, 1998, from their various viewpoints, Al Bucci, Edmund DiEduardo, eleven-year-old Richie Munoz, and Anthony Melillo witnessed Cortez's shooting. At trial, DiEduardo, Munoz, and Melillo identified defendant as the shooter. However, DiEduardo and Munoz failed to identify defendant when first approached by the police.

Al Bucci

When the police interviewed Bucci on the day of the shooting, he gave a description of both the shooter and the minivan in which the shooter fled from the scene. He described a maroon colored minivan, "like a Caravan," possibly missing a hub cap, with a blue and white New Jersey license plate that began "HAI." That same day, based in part on the information provided by Bucci, the police stopped defendant, who was driving his mother's burgundy Plymouth Voyager, license plate number HAI-30G, which had a missing rear hub cap.² Defendant was taken to the station house for questioning, where he and the minivan were photographed. The police then prepared an array of six photographs, placing defendant's photograph with those of five similar looking Hispanic males.³

Approximately two days later, three detectives came to Bucci's house with four photographs of defendant's minivan. Bucci was unable to identify the minivan as the one driven by the shooter. The detectives then drove Bucci down the street where defendant's minivan was parked. According to Bucci, when he saw the minivan he told the detectives that he was "75 percent sure" that it was the one used in the shooting. The detectives did not prepare a report recording those events. Eight months later, a detective showed Bucci the array containing defendant's photograph, but he was unable to make an identification. This time, however, Bucci did identify defendant's minivan from a photograph displayed to him.

Edmund DiEduardo

On the day of the shooting, a detective and a prosecutor's investigator visited DiEduardo at work at the Bloomfield Cab Company and showed him the photographic array containing defendant's photograph. DiEduardo could not make an identification. When shown two photographs of defendant's minivan, DiEduardo was unable to identify that minivan as involved in the shooting. The police report referring to the attempted identifications stated that DiEduardo "failed to make a positive identification." Seven and one half months afterwards, two detectives showed DiEduardo the same photographic array and this time he picked out defendant as the shooter. DiEduardo claimed that before selecting defendant's photograph (number five), he first focused on photograph number three. Two weeks later, DiEduardo signed and dated a photograph of defendant's minivan. At trial, however, he insisted that that minivan was not the vehicle driven by the shooter.

Richie Munoz

On the day of the shooting, two investigating officers took Munoz, who was the victim's cousin, to view defendant's minivan. Munoz did not recognize the vehicle as having any involvement in the shooting. Later that evening, at his home, Munoz was shown the array containing defendant's photograph. He picked out two photographs, number three and defendant's photograph, number five, but could not make a positive identification. The police report relating the attempted identification simply stated that Munoz was "unable to make a positive identification." Seven and one half months later, detectives again showed Munoz the same photographic array. This time Munoz identified defendant as the person who shot his cousin. Two weeks later, Munoz was shown a photograph of defendant's minivan. At trial, a Newark police detective testified that Munoz had identified the minivan as the one involved in the shooting. Munoz, however, testified that although the photograph depicted "the same kind of van," he could not be certain it was the one used by defendant.

Anthony Melillo

On the day of the shooting, Melillo avoided contact with the police who had responded to the scene because he "didn't want to get involved." About three weeks later, a detective from the Robbery-Homicide Unit interviewed Melillo at the station house regarding the shooting. Melillo's account of the direction in which the minivan left the scene did not comport with other eyewitness accounts. Because Melillo did not appear cooperative, the interview ended. Melillo explained at trial that he had lied in his first interview in reaction to the investigating detective's hostility towards him. Seven months after the aborted interview, Newark police detectives spoke with Melillo again and this time showed him the array containing defendant's photograph. He identified defendant as the shooter. Two weeks later, Melillo identified a photograph of defendant's minivan as the vehicle used by defendant in the shooting.

Defendant

On December 29, 1998, defendant gave a formal statement to a detective in the Robbery-Homicide Unit, accounting for his time immediately before and during the murder. In that statement, which was read into evidence, defendant denied that he shot Cortez or drove his mother's minivan on North Ninth Street on the day of the murder. He explained to the detective that he had slept at his mother's house the night before the shooting. The next morning he left for work at 6:30 a.m., driving his mother's minivan. He first stopped for breakfast at a coffee shop on the corner of Park Avenue and First Street in Newark and, from there, drove to Union where he worked, punching in at 7:30 a.m. Defendant admitted that once while he and his girlfriend were arguing with each other, Cortez exited his car and approached him....