State v. Beckett

• Decision Date: 26 August 2019
• Docket Number: DOCKET NO. A-5398-16T4
• Parties: STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. DERRICK T. BECKETT, a/k/a TYRONE OWENS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. DERRICK T. BECKETT, a/k/a TYRONE OWENS, Defendant-Appellant.

DOCKET NO. A-5398-16T4

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION

Argued January 22, 2019

August 26, 2019

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

Before Judges Messano and Gooden Brown.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Mercer County, Indictment No. 16-03-0201.

John S. Furlong argued the cause for appellant (Furlong & Krasny, attorneys; Andrew Ferencevych, of counsel and on the brief).

Timothy Francis Trainor, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Angelo J. Onofri, Mercer County Prosecutor, attorney; Timothy Francis Trainor, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Following a five-day jury trial, defendant Derrick Beckett was convicted of third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance (CDS), N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(a)(1) (count one); third-degree possession of CDS with intent to distribute, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5(a)(1) and 2C:35-5(b)(3) (count two); fourth-degree possession of CDS, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(a)(3) (count three); third-degree possession of CDS with intent to distribute, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5(a)(1) and 2C:35-5(b)(11) (count four); second-degree possession of a firearm while committing a CDS offense, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4.1(a)¹ (count six); and second-degree certain persons not to possess a firearm, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-7(b)(1) (count eight).² Defendant was sentenced to an aggregate term of ten years' imprisonment with an eight-year period of parole ineligibility.

The convictions stemmed from police executing a search warrant at defendant's home, where he resided with his fiancée and his four children, resulting in the seizure of contraband consisting of crack cocaine, marijuana, plastic bags, digital scales, a loaded handgun, ammunition, and currency. Afterthe seizure, defendant gave a Mirandized³ statement to police, during which he admitted possessing the items found and selling the drugs for profit. However, at trial, he admitted possessing the cocaine only for personal use, denied possessing the remaining contraband, and claimed his confession was coerced.

Defendant now appeals from his convictions, raising the following points for our consideration:

POINT ONE

THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN ADMITTING DEFENDANT'S STATEMENT BECAUSE IT WAS INVOLUNTARILY OBTAINED BY ARRESTING DEFENDANT'S FIANC[ÉE] AND THREATENING TO CHARGE HER.

POINT TWO

THE TRIAL COURT IMPROPERLY ADMITTED EXPERT OPINION TESTIMONY THROUGH A POLICE LAY WITNESS.

POINT THREE

THE TRIAL COURT ERRED WHEN IT ADMITTED REPEATED REFERENCES TO THE EXISTENCE OF A SEARCH WARRANT.

POINT FOUR

THE TRIAL COURT ERRONEOUSLY ALLOWED THE STATE TO INTRODUCE EXTRANEOUS

INFORMATION REGARDING DEFENDANT'S PRIOR CONVICTIONS.

After considering the arguments in light of the record and applicable law, we affirm.

I.

We summarize the facts from the trial record to give context to the issues raised on appeal. On September 16, 2015, following a narcotics investigation, Detective William Sanchez-Monllor of the Trenton Police Department obtained a search warrant to search defendant's home located on Adeline Street in Trenton. In the afternoon of September 23, 2015, eleven officers accompanied Sanchez-Monllor to execute the warrant, including Mercer County Prosecutor's Office Detective Anthony Abarno, and Trenton Police Department Detective Daniel Simpkins and Officer Timothy Long. As the officers approached the residence, defendant opened the front door. After explaining to defendant that they had a search warrant for the residence, the officers immediately handcuffed defendant and his fiancée, Rasheeda Thomas, and placed the two children who were present, a ten year old and a two year old, on the living room couch. Next, the officers secured the living room and searched defendant, recovering $501 in various denominations. The officers then proceeded to conduct a systematic protective sweep of the house for officer safety, followed by a complete searchof the house "from top to bottom" in an attempt "to locate any contraband." The search lasted approximately two to three hours.⁴

Once the protective sweep was completed, a K-9 unit arrived at the scene and gave a positive indication for narcotics in the closet of the third-floor bedroom and the basement hallway. In the third-floor bedroom closet, Abarno found a locked safe. While attempting to forcibly open the safe, Long found a "black safe key" "on top of the door ledge" of the closet that unlocked the safe. Inside the safe, Abarno found a heat-sealed Ziploc bag with smaller plastic bags containing suspected marijuana, two boxes of sandwich bags, a "baggie with smaller clear plastic baggies," two "operational" digital scales, a "loaded" "black Ruger" ".9mm handgun with two magazines[,]" two boxes of ".9mm ammunition," and one box of ".380 caliber" "ammunition." Long also found a burgundy vest in the third-floor bedroom closet with $40 and "some personal mail" addressed to defendant at the subject residence. In the closet of a second-floor bedroom, Simpkins found a BB gun. Additionally, "inside a black . . . doggie-bag type [purse]" located "inside the cellar door, leading to thebasement," Long found forty-one small Ziploc bags containing "white rock-like substances suspected to be crack cocaine[.]"

Based on the contraband recovered,⁵ defendant was arrested and transported to the Trenton Police Department for questioning. Thomas was also transported to the police station. Although Thomas was detained and handcuffed to a metal bench at the police station, she was released after defendant was interviewed by the detectives. The videotaped interview of defendant, conducted by Sanchez-Monllor and Abarno at police headquarters, was played for the jury during the trial. During the interview, after Abarno explained the charges and advised defendant of his Miranda rights, defendant acknowledged understanding his rights, and agreed to waive his rights and give a statement. Next, defendant confirmed that he lived at the subject residence with his fiancée, his four children, and several dogs. Further, he admitted that he sold the crack cocaine found in his house at "[t]en dollars a bag" in order to make "a little extra money." However, defendant denied possessing the BB gun, and explained that it belonged to his eleven-year-old son.

Regarding the safe, initially, defendant claimed the safe and its contents belonged to his stepfather, Boyce Clark. Defendant denied ever opening the safe or even knowing the combination for the lock. However, after the detectives informed defendant that they had "found [the] key to the safe on the top ledge of the closet" in defendant's bedroom, defendant admitted that he placed "[a]bout a pound" of "weed" inside the safe, which he also sold to make "[e]xtra money." Defendant also admitted that he used the digital scale in the safe to measure the "weed" and that he used the plastic bags to package the marijuana for sale at "$25 a bag[.]" In addition, defendant stated that although the gun and ammunition found in the safe belonged to his stepfather, he acknowledged that it "was in [his] possession[,]" and that he had previously "tested [the gun] a couple of times."

At the end of the interview, defendant acknowledged that he had told the detectives the truth and was neither pressured nor coerced into providing a statement. Abarno described the interview as "pleasant" and denied making any promises to defendant or any agreement to release Thomas if he confessed. Sanchez-Monllor also denied making any promises to defendant either before or after he was interviewed at police headquarters. However, Sanchez-Monlloradmitted speaking to defendant while they were at his house before the formal interview was conducted.

Defendant and Thomas⁶ testified at the trial and provided an entirely different account of what transpired during and after the execution of the search warrant. Thomas testified that after defendant let the officers into the house, they allowed her to call her sister-in-law to pick up all four children. After her sister-in-law left with the children, an officer brought her back into the house, and told her she was under arrest. While the officers were reading Thomas her Miranda rights, searching her, and handcuffing her, she asked what she was "being arrested for." When the officer replied that she was being arrested based on what they found in the safe, defendant "yelled from the kitchen" where he had been taken that he would "sign whatever [he] need[ed] to sign" to avoid her being "lock[ed] . . . up."

Thomas testified that when an officer asked her who the safe belonged to, she responded that it belonged to defendant's stepfather. Thomas denied knowing what was in the safe or knowing what was found in the house. After an officer explained that she would be released after defendant gave a statement, Thomas was transported to police headquarters, leaving defendant behind at thehouse. At headquarters, Thomas was seated on a bench, still handcuffed. After about two hours, the officers removed the handcuffs and placed her in a cell with defendant, who assured her that "everything was going to be okay." After about another hour, defendant was taken from the cell by one of the officers. When he returned, he told Thomas she would be released because "[h]e did what they needed him to do." Later, Thomas was, in fact, released.

Defendant testified that as soon as he opened the door, the officers handcuffed him, searched him, sat him down in the kitchen, and "asked [him] . . . [if] there [was] anything in th[e] house that [they] should know about." In response, defendant "told them where the crack cocaine was" located. Defendant explained that the crack belonged...