State v. Canfield

• Decision Date: 10 January 2022
• Docket Number: DOCKET NO. A-5586-18
• Citation: 269 A.3d 1085,470 N.J.Super. 234
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Timothy J. CANFIELD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

470 N.J.Super. 234

269 A.3d 1085

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.Timothy J. CANFIELD, Defendant-Appellant.

DOCKET NO. A-5586-18

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.

Submitted September 15, 2021

Decided January 10, 2022

Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Ruth E. Hunter, Designated Counsel, on the briefs).

Grace C. MacAulay, Acting Camden County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (Jason Magid and Rachel M. Lamb, Special Deputy Attorneys General/Acting Assistant Prosecutors, of counsel and on the brief).

Before Judges Hoffman, Geiger and Susswein.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

SUSSWEIN, J.A.D.

Defendant appeals from his jury trial convictions for aggravated manslaughter and multiple counts of hindering apprehension or prosecution.¹ He contends that the Law Division judge committed numerous trial errors, all but one of which are raised for the first time on appeal. This case arises from a confrontation during which defendant shot his sister-in-law's former boyfriend with a compound bow and arrow, inflicting a fatal wound. Defendant claimed at trial that he meant only to release a "warning shot" and that he acted in self-defense. He testified that the victim, who defendant knew to be HIV-positive, came towards him in the course of their argument while holding an object that defendant believed to be a hypodermic syringe. The jury acquitted defendant of knowing/purposeful murder, convicting him instead of the lesser-included offense of aggravated manslaughter. In doing so, the jury necessarily found that the State had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's use of deadly force was not justified in self-defense.

Defendant contends that the trial court erred by failing to properly instruct the jury on several principles of law, by admitting expert testimony regarding the effectiveness of archery equipment, by admitting hearsay pertaining to the State's theory that defendant's self-defense claim was fabricated, and by admitting a photograph of a hypodermic syringe that was found inside the house similar to one police found in the backyard. Defendant's contention regarding the admission of the photograph is the only asserted error that was brought to the attention of the trial judge. All of the other alleged errors are raised for the first time on appeal as plain error.

With respect to the jury instructions, defendant contends that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury sua sponte as to: (1) the lesser-included offense of passion/provocation manslaughter, (2) the self-defense principle that a person employing deadly force does not have a duty to retreat in his or her own dwelling, and (3) the causation of the victim's death. Defendant did not request the trial court to give any of these jury instructions.

Defendant also contends that the eighteen-year prison term imposed on the aggravated manslaughter conviction is excessive. He argues that the court misapplied aggravating and mitigating factors and should have reduced the sentence pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(f)(2). He further argues that a new sentencing hearing is required at which the sentencing court must retroactively apply a recently-enacted statutory mitigating factor, N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(b)(14), that accounts for a defendant's youth.

After carefully reviewing the record in light of the arguments of the parties and governing legal principles, we reject all but one of defendant's contentions relating to trial errors. With respect to his contention that the court improperly admitted hearsay testimony regarding an alleged family plan to support a fabricated claim of self-defense, we deem it appropriate to order a limited remand for the trial court to conduct a Rule 104 hearing² to determine whether the elements of the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule have been satisfied. See infra section VIII. In all other respects, we affirm the convictions. We also affirm the sentence with the caveat that the issue whether the new youthful offender mitigating factor applies retroactively is presently pending before the Supreme Court. Because we are remanding for the trial court to make findings with respect to the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule, we deem it prudent for the trial court on remand to also consider whether the sentence would have been different accounting for the new statutory mitigating factor now codified in N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(b)(14). That will obviate any need to remand the case yet again if the Supreme Court decides that the new mitigating factor applies retroactively.

We devote much of our attention in this opinion to defendant's argument that the trial court should have afforded the jury the option to convict him of the lesser-included offense of passion/provocation manslaughter. We conclude that the facts in evidence do not clearly indicate an objectively reasonable provocation, that is, one sufficient to arouse the passions of an ordinary person beyond the power of his or her control. We therefore hold that the trial court was not required to instruct the jury on passion/provocation manslaughter sua sponte.

In reaching this conclusion, we recognize that the trial court's decision to deliver a self-defense instruction indicates that evidence was presented at trial from which a jury might reasonably find that the victim's death was attributable to his own conduct. We reject the notion, however, that a court must instruct the jury on passion/provocation manslaughter whenever self-defense is raised in a murder prosecution. Passion/provocation manslaughter, as set forth in N.J.S.A. 2C:11-4(b)(2), is a mitigated offense that is analytically distinct from the use of force in self-protection, a justification defense, set forth in N.J.S.A. 2C:3-4.

These two statutory provisions are triggered by different material elements and prerequisites, serve different purposes, and produce markedly different results. When the State fails to disprove a claim of self-defense, the defendant is acquitted of the charge(s) involving the use of force. When a jury finds the extenuating circumstances of passion/provocation, in contrast, a defendant is not vindicated by an acquittal; rather, a homicide that otherwise would be first-degree murder is mitigated to second-degree manslaughter.

Despite these fundamental distinctions, we recognize that both statutory provisions address—in different ways—when and how a victim's conduct may affect a defendant's culpability for causing the victim's death. We also recognize that the same circumstances that prompt a responsive use of deadly force may also provoke an impassioned reaction. When deadly force is employed during a spontaneous or swiftly-evolving confrontation, the attending circumstances may be fraught with emotion that causes the actor to lose self-control. In some murder cases, therefore, the same trial evidence that would require a court to provide a self-defense jury instruction might also require that the jury be afforded the option to convict for the lesser-included crime of passion/provocation manslaughter. After close inspection of the pertinent facts in evidence, we conclude that this case does not fall into that category. Even accepting as true defendant's version of events, as recounted in his trial testimony, he has failed on appeal to meet the "clearly-indicated" standard that is needed to require a jury instruction sua sponte. That standard is more demanding than the "rational-basis" standard that would have applied had defendant requested the trial court to deliver a passion/provocation instruction.

Our review of this case reinforces our belief that the decision as to what jury instructions should be delivered is best made in the first instance by a trial court, aided and informed by the arguments of the parties. Indeed, that is one of the fundamental purposes of the charge conference required by Rule 1:8-7(b).

We note further that self-defense often is asserted in murder trials when the identity of the alleged perpetrator is not disputed. In those cases, defense counsel will, of course, request that the jury be instructed on the legal principles concerning the authorized use of force in self-defense, and in that event, trial courts routinely deliver a self-defense charge as requested. The more challenging and nuanced question—whether passion/provocation mitigation should also be charged to the jury along with a self-defense instruction—arises often enough to warrant prophylactic measures to ensure that this fact-sensitive issue is considered in the first instance by the trial court and not, as in this case, by an appellate court after a verdict has already been rendered. We therefore recommend a new procedural rule that when, in a murder prosecution, the trial court determines to instruct the jury on self-defense at the charge conference conducted pursuant to Rule 1:8-7(b), the court should also consider and make specific findings on the record as to whether to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of passion/provocation manslaughter, regardless of whether either party has requested that instruction.

A trial verdict should not be placed at risk of reversal because the parties and the court did not anticipate that this fact-sensitive issue would later be raised on appeal as plain error. Nor should an otherwise valid guilty verdict be placed in jeopardy of reversal on appeal because the defense chose for strategic reasons not to request a passion/provocation instruction, hoping for an outright acquittal rather than a second-degree manslaughter conviction.

A trial court's ultimate decision whether to instruct on passion/provocation manslaughter, of course, will depend on the specific circumstances of the case and the arguments of the parties. A defendant, for example, may argue that a passion/provocation manslaughter instruction would be incompatible with his or her self-defense theory. We emphasize that the new...