State v. Cooper
| Decision Date | 20 August 1997 |
| Citation | 151 N.J. 326,700 A.2d 306 |
| Parties | STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent and Cross-Appellant, v. David COOPER, Defendant-Appellant and Cross-Respondent. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Stephen W. Kirsch, and Linda Mehling, Assistant Deputy Public Defenders, for defendant-appellant and cross-respondent (Susan L. Reisner, Public Defender, attorney).
Catherine A. Foddai, Deputy Attorney General, for plaintiff-respondent and cross-appellant (Peter Verniero, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney).
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
In May 1995, a Monmouth County jury convicted defendant, David Cooper, of the kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, felony murder, and purposeful-or-knowing murder of L.G., a six-year-old girl, by his own conduct. The same jury sentenced him to death. This is defendant's direct appeal from his conviction for capital murder and sentence of death. R. 2:2-1(a)(3). We affirm both the conviction and the sentence of death.
A Monmouth County Grand Jury indicted defendant on the following charges: purposeful-or-knowing murder by his own conduct, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3a(1) or (2) (count one); felony murder, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3a(3) (count two); first-degree kidnapping, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:13-1b (count three); and two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2a(1) and 2C:14-2a(3) ().
The State's theory at trial was that defendant kidnapped the victim and took her underneath a porch where he raped her and then strangled her to escape detection or apprehension. An alternative theory was that defendant murdered the victim in the course of an aggravated sexual assault or kidnapping.
At trial, the defense conceded defendant's guilt of felony murder, kidnapping, and aggravated sexual assault. The defense contested, however, that the murder was purposeful or knowing. Instead, defendant contended that the killing had occurred accidentally during the course of an aggravated sexual assault. Thus, he claimed that there had been no intent to strangle the child but rather that death had been caused by unintentionally placing pressure on her carotid artery for about thirty seconds.
-A-
On July 18, 1993, the six-year-old victim, L.G., her mother, R.G., and the victim's two sisters were at the home of R.G.'s sister-in-law, M.W., in Asbury Park. While M.W. was at the supermarket, R.G. sat on the front porch of the house with her youngest daughter. The victim and her other sister were with M.W.'s daughter playing in the frontyard. After playing in the frontyard for some time, the children moved into a fenced-in backyard.
While they were playing in the backyard, defendant lured the victim away from the other children and eventually picked her up, lifted her over the fence, and walked away with her. The other children went to the frontyard and told R.G. what had occurred. R.G., joined by M.W., who had just returned from the supermarket, began to search for and to call out to L.G., but they could not locate her. Soon after, neighbors joined in the search.
The Asbury Park Police Department was contacted shortly after L.G.'s disappearance, and police officers also joined the search. Within a few hours after the victim had disappeared, her body was found under a porch of an abandoned house. Defendant lived under that porch. L.G. was found lying on her back on a mattress with her shirt pulled up, her panties at her ankles, a pair of men's boxer shorts over her face, and her vaginal area exposed and bloodstained.
The police found clothing and a bloodstained paper towel at arms's length from L.G.'s body. The police also found a gym bag
that contained a wallet. Inside the wallet was defendant's social-security card. Defendant's latent fingerprints were found on a paper bag and on a malt-liquor bottle in the porch area. Several letters, photographs, and other documents in defendant's name were also found in the area.
That night, the police interviewed witnesses to the abduction, and defendant became a suspect almost immediately. Defendant was located the next day and was taken to police headquarters for questioning. The State concedes that defendant was in custody at that time. He was read his Miranda rights, and he signed a form waiving his rights to remain silent and to counsel. At that time, defendant denied any involvement in the child's death.
Soon thereafter, Detective John Musiello confronted defendant with the evidence that the police had against him and told him that they would seek a court order to obtain forensic evidence from his person. No law-enforcement officer, however, informed defendant that he was facing a potential death sentence. Instead, they told him that the perpetrator was facing a term of life imprisonment with thirty years of parole ineligibility.
Defendant then confessed to causing L.G.'s death. According to slightly varying police testimony, he dropped his head and stated either: (1) or (2) Defendant explained that he had seen children playing at M.W.'s house on his way to the porch of the abandoned house and that he had told L.G. to come to him. He lifted her over the fence and led her underneath the porch of the abandoned house. Defendant then stated, "Then we had sex, and I strangled her" and that he had left her body underneath the porch. After further questioning, defendant admitted that he had ejaculated and that he had worn a condom which he later had discarded in a nearby field.
Defendant subsequently signed a formal written statement, in which he described the sexual penetration of L.G. as vaginal and stated that she had bled from her vagina during the penetration,
causing blood to get on defendant's clothes. He also told the police that he had been on top of L.G. during the penetration and that his hands had been on her neck.
An autopsy of L.G.'s body revealed dried blood on the skin of her lower abdomen and external genitalia. Numerous internal injuries were found in her vaginal canal and cervix. Her hymen was not intact. Her anal canal also showed signs of injury. The autopsy revealed swelling in L.G.'s trachea and lungs, petechial hemorrhages on the outer surface of the thymus, and swelling in her brain.
The medical examiner concluded that the injuries on and around L.G.'s neck, the edema in her lungs, and the swelling in her brain were consistent with asphyxia caused by manual strangulation. He also concluded that pressure probably had been applied for approximately four to six minutes because, for edema to form in the lungs, pressure would have had to have been applied for three to six minutes, and for irreversible brain damage to occur from lack of oxygen, pressure would have had to have been applied for four to six minutes.
The police obtained seven discarded condoms from a field, close to the abandoned house, to which defendant had led them, and obtained from defendant samples of his hair, saliva, and blood. None of the condoms tested positive for semen, although one had blood on it. Blood was found on the paper towel discovered under the porch, on the cushion on which L.G. had been found, on two pairs of sneakers found under the porch, and on defendant's jeans, t-shirt, and boxer shorts. No semen was found on L.G.'s clothes or person. Four pubic hairs found on L.G. were consistent with defendant's pubic hair, although they could not be linked to him conclusively.
-B-
The penalty phase was conducted before the same jury. The State relied on three aggravating factors: (1) that the murder was
outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved depravity of mind, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c); (2) that the murder occurred during the commission of an aggravated sexual assault or kidnapping, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(g); and (3) that the purpose of the murder was to escape detection or apprehension, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(f). Defendant's mitigating evidence was limited to his life up to the age of seventeen. The defense, under the "catch-all" mitigating factor, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h), submitted eighteen mitigating circumstances related to defendant's life.
The defense presented an enormous amount of mitigating evidence about defendant's tragic childhood, which was replete with numerous foster care placements, abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence, drugs, and alcohol. Several experts testified that the lack of stability in defendant's life, his exposure to violence, and his lack of a relationship with his mother had affected him in numerous ways, such as making him aggressive and unable to empathize with others, as well as by reducing his ability to understand cause and effect. The defense also presented expert testimony that, as a result of defendant's upbringing, he was extremely emotionally disturbed and that he had not developed normally.
The State's strategy during the penalty phase was to emphasize the good aspects of defendant's childhood. The prosecutor thus elicited testimony from defendant's relatives about the positive aspects of his familial and foster-care relationships, which the prosecutor argued in summation.
The State rebutted defendant's expert mitigating evidence by presenting testimony that defendant's personality disorder was not treatable. The State's expert also testified that defendant's childhood would not prevent him from knowing the difference between right and wrong and would not make him unable to control his actions.
The jury unanimously found that the State had proven that defendant had committed the murder to escape detection, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(f), and that he had done so in the course of committing
aggravated sexual assault and...
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