State v. Crandall

• Decision Date: 31 July 1990
• Citation: 577 A.2d 483,120 N.J. 649
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant and Cross-Respondent, v. Richard William CRANDALL, Jr., Defendant-Respondent and Cross-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 649

120 N.J. 649

577 A.2d 483

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant and Cross-Respondent, v. Richard William CRANDALL, Jr., Defendant-Respondent and Cross-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued May 8, 1990.

Decided July 31, 1990.

Cherrie Madden Black, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff-appellant and cross-respondent (Robert J. Del Tufo, Atty. Gen., attorney).

J. Michael Blake, Asst. Deputy Public Defender, for defendant-respondent and cross-appellant (Wilfredo Caraballo, Public Defender, attorney).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

HANDLER, J.

Defendant, Richard Crandall, was convicted of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, and endangering the welfare of a child. At his trial, the child victim testified via closed-circuit television, a procedure authorized by a recently-enacted statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32.4. A stated purpose of the statute is to protect young victims of criminal abuse from the effects of testifying in open court in the presence of the accused. This appeal challenges the constitutionality of that statute. We are asked to determine whether the procedure employed under the statute deprives a criminal defendant of the constitutional right to confront witnesses, the due-process right to a fair trial, and the right to a public trial. We conclude that the statute is constitutional, both facially and as applied.

I.

During the spring of 1984, L.V., a self-described alcoholic and drug abuser, overdosed and was admitted to Burlington County Memorial Hospital. She arranged for defendant, her friend, to care for her seven-year-old child, J.V., while she recovered. J.V. lived with the Crandalls until December 1984 when they moved to Florida and she was placed in a foster home.

In the spring of 1985, J.V. visited her mother, who was participating in a rehabilitation program at a halfway house. L.V. and J.V. planned to spend the night with a friend of L.V. J.V. was supposed to sleep alone in a room normally occupied by a male boarder. J.V., who knew that a male boarder normally slept in the room, became extremely upset when she was told to go to bed. In response to L.V.'s questions about her fearful reaction, J.V. explained for the first time that defendant had "hurt" her during her stay in defendant's home.

Subsequently, L.V. took her daughter to be examined by a physician, Dr. Janet Altaveer, who suspected sexual abuse. L.V. then reported the incident to the police, and defendant was charged with aggravated sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2(a)(1); sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2(b); and fourth-degree endangering the welfare of a child, N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4(a).

The State moved, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32.4, for an order permitting the presentation of J.V.'s testimony via closed-circuit television. Defense counsel moved to dismiss the State's motion on the ground that the statute was unconstitutional, or alternatively, for an order compelling a psychiatric examination of J.V. The trial court ruled that the statute was constitutional but reserved decision on defendant's motion to compel a psychiatric examination of the victim.

The trial court held an in camera hearing to determine whether there was a substantial likelihood that J.V. would suffer severe emotional or mental distress if required to testify in open court. J.V. testified in a room with counsel while the judge and defendant viewed the proceeding on closed-circuit television.

The trial court found that "there would be substantial likelihood of severe emotional upset and psychological upset" and ruled that a psychiatric evaluation was not necessary for the court to reach that conclusion. It then granted the State's motion for the closed-circuit telecast of the victim's testimony at trial. Following a two-week trial, the jury found defendant guilty on all charges.

Defendant appealed. The Appellate Division determined that N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32.4 is constitutional, but remanded for a supplementary Evidence Rule 8 hearing for more specific findings concerning the likelihood of distress resulting from open-court testimony. State v. Crandall, 231 N.J.Super. 124, 130, 134, 555 A.2d 35 (1989).

We granted the State's petition and, in part, defendant's cross-petition for certification. 117 N.J. 143, 564 A.2d 866 (1989).

II.

N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32.4 provides that a court may order the taking of testimony of a child witness by closed circuit television in certain cases, including those involving child abuse. Subsection (b) of the statute provides that in child-abuse prosecutions a court may order the use of closed-circuit television to telecast the testimony of a witness if it finds that "the witness is 16 years of age or younger and that there is a substantial likelihood that the witness would suffer severe emotional or mental distress if required to testify in open court."

Defendant contends that the statute is unconstitutional, both facially and as applied. His primary argument is that the statute contravenes his confrontation clause rights because first, it allows a child witness to testify outside the presence of a defendant, and second, it allows a child witness to testify outside the presence of the jury.

Recently, in Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990), the Supreme Court rejected a sixth amendment challenge to a similar statutory procedure. The Court in Craig upheld the constitutionality of a Maryland statute permitting an alleged victim of child abuse to testify at trial out of the presence of the judge, jury, and defendant, via one-way closed-circuit television. In order to permit such testimony, the statute requires that the trial judge first determine "that testimony by the child victim in the courtroom will result in the child suffering serious emotional distress such that the child cannot reasonably communicate." Md. Cts. & Jud.Proc.Code Ann. § 9-102(a)(1)(ii) (1989). In Craig, the State presented expert testimony suggesting that the alleged child abuse victims would have considerable difficulty testifying in front of the defendant. The trial court agreed and permitted the closed-circuit television testimony. A jury convicted the defendant on all counts, and the intermediate appellate court affirmed the convictions. The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial.

Justice O'Connor, writing for the Supreme Court, characterized the central concern of the confrontation clause as ensuring "the reliability of the evidence against a criminal defendant by subjecting it to rigorous testing in the context of an adversary proceeding before the trier of fact." Craig, supra, 497 U.S. at ----, 110 S.Ct. at 3162. The Court acknowledged that its earlier holding in Coy v. Iowa, 487 U.S. 1012, 108 S.Ct. 2798, 101 L.Ed.2d 857 (1988), had recognized "that face-to-face confrontation enhances the accuracy of factfinding by reducing the risk that a witness will wrongfully implicate an innocent person," but it concluded that such confrontation "is not the sine qua non of the confrontation right." --- U.S. at ----, 110 S.Ct. at 3164. The Court further emphasized that the right to face-to-face confrontation may be denied only when "it is necessary to further an important public policy and only where the reliability of the testimony is otherwise assured." Ibid. It determined that "a State's interest in the physical and psychological well-being of child abuse victims may be sufficiently important to outweigh, at least in some cases, a defendant's right to face his or her accusers in court." Id. at ----, 110 S.Ct. at 3167. ¹

The Court enumerated three findings a trial court must make before allowing testimony by closed-circuit television. First, "the trial court must hear evidence and determine whether use of the one-way closed circuit television procedure is necessary to protect the welfare of the particular child witness who seeks to testify." Id. at ----, 110 S.Ct. at 3169. Second, the trial court must find "that the child witness would be traumatized, not by the courtroom generally, but by the presence of the defendant." Ibid. Third, "the trial court must find that the emotional distress suffered by the child in the presence of the defendant is more than de minimis, i.e., more than 'mere nervousness or excitement or some reluctance to testify.' " Ibid. (quoting Wildermuth v. State, 310 Md. 496, 524, 530 A.2d 275, 289 (1987)).

In this case, the trial court satisfied all three of the Craig requirements. At the pre-trial hearing, J.V. testified that she was afraid defendant would hurt her. She feared him because she had "heard he hurt a girl." Because of that fear, she did not eat or sleep the night before the hearing. Although she knew that the officers in the courtroom would protect her, J.V. still feared the courtroom because defendant would be there.

L.V. testified that her daughter's behavior changed as the trial approached. She insisted on sleeping near her mother. Even then J.V. slept restlessly, mumbling, kicking, and crying in her sleep. She would not eat, she was preoccupied in class, and she refused to stay home alone. When questioned about her behavior, J.V. told her mother that she was afraid of defendant. L.V. testified that her daughter was afraid of defendant, not the courtroom. If J.V. were forced to face defendant, L.V. believed "she would clam up and say nothing." Based upon that testimony, the court found specifically that the victim would be traumatized by testifying in the presence of the defendant and that one-way closed-circuit-television testimony would protect the welfare of the victim. We conclude that those findings satisfy the first two Craig requirements. We are also satisfied that the third requirement was met. The trial court's findings were made in the context of the New Jersey statute, which requires a showing of "severe emotional or mental distress." N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32.4(b). That standard, we believe, is consistent with the...