State v. Crumb

• Decision Date: 24 December 1997
• Citation: 307 N.J.Super. 204,704 A.2d 952
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Christopher M. CRUMB, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 204

307 N.J.Super. 204

704 A.2d 952

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Christopher M. CRUMB, Defendant-Appellant.

Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division.

Argued Dec. 10, 1997.

Decided Dec. 24, 1997.

Lon Taylor, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, for defendant-appellant (Ivelisse Torres,[704 A.2d 955] Public Defender attorney; Mr. Taylor, of counsel, and on the brief)

Linda K. Danielson, Deputy Attorney General, for plaintiff-respondent (Peter Verniero, Attorney General, attorney; Ms. Danielson, of counsel, and on the brief).

Before Judges SHEBELL, D'ANNUNZIO and COBURN.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

SHEBELL, P.J.A.D.

Defendant was indicted in Atlantic County as follows: count one, first degree murder ( N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(1) and -3(a)(2)); count two, third degree possession of a weapon, a walking cane, with a purpose to use it unlawfully against the person of another ( N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(d)); and count three, assault with ill will, hatred, or bias ( N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1(e)). Count three was severed by the trial judge, and defendant was tried before a jury from May 3 to 17, 1995. He was found guilty on both counts. On June 16 Defendant appeals, raising the following legal arguments:

1995, count two, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, was merged with count one, murder, and defendant was sentenced to a custodial term of life with a thirty-year parole ineligibility period.

POINT I

THE TOTAL OMISSION OF AN INSTRUCTION ON ACCOMPLICE LIABILITY, INCLUDING THE OMISSION OF AN EXPLANATION THAT AN ACCOMPLICE MIGHT HAVE A LESS CULPABLE MENTAL STATE THAN A PRINCIPAL, VIOLATED DEFENDANT'S RIGHTS TO DUE PROCESS AND A FAIR TRIAL. (Not Raised Below).

POINT II

THE GENOCIDAL RACIST MATERIAL SEIZED FROM DEFENDANT'S BEDROOM FIVE MONTHS PRIOR TO THE INCIDENT SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXCLUDED SINCE IT DID NOT FALL WITHIN ANY EXCEPTION REGARDING EXCLUSION OF PRIOR BAD-ACTS EVIDENCE AND WAS FAR MORE PREJUDICIAL THAN PROBATIVE.

POINT III

THE GENOCIDAL ANTI-SEMITIC AND OTHER HATE MATERIAL SEIZED FROM DEFENDANT'S BEDROOM FIVE MONTHS PRIOR TO THE INCIDENT SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXCLUDED SINCE IT DID NOT FALL WITHIN ANY EXCEPTION REGARDING EXCLUSION OF PRIOR BAD ACTS EVIDENCE AND WAS FAR MORE PREJUDICIAL THAN PROBATIVE.

POINT IV

THE TRIAL COURT'S INSTRUCTION CONCERNING THE USE OF THE OTHER BAD-ACT EVIDENCE WAS INADEQUATE AND DENIED DEFENDANT DUE PROCESS OF LAW AND A FAIR TRIAL. (Not Raised Below).

POINT V

THE MATERIAL OBTAINED FROM DEFENDANT'S BEDROOM IN HIS ABSENCE WAS IMPROPERLY ADMITTED INTO EVIDENCE SINCE IT WAS THE PRODUCT OF A WARRANTLESS AND NONCONSENSUAL SEARCH.

POINT VI

THE TRIAL COURT'S INSTRUCTION REGARDING THE JURY'S OBLIGATION TO ASSESS THE CREDIBILITY OF "A CERTAIN STATEMENT ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN MADE BY THE DEFENDANT" ERRONEOUSLY OMITTED ANY REFERENCE TO THE CREDIBILITY OF THE MULTIPLE WRITTEN STATEMENTS SEIZED BY POLICE AS WELL AS THE VARIOUS ALLEGED ADMISSIONS MADE BY DEFENDANT TO FIVE DIFFERENT PERSONS, THEREBY DEPRIVING DEFENDANT DUE PROCESS OF LAW AND A FAIR TRIAL. (Not Raised Below).

POINT VII

THE ACCUMULATION OF ERRORS DENIED DEFENDANT DUE PROCESS OF LAW AND A FAIR TRIAL.

During the morning of February 4, 1993, Detectives Michael Quigley and James A. Frohner of the Egg Harbor Township Police Department went to the trailer home where the twenty-year-old defendant lived with his mother and his step-father. Defendant was not home, but his mother invited the officers in and insisted that they take a look at his bedroom. The bedroom door was off of its hinges and the room was in disarray. The officers observed certain writings in the room. They left and then returned at about noon to take notes. Quigley eventually left the trailer and applied for and was granted a search warrant. Pursuant to the warrant, at approximately 5:00 p.m., Quigley, Frohner, and others collected various items from the bedroom, and Frohner took photographs. The evidence seized included writings and drawings demonstrating defendant's racial and anti-Semitic beliefs and affiliations. More details concerning the events of February 4, 1993 will follow.

On July 13, 1993, five months after this evidence was seized, Roy Dick, an African American man in his seventies, was brutally beaten in Atlantic City. He died of his injuries on July 19, 1993, without regaining consciousness. He was a frail man, about five feet, two inches tall, who spent much of his time cleaning up the streets and parking lots. He could not walk very well and was hunched-over, moving only a half an inch at a time. He used canes and an old broom. He wore hats and old long coats, even in the summer.

Defendant's friends and acquaintances explained that during the Summer of 1993, defendant had strong beliefs about various groups of people. A friend of defendant's since high school recalled that defendant shaved his head to be a part of the skinhead faith. The friend said defendant had mixed feelings about actually being a skinhead, but "he acted the faith," and expressed strong feelings about black, Jewish, and Puerto Rican people. Defendant had a tattoo that said "white" on his right wrist and one that said "power" on his left wrist. He wore black combat boots with red laces to symbolize neo-Nazi beliefs.

During the Summer of 1993, Tabitha Buntele, then seventeen years old, lived with her mother in the same trailer park where defendant resided with his mother and step-father. She was five feet, four inches tall and weighed about one hundred pounds. At that time, she and defendant, who was twenty years old, were friends. Buntele was with defendant on the night of July 12, 1993, and into the morning of July 13, 1993. They decided to go to the Chelsea Pub in Atlantic City, as defendant used to work there and knew a lot of people. Sometime after midnight, Buntele drove the two of them to the Pub in her mother's car, a gray 1987 Reliant K. They parked in the rear of the parking lot near the bushes. While at the Pub, they drank and played pool. Buntele estimated she had two or three "nuclear kamikazes." She said defendant was drinking beer, but she did not remember how many he had.

The Pub's bartender recalled seeing defendant and a girl at the bar during the early morning hours, but said that defendant did not want anything to drink. He estimated that the couple was in the bar for about fifteen to twenty minutes sometime between 3:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m.

Buntele recounted that when they left the Pub, they walked a couple of blocks to the Trop World Hotel Casino because defendant wanted to talk to one of their mutual friends who worked there. During the walk, defendant did not appear to be drunk. They spoke to the friend and agreed to pick him up at a bar and grill, two blocks from Trop World, when he got off of work at 8:00 a.m. According to the friend, defendant did not appear to be drunk or under the influence of alcohol. Buntele and defendant walked back to the car which was still parked at the Pub.

Buntele recalled that before getting into the car, defendant said that he needed to urinate and went behind some bushes. She saw a small, skinny black man wearing a long trench coat near those bushes, and opined that he was "a bum." She saw defendant swing his hand at the man "[l]ike he was throwing something," and tell him "to get lost." Defendant was a foot or two away from the man, within arm's reach, but she could not tell whether defendant actually hit the man. The man walked off a couple of feet through an opening in the bushes and defendant followed. Buntele was not able to see what the men were doing and could not hear anything. She did not see or hear anyone else in the area. About a minute later, defendant came from the bushes and said: "get in the car. Let's go." Once in the car, he told her, "I think I just beat somebody up." They left the parking lot and went to a McDonald's by the bus station. After getting something to eat at the drive-through window, they drove back to Egg Harbor Township. During the morning, defendant told Buntele that he kicked the man once or twice.

During the early morning hours of July 13, 1993, a woman who lived at 17 South Chelsea Avenue was awakened by the sound of a lady repeatedly screaming, "no." She looked out the window and saw a white male getting into the driver's side of a car which was parked in the parking lot of the Pub. The woman described the car as light in color and having a box shape. At trial, she was shown a photograph which she identified as the car she had seen that morning. She said that a woman was seated in the passenger's seat. She went back to bed and a few minutes later, she heard police vehicles. She looked out and saw police officers and ambulance personnel assisting an individual on the other side of the fence. On cross-examination, she acknowledged that she had described the white man as being in his early thirties and of average build. She explained that she was looking at the top of his head from her second story window and she guessed his age because he was not an old person and was at least of driving age.

Another resident of the second floor of the same rooming house testified that at 4:34 a.m. on July 13, 1993, he heard someone say in a loud voice, "come on." The noise was coming from the direction of the parking lot of the Pub. He looked out of the window, but did not see anything so he went and sat down. He then heard a real loud crack like someone was hit with a stick. He said it was not a regular sound. He went back to the window, and saw a girl and a guy run and jump into a gray, K car. From a photograph at trial, he identified the gray car he had seen that morning. He also said the female got into the passenger's seat, explaining the male was the last to come out of the yard and he went around the back and got into the driver's side. The witness went out onto his fire escape and saw someone lying down in the yard trying to sit up. He went down and saw it...