State v. Davis

• Citation: 561 A.2d 1082,116 N.J. 341
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Steven Raymond DAVIS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Decision Date: 03 August 1989
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 341

116 N.J. 341

561 A.2d 1082

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Steven Raymond DAVIS, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Jan. 3, 1989.

Decided Aug. 3, 1989.

Tina R. Boyer, Asst. Deputy Public Defender, and Lois De Julio, First Asst. Deputy Public Defender, for appellant (Alfred A. Slocum, Public Defender, atty.).

Cathleen Russo Delanoy, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent (Cary Edwards, Atty. Gen. of New Jersey, atty.).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

O'HERN, Justice.

In State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 524 A.2d 130 (1987), and State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 524 A.2d 188 (1987), we determined the constitutionality of New Jersey's capital punishment act, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3, and established standards for its application. In this case, tried before those decisions, the jury charge failed to comply with the Biegenwald requirement that to impose the death penalty the jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the statutory aggravating factors of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3 outweigh the mitigating factors. The charge here would have permitted imposition of capital punishment on a finding that the aggravating and mitigating factors balanced. Therefore, the State agrees that a retrial of the penalty phase is required.

This case differs from other capital cases that we have decided since Ramseur and Biegenwald in that the defendant pled guilty to murder. Hence, we address certain evidentiary issues concerning the penalty phase that may arise in the event of a capital retrial. In addition, we address the question of the standard for measuring effective assistance of counsel in the original proceedings and its relevance to any resentencing. Finally, we furnish guidance to the trial court in connection with the application of State v. Gerald, 113 N.J. 40, 549 A.2d 792 (1988), to a capital retrial.

I

The case arises from the brutal killing of a twenty-three-year-old woman acquaintance of the defendant. For purposes of this appeal, we accept the factual version set forth in the defendant's brief and his recital of the procedural history.

On the morning of Monday, January 17, 1983, a worried next-door neighbor in Barbara Blomberg's two-family duplex house in Buena, New Jersey, entered Barbara's apartment via the common cellar access. She found Barbara's body lying across her bed on her stomach, nude from the waist down. Her body was mutilated and bloodied. Around her neck was an electrical cord. Strewn on the floor was a blue pouch containing a certificate of title to a Vineland house trailer that she had sold to the defendant, Steven Davis.

A tip led police to arrest the defendant on Wednesday, January 19, 1983. He was arrested with a .357 Magnum revolver, a shotgun, and fifty-six shells of ammunition in his possession. The police confronted him with information they had received that he had killed the victim. Within hours he confessed to the murder. His confession and later testimony at the sentencing phase recount the events.

Through his friend, Mike Muccio, Davis had come to know Barbara. In Davis' words, he and Barbara were "real close" and he considered her "like a sister." Barbara was Mike's girlfriend, and they often double-dated with Davis. Although Davis lived in Pennsylvania, he had a child in the Buena area. Davis spent weekends in a Vineland house-trailer, which he had purchased from Barbara, so that he could visit with his son. At the time of the murder, Davis still owed $1500 of the $6000 purchase price, which he had been paying off over time.

He offered no explanation why he had gone to her apartment on that Sunday night. He had been drinking very heavily with friends on that day and admitted calling Barbara from the Bootlegger Bar in Buena. After the bar had closed at 2:15 a.m., he described himself as having become lost on the way to another party. Instead, he went to Barbara's home. When she did not answer the doorbell, he went back to his car and got a screwdriver and jimmied the door open. He took an appliance cord from an electric coffee pot in the kitchen and went upstairs to her bedroom. He heard her ask, "[w]ho is it?". He killed her by strangling her with the electric cord. He then stabbed and mutilated her body with a screwdriver and a knife. Davis then took from a blue pouch a paper that recorded his payment of debt, but left behind the bill of sale for the trailer. He also admitted stealing some articles of jewelry from the victim's apartment.

Afterwards, Davis went to Muccio's home and told him, "I think I killed somebody." Muccio, who was a sheriff's deputy, did not, however, report him immediately to the police, nor did Davis turn himself in that night. Davis' girlfriend, with whom he lived, testified that Davis knew that he "really had hurt [Barbara] and he wasn't sure how bad or what had really happened." Nonetheless, on Monday morning, in an apparent attempt to deny knowledge of her death, he called one of Barbara's friends asking about her. He also called Muccio to arrange to go with him to Barbara's funeral scheduled for Wednesday. After driving to Vineland Wednesday morning, Davis telephoned Muccio. Muccio admitted to Davis that he had told the police that Davis murdered Barbara. While Davis was packing his car to leave his Vineland trailer, he was arrested. He had a .357 Magnum revolver, a shotgun, and ammunition.

Defendant was indicted for capital murder, burglary, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, unlawful possession of a revolver, and other weapons offenses. In September 1983, defendant pled guilty to murder, felony murder, burglary, and possession of a knife for an unlawful purpose. The remaining counts were left open.

An interlocutory proceeding that resolved the use of expert testimony concerning the potential for rehabilitation of the defendant, see State v. Davis, 96 N.J. 611, 477 A.2d 308 (1984) (per curiam ), delayed the penalty trial, which commenced on April 17, 1985. The State sought to prove two aggravating factors: that the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)c, and that it was committed during the course of a burglary. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)g. [Hereinafter we refer to the subsections of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3 as, for example, "c(4)g."] With regard to c(4)g, the State argued that the defendant went to Barbara's house with the purpose of stealing title to the house-trailer for which he owed Barbara money. With regard to c(4)g, the county medical examiner established that the cause of death was strangulation, and he estimated the time of death at about 2:30 a.m. on January 17. He also noted two blunt force injuries to the head, which could have produced severe pain and unconsciousness. He found multiple stab wounds, abrasions, and lacerations made on her body. He thought these were inflicted after death and could have been inflicted several hours later. The stab wounds he attributed to one weapon: a three and one-half-inch, single-edge knife. The abrasions, he thought, were caused by a screwdriver. A pattern of multiple laceration wounds were found on Barbara's left forearm and left calf. One laceration wound was found slicing between her buttocks and through her anus.

Defendant testified in his own behalf, asserting that on the night of the murder he had been drinking heavily and using drugs. He claimed to have had no realization of what he had done. According to defendant, that night he had drunk several beers and shots, taken two quaaludes, and injected himself with methamphetamine, a stimulant commonly called "speed" or "crank." He acknowledged the murder as being senseless. It was like "[s]omething weird": "It was like it was somebody else" who was doing it. He denied any sexual motivation for the crime or any revenge based on the trailer-payment arrangements. He offered expert testimony with respect to mitigating factor c(5)h, that it would be unlikely that he would ever commit another serious offense. A psychiatric witness on his behalf concluded that based on defendant's consumption of alcohol, quaaludes, and methamphetamine, his ability to exercise normal behavior control was substantially impaired, a mitigating factor under c(5)d. He was, in his doctor's expert opinion, an alcoholic and a drug abuser. The expert said that Davis had expressed feelings of remorse and guilt over the death of Barbara. He also thought defendant could be rehabilitated.

Davis' father described his son as having a close relationship with Barbara. The entire Davis family viewed her as a friend. She often visited the family home. He saw his son as subject to drug- and alcohol-abuse problems, but was unable to help him overcome them. He could not explain why his son would kill someone who had been so kind to him and had done so many nice things for him and his family. Friends and family were unable to explain the murder. A religious counsellor cited Davis' repeated expressions of sorrow for the crime.

The State countered with expert testimony to the effect that his complex actions and his sophisticated "goal-seeking" allayed any possibility of any sufficient degree of intoxication. The prosecution also presented Dr. Robert L. Sadoff, who concluded that defendant had "cognitive or intellectual awareness of what was going on about him and acted * * * with goal oriented behavior." He found emotional difficulties but no mental disease. The State rebutted some of the mitigating circumstances through other factual testimony.

The jury found that the State had proven both alleged aggravating factors. They also found that two mitigating circumstances had been shown by the defense; that the defendant had no significant history of prior criminal activity; and that other factors relevant to the defendant's character and to the offense served in mitigation. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)h. The jurors concluded that the mitigating factors did not outweigh the aggravating factors, and sentenced Steven...