State v. Gandhi

• Decision Date: 23 February 2010
• Docket Number: A-101 September Term 2008.
• Citation: 201 N.J. 161,989 A.2d 256
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Fareed M. GANDHI, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

989 A.2d 256

201 N.J. 161

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Fareed M. GANDHI, Defendant-Appellant.

A-101 September Term 2008.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued October 26, 2009.

Decided February 23, 2010.

Warren S. Hecht, Forest Hills, NY, argued the cause for appellant.

Patricia B. Quelch, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Luis A. Valentin, Monmouth County Prosecutor, attorney; Ms. Quelch and Mary R. Juliano, Assistant Prosecutor, on the briefs).

Daniel I. Bornstein, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey (Anne Milgram, Attorney General, attorney).

Michael J. Sullivan, Morristown, submitted a brief on behalf of amicus curiae Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (Coughlin Duffy, attorneys; Mr. Sullivan, Mark K. Silver, and Michael J. Goldstein, on the brief).

Justice LaVECCHIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

Stalking victims live in a nightmarish world of fear, never knowing when and where they are being watched, are being followed, or will be confronted by the unwelcome presence of their stalker. Victims often are forced to seek protection through the courts. The security that a stalking victim may derive from a judicial no-contact order is dependent, however, on the perpetrator's incentive to comply with the order. Incentive is provided, in part, from the Legislature's determination to make a stalker's repeated violation of such orders an offense of the third degree, which carries the prospect of a significant period of imprisonment. In this matter, we review an appeal of a defendant who refused to comply with sequential no-contact orders.

Defendant Fareed M. Gandhi was convicted of two counts of fourth-degree stalking, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-10(b),¹ and, in the second portion of his bifurcated trial, of having stalked his victim in violation of no-contact orders, which elevated his stalking convictions to offenses of the third degree N.J.S.A. 2C:12-10(c). Defendant also was convicted of eleven counts charging fourth-degree contempt of court for disobeying judicial orders, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-9(a).

The no-contact orders and the subsequent convictions stemmed from defendant's obsessive attachment to M.G., a young woman who did not return his affection. During the eighteen months that preceded his conviction, defendant manifested a deep-seated, troubling infatuation with M.G. The infatuation permeated his interactions with her and her family and motivated him to send insistent and alarming unilateral communications directed at her. When M.G. could not convince him to leave her alone, she turned to the courts and law enforcement for assistance and protection. As a result of defendant's persistent behavior in repeated violation of judicial no-contact orders designed to shield M.G. from his unwanted advances, a grand jury returned the two indictments that led to his convictions.

On appeal defendant contends that the trial court's jury charge on stalking, which followed the 2001 model jury charge on stalking then in effect, was insufficient because it did not explicitly require the jury to find that a defendant had the conscious object to induce, or awareness that his conduct would cause, fear of bodily injury or death in his victim. Although the Appellate Division affirmed defendant's conviction, the panel agreed with defendant's argument that the offense's culpability requirement applied both to "the [defendant's] conduct and the result of the conduct."² We, however, find defendant's position to be unsustainable.

The anti-stalking statute that criminalized defendant's actions provided that a person is guilty of stalking "if he purposefully or knowingly engages in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily injury to himself or a member of his immediate family or to fear the death of himself or a member of his immediate family." N.J.S.A. 2C:12-10(b). Based on that language and the history of this statutory offense, we do not discern a legislative intent to limit the reach of the anti-stalking statute to a stalker-defendant who purposefully intended or knew that his behavior would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily injury or death. Rather, we read the offense to proscribe a defendant from engaging in a course of repeated stalking conduct that would cause such fear in an objectively reasonable person. We view the statute's course-of-conduct focus to be on the accused's conduct and what that conduct would cause a reasonable victim to feel, not on what the accused intended. Indeed, a person accused of stalking conduct very well may have intended to be amorous, but if he or she purposefully or knowingly engages in course of conduct and the effect of that conduct is terrorizing to a reasonable victim, then the anti-stalking statute criminalizes the conduct.

We hold that the statutory offense reaches and punishes a person who engages in a course of stalking conduct even if the person is operating under the motivation of an obsessed and disturbed love that purportedly obscures appreciation of the terror that his or her conduct would reasonably cause to the victimized person. Because we disagree with the statutory interpretation urged by defendant, and because we also find no merit to his other assertions, we affirm defendant's conviction and remand for the resentencing ordered by the Appellate Division.³

I.

Defendant initially met the young woman who would become the victim of his obsession through a mutual friend: the brother of M.G.'s boyfriend. Defendant and M.G. never had a romantic relationship; theirs was only a social friendship. The relationship took an alarming turn in January 2002, however, when defendant was driving M.G. home one evening. Swerving his automobile in an erratic manner, defendant confessed his love, told her that he could care for her better than anyone, and asserted that if he could not have her, no one would. M.G. managed to calm him enough to convince him to take her home. The incident signaled the beginning of a course of conduct that devolved into sexually graphic and threatening computer messages directed at M.G., which contained the details of defendant's desire to have sex with her.⁴ After defendant disregarded M.G.'s repeated requests that he stay away from her, she used several of his messages to support a harassment complaint filed against him in May 2002.

At a July 11, 2002, appearance in Red Bank Municipal Court, defendant, while represented by counsel, agreed never to contact M.G. again. In consideration of that promise, M.G. agreed to withdraw her complaint. The municipal judge, Judge Himelman, accepted the agreement between the parties but, in connection with entering his disposition dismissing the complaint, the judge also issued an oral restraining order directing defendant not to

have any contact with [M.G. or her boyfriend], either directly or indirectly.... That means no letters, things on the window of the car, don't send her flowers, no conversation, nothing.... You stay away. If you do, if you violate the order and she signs a complaint, and if I in fact find that in fact you did that, you're going to go to jail.

Notwithstanding the court's order and warning to defendant, and defendant's agreement to the court's terms, on October 23, 2002, he showed up at the door to M.G.'s home where she resided with her mother and father. Her father immediately reminded defendant of the court order, to which defendant replied, "I don't care." He departed, however, when M.G.'s father told a family member to telephone the police. The incident prompted the filing of another harassment complaint against defendant. On November 7, 2002, defendant was served with a criminal complaint and processed at the local police department. Sergeant Joshua Berbrick administered Miranda⁵ warnings to defendant. After defendant waived his rights, Berbrick asked defendant what happened. Defendant calmly replied that "he didn't care what happened. He said he was going to kill [M.G.'s] family and then he was going to impregnate her and when the baby was born, he was going to kill himself so he could live on forever." Startled by this non-responsive, unexpected, and disconcerting declaration, Berbrick ended his interview with defendant.

A few days later, on November 15, 2002, defendant telephoned M.G.'s family residence three times, asking to speak with her. Her father denied defendant's requests and reported the calls to the police. On November 18, 2002, defendant returned to M.G.'s home. This time, while M.G.'s mother called the police, M.G.'s father allowed defendant into the home because he wanted to ensure that defendant would be present when the police arrived.

Sergeant Berbrick was among the officers who responded. By then, defendant, after cursing at M.G.'s father for thwarting his attempt to see M.G., had stepped outside the house. At the officers' direction, he moved further from the home. Sergeant Berbrick first asked M.G.'s father, who appeared visibly shaken by the incident, what had happened. Berbrick then approached defendant and asked him what happened. Defendant's immediate response was to tell Berbrick, in no uncertain terms, that "he didn't care what the judge said, he was going to come there. He said if we put him in jail, it didn't matter; the day he got out of jail, he was going to come back there anyway."⁶ Defendant was arrested and charged with stalking.

The next day, on November 19, 2002, Judge Blum, the presiding judge of the municipal court, set bail and included, as a condition, "NO VICTIM CONTACT NO RETURN TO SCENE." Defendant posted bail six days later on November 25, 2002, and was released. Thereafter, on March 12, 2003, a grand jury returned an indictment charging defendant with one count of third-degree stalking between May 2002 and January 2003, in violation of a pre-existing court order. See N.J....