State v. Gonzalez
| Decision Date | 08 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | A-47-20 |
| Parties | State of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Laura Gonzalez, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Argued October 26, 2021
On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division.
Margaret McLane, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender attorney; Margaret McLane, of counsel and on the briefs, and Richard Sparaco, Designated Counsel, on the briefs).
Steven K. Cuttonaro, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Andrew J. Bruck, Acting Attorney General attorney; Steven K. Cuttonaro, of counsel and on the briefs and Paul H. Heinzel, Assistant Somerset County Prosecutor, on the briefs).
Joseph Hayden argued the cause for amicus curiae Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, attorneys; CJ Griffin, on the brief).
Lauren Gottesman, of the New York bar, admitted pro hac vice, argued the cause for amicus curiae The Innocence Project (Dechert attorneys; Lauren Gottesman, of counsel and on the brief, J. Ian Downes, Rose Marie Wong, of the Pennsylvania bar, admitted pro hac vice, Arif H. Ali, of the New York and District of Columbia bars, admitted pro hac vice, and Lindsay N. Zanello, of the New York bar, admitted pro hac vice, on the brief).
SOLOMON, J., writing for a unanimous Court.
The Court considers whether defendant Laura Gonzalez invoked her right to counsel during a police interview and whether certain evidence should have been suppressed as a result. The Court also considers defendant's challenges to other evidentiary determinations and jury instructions by the trial court.
In January 2017, Seth and Lisa Borsuk hired defendant as an in-home nanny. On Thanksgiving morning that year, their son Tommy, who was less than a year old, cried whenever his leg was touched. The Borsuks brought Tommy to a pediatrics office, where Dr. Aliah Khan noted that Tommy had two bone fractures and insisted that the Borsuks take him to the hospital, where a third fracture was discovered. Detective Iris Reyes of the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office met the Borsuks at the hospital and interviewed them about Tommy's injuries. Detective Reyes interviewed defendant at the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office a few days later.
Defendant agreed to provide a videotaped statement after waiving her Miranda rights. Defendant initially denied any responsibility for Tommy's injuries. As the interview continued, however, Detective Reyes told defendant that video surveillance cameras in the home captured footage of her interactions with Tommy; in truth, no cameras existed in the home.
During the interview, before defendant made any incriminating statements, Detective Reyes stated that if defendant lied, "[t]he situation is going to get worse." Defendant then asked, "But now what do I do about an attorney and everything?" Detective Reyes responded, and added that defendant would "have a better option by telling the truth."
Eventually, defendant acknowledged that she was "full of anger" and admitted to shaking, swinging, hitting, suffocating, and throwing Tommy. Near the end of the interview, Detective Reyes asked defendant if she wanted to write the Borsuk family a note. Defendant agreed and wrote a note in which she described herself as a monster and expressed "hope God forgive[s] me and all that I did."
Defendant was charged with endangering and aggravated assault. Before trial, defendant moved to suppress portions of her statement to Detective Reyes and the note to the Borsuks, arguing that both were made after she invoked her right to counsel. Following a Miranda hearing, the court denied defendant's motion.
At trial, the State played defendant's recorded statement, read the note aloud, and provided the jury with a transcript of defendant's statement. Also relevant to this appeal were statements made during trial by Lisa and Seth over defense counsel's objections, and the testimony of Dr. Gladibel Medina, the State's expert in general pediatrics with a subspecialty in child abuse pediatrics.
Specifically, on direct examination, Lisa testified that upon discovering the fracture of Tommy's left leg, Dr. Khan told her that "it was clear child abuse." Then Lisa was asked whether Dr. Khan told her anything about the fracture. Defense counsel objected, but the court found that the hearsay statements were admissible as statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment under N.J.R.E. 803(c)(4). In response to the question, Lisa testified that she was told the abuse was intentional. Following Lisa's cross-examination, the court instructed the jury that the statements by Dr. Khan to which Lisa testified "were admitted not for the truth of the matter asserted but to explain the actions that this witness took subsequent to hearing those statements."
Seth Borsuk then testified that Dr. Khan told him, "This is, basically, textbook child abuse." Defense counsel objected at side bar, and the court agreed to strike Seth's testimony and instructed the jury that the quote could not be considered by the jury in any deliberations; the jurors responded that they could follow those instructions.
Dr. Medina testified as the State's expert in pediatrics with specialized knowledge in child abuse. When asked whether she had an opinion "within a reasonable degree of medical certainty" as to what caused the injuries to Tommy's right femur, Dr. Medina testified that "the only mechanism of trauma that was reported on the records" was the description by defendant in her interview of what she had done to Tommy. Dr. Medina testified that Tommy's injuries could have been caused by the actions defendant described and that those actions were not consistent with "normal caregiving activity."
The jury found defendant guilty of endangering the welfare of a child and of simple assault. Defendant appealed, and the Appellate Division affirmed both the trial court's decision to deny defendant's motion to suppress and the trial court's rulings as to the disputed testimony at trial. The Court granted certification, 245 N.J. 466 (2021), limited to whether defendant's statement and letter of apology should have been suppressed because defendant sufficiently invoked her right to counsel, as well as whether the trial court erred in admitting testimony by Dr. Medina regarding ordinary caregiving; in admitting testimony by Seth and Lisa as to what Dr. Khan told them; and in the form of its cautionary instruction regarding hearsay testimony by Seth.
HELD: Defendant's question about the attorney was an ambiguous invocation of her right to counsel. Under settled New Jersey law, see, e.g., State v. Reed, 133 N.J. 237, 253 (1993), the detective was required to cease questioning and clarify whether defendant was requesting counsel during the interview. Because the State played defendant's recorded statement at trial and read the apology note -- written at the detective's suggestion -- to the jury, the error in failing to suppress that evidence was harmful. The Court also finds plain error in the trial court's admission of certain challenged evidence, and it provides guidance for the proceedings on remand.
1. If a person subject to custodial interrogation "states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present." Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 474 (1966). "The United States Supreme Court has drawn a strict line to identify what will qualify as a request for counsel." State v. Alston, 204 N.J. 614, 620 (2011). Under the federal bright-line rule, officers must stop questioning a suspect only when the suspect's request for counsel is "unambiguous or unequivocal." Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 461-62 (1994). If a suspect makes an ambiguous or equivocal statement regarding the right to counsel, officers are under no obligation to stop questioning him. Id. at 462. (pp. 16-17)
2. In State v. Chew, the New Jersey Supreme Court rejected the standard enunciated in Davis and continued to require, in accordance with state precedent, that interrogators conduct an appropriate inquiry into a suspect's ambiguous invocation of the right to counsel. 150 N.J. 30, 63 (1997). Under New Jersey's more flexible approach, a suspect need not be articulate, clear, or explicit in requesting counsel; any indication of a desire for counsel, however ambiguous, will trigger entitlement to counsel. The Court provided guidance in Alston and reaffirmed that, in situations where "a suspect's statement 'arguably' amount[s] to an assertion of Miranda rights," conducting a follow-up inquiry is the only way to ensure that a suspect's waiver of their right was knowing and voluntary. 204 N.J. at 621-23. The Court instructed that where the suspect's "statements are so ambiguous that they cannot be understood to be the assertion of a right, clarification is not only permitted but needed." Id. at 624. The Alston Court noted, however, that officers are under no obligation to give a suspect advice about whether he should assert any of his rights. Id. at 628. (pp. 17-20)
3. Here, defendant's first mention of counsel, "[b]ut what do I do about an attorney and everything?" was an ambiguous invocation of her right to counsel that required the detective to cease all questioning and seek clarification. Defendant did not seek an opinion about whether she should have a lawyer present, but rather inquired about the availability of counsel. Additionally defendant's query made it unclear whether she wanted an attorney present at that time or in the future. Thus, defendant's statement was "arguably" a request for counsel. Although the detective...
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