State v. J.A.C.

• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PATTERSON
• Citation: State v. J.A.C., 210 N.J. 281, 44 A.3d 1085 (N.J. 2012)
• Decision Date: 14 June 2012
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff–Respondent, v. J.A.C., Defendant–Appellant.

210 N.J. 281

44 A.3d 1085

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff–Respondent,

v.J.A.C., Defendant–Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Nov. 9, 2011.

Decided June 14, 2012.

Michael B. Jones, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Mr. Jones and William P. Welaj, Designated Counsel, on the briefs).

Mary E. McAnally, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Paula T. Dow, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney).

PATTERSON, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

New Jersey's Rape Shield Law, N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7, protects the privacy of a victim of sexual assault against unwarranted exploration of his or her character and conduct. The Legislature recognized that the fair trial constitutionally guaranteed to a defendant should focus upon the crime alleged, not the history or habits of the victim. The statute and the case law construing it require trial judges to carefully balance the need to permit thorough exploration of issues relevant to the defendant's guilt or innocence against the protection of victims who report their alleged abusers.

Today the Court is required to apply N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7 to a case in which defendant contended that the child victim fabricated the allegations against him to deflect attention from her own misconduct. At the age of twelve, C.A. alleged that defendant J.A.C., her mother's former boyfriend, had sexually abused her on multiple occasions when she was nine years old. C.A. accused defendant of abuse in the midst of a family crisis. Her mother had discovered that the child, attempting to impersonate a sexually active college student, had engaged in sexually explicit instant message correspondence with adult men. With her internet communications exposed, C.A. faced serious discipline and the prospect that she would be separated from her home, friends and school, and sent to live with her father in another state.

At his trial, defendant sought to introduce into evidence the content of those internet communications to show that the child's belated allegation of sexual abuse was fabricated to deflect her parents' unwelcome attention to her own behavior. Defendant was permitted to introduce evidence that twelve-year-old C.A. had engaged in sexually explicit communications with adult men whom she met online. He was also allowed to demonstrate that the discovery of the messages deeply distressed C.A.'s family, precipitated upsetting confrontations in the child's home and school, and led C.A.'s parents to seriously consider moving her out of state. This evidence was centrally relevant to defendant's fabrication defense. However, the trial court invoked N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7 to bar the introduction into evidence of the actual content of those messages.

Defendant was convicted of first- and second-degree charges of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. An Appellate Division panel affirmed his conviction and sentence of twenty years imprisonment, holding that the trial court had properly applied N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7 to bar the admission of the content of the instant messages sent by and to C.A. We granted defendant's petition for certification, limited to the question of whether the content of the instant messages was properly excluded under N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7.

We now affirm. We hold that the content of the instant messages written by and to the victim in this case constitutes “sexual conduct” within the meaning of N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7(f), and that content is therefore protected by N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7. Accordingly, we apply the two-pronged analysis set forth in State v. Budis, 125 N.J. 519, 532–34, 593 A.2d 784 (1991), and State v. Garron, 177 N.J. 147, 827 A.2d 243 (2003), cert. denied,540 U.S. 1160, 124 S.Ct. 1169, 157 L.Ed.2d 1204 (2004). That analysis requires that trial courts evaluate the relevancy and necessity of the disputed evidence and balance its probative value against its prejudicial effect. We conclude that in this case, the trial court conducted the careful inquiry required by N.J.S.A. 2C:14–7 and our case law. Given the admission of extensive evidence central to defendant's fabrication defense—that C.A. accused defendant of sexual abuse in the setting of a confrontation with her parents and teachers shortly after the discovery of her explicit instant messages—the actual content of the instant messages had little relevance to the issues that were presented at trial. Defendant had a full and fair opportunity to contest the State's charges.

We further hold that any probative value of the content of C.A.'s instant messages is substantially outweighed by its prejudice. The instant messages, unrelated to defendant and written more than two years after the sexual abuse at issue, would have distracted the jury from the issues before it. The confrontation of a victim, still a minor at the time of trial, with her sexually explicit communications made at the age of twelve would do more than invade the privacy of a single child. It could deter young victims of sexual exploitation, fearful of disclosure of their own online communications, from coming forward to report abuse. The test set forth in Budis and Garron was correctly applied to exclude the content of C.A.'s online communications during defendant's trial, and the Appellate Division panel properly affirmed the decision of the trial court.

I.

C.A. was born in 1991. Following her parents' divorce when C.A. was almost four years old, she moved with her mother and younger brother to New Jersey. C.A.'s mother had primary custody of both children, but her father regularly visited, and the children spent agreed-upon holidays and every summer with their father and his second wife in Indiana. In 1998, C.A.'s mother began dating defendant, a divorced father of one child. In 1999, C.A.'s mother and defendant had a daughter. In November 2000, defendant moved in with C.A.'s mother and the three children. C.A. was nine years old. C.A.'s mother worked several evenings per week, and relied upon a variety of child care arrangements, including the children's grandparents, a babysitter and defendant. When defendant was in charge of the three children, he would prepare their dinner, supervise them and oversee their bedtime routine.

The trial testimony conveyed a stark contrast between defendant's characterization of his relationship with C.A. and the child's account of their interaction. In his pretrial statements, at trial and on appeal, defendant consistently maintained that his relationship with C.A. was entirely appropriate, denied any sexual abuse, and observed that C.A. never indicated any fear or discomfort in his presence. According to defense witnesses who testified at trial, the relationship between C.A. and defendant appeared to outsiders to be normal and affectionate.

According to C.A.'s trial testimony, defendant made her “very uncomfortable” on several occasions shortly after he moved in with her family by touching and rubbing her leg or chest. She stated that defendant twice exposed himself to her, once in her brother's room and once in the living room of her home. C.A. recounted an incident in which defendant suggested that she look at a video game that he was playing on his computer, and when she sat on his lap, he rubbed her between her legs and reached his hands under her pajamas to touch her chest. She said that she felt uncomfortable, but at nine years old “didn't really know what to do.” She did not report these incidents to her mother.

Another incident was initially identified by C.A. to have occurred in the summer of 2001—at a time when she would have been in Indiana with her father—but was later reported by her to have occurred shortly before Christmas of 2000. According to C.A., on a night when her mother was working and her younger siblings were in bed, she was sleeping on a living room couch when defendant called her over to lie down with him. C.A. stated that defendant put his hands down her pants and was “feeling around like, just touching everything.” She stated that she was “just scared,” and after ten minutes “just kind of yelled at him and ran upstairs” to her mother's room, from which she planned to call her mother and ask that she come home. According to C.A., defendant knelt in front of her in tears, telling the child “you have everything in your hands,” begging that she not call and promising to discuss the incident with her mother. C.A. stated that defendant kept talking to her “to relax me and get me calmed down,” told her about a Christmas present that she would be receiving, and dissuaded her from calling her mother.

C.A.'s mother stated that when she arrived home at 2:30 a.m. that night, defendant was waiting up for her. According to the child's mother, defendant “told me that [C.A.] was laying on the couch next to him and he put his arm around her because he thought ... it was me.” C.A.'s mother reported that she believed defendant's innocuous account of the incident and gave it no further thought. According to C.A., the next day she was reassured by her mother that her mother knew about the incident, and said it “was okay and I shouldn't like be worried.” C.A. testified that she assumed her mother knew about the abuse and condoned it, and accordingly she “didn't bring it up any more.”

The relationship between defendant and C.A.'s mother ended the following year when he became involved with another woman, and he moved out of C.A.'s home in August 2001. Defendant and several defense witnesses testified at trial about the stormy conclusionof this relationship, after which C.A.'s mother vandalized his property and the couple battled over defendant's visitation with their two-year-old daughter. Thereafter, C.A. had little contact with defendant.

Over several days in March 2003, C.A.—then twelve—engaged in instant message conversations with seventeen adult men. The communications between C.A. and six of those...