State v. Jenkins

• Decision Date: 04 February 2004
• Citation: 178 N.J. 347,840 A.2d 242
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant and Cross-Respondent, v. Kendall J. JENKINS, Defendant-Respondent and Cross-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

840 A.2d 242

178 N.J. 347

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant and Cross-Respondent, v. Kendall J. JENKINS, Defendant-Respondent and Cross-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued November 5, 2003.

Decided February 4, 2004.

Jeanne Screen, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for appellant and cross-respondent (Peter C. Harvey, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney).

Donald T. Thelander, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for respondent and cross-appellant (Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney; Stephen P. Hunter, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, of counsel). Justice ZAZZALI delivered the opinion of the Court.

This appeal involves two issues. The first is whether the trial court's failure to instruct on lesser-included offenses warrants reversal; the second centers on whether the introduction of evidence of other crimes deprived defendant of a fair trial. Because each inquiry leads us to conclude that defendant is entitled to relief, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division and remand the matter for a new trial.

I.

We summarize the essential facts adduced at trial. On May 8, 2000, Kendall J. Jenkins, later identified as defendant, and some friends were sitting on the porch of an apartment located in the Lexington Courts housing complex in Atlantic City. Arthur Thomas approached defendant and his friends to buy some drugs. After completing the transaction, Thomas began to walk away. At that point, defendant recognized Thomas as the man who had testified against him when he was on trial for the killing of Mark Cotton. Although a jury had acquitted defendant in that proceeding, defendant went after Thomas, picked up a brick, and slammed it into the back of his head. Reeling from the blow, Thomas fell down a flight of stairs and landed headfirst on the concrete below. Autopsy evidence indicated that being struck by the brick likely caused Thomas to lose consciousness, but that he ultimately died from skull and brain injuries resulting from his fall to the pavement.

LaVerne Garland lived in a nearby apartment. As events unfolded, Garland's niece, Adrian Bouldin, apparently yelled for help. Responding to Bouldin's call, Garland stepped out onto her balcony in time to see Thomas fall and defendant run away. She telephoned the police, described what had transpired, and named defendant as the perpetrator. She also informed the police that defendant was still in the area. When Officers Charles Miller and Mary McMenamin arrived, another witness to the attack, Chevon Faulkner, informed the officers that a man had been hit by a brick. The police then found Thomas, dead, in a pool of blood. Meanwhile, defendant had gone to the apartment of Jane Dunbar, the mother of one of his friends. There, he began playing video games with Dunbar's eleven-year-old son. After the police arrived in response to Garland's call, defendant asked the boy to check whether the officers were still outside. The youth alerted his mother to the police presence. Dunbar went outside and talked to one of the officers and some neighbors, whereupon she learned that defendant allegedly had killed someone. Dunbar returned to her home and ordered defendant to leave. Shortly thereafter, the police apprehended defendant in another apartment.

Defendant was placed in the county jail. Subsequently, his fellow inmate, Edmond Garland (LaVerne Garland's nephew), contacted the police and informed them that defendant had admitted that after selling drugs to Thomas, he had recognized Thomas as the man who had testified against him, so he "bashed" Thomas in the head. According to Edmond Garland, defendant also stated that after he struck Thomas, one of defendant's friends said, "You've done it again. I don't believe this. You done it again."

LaVerne Garland, Bouldin, and Faulkner also gave formal statements to the police. Before trial, however, three witnesses recanted. Faulkner informed the police that she had made up her story (she had claimed to have seen defendant strike Thomas) so that she could collect a reward. However, she had contacted the police earlier, approximately a month after the killing, stating that she had received threats because of her cooperation in the investigation. Bouldin, in withdrawing her formal statement, claimed that she was under the influence of drugs when she first spoke with the police. Edmond Garland also attempted to retract his statement, apparently after another inmate threatened him. At trial, however, he stood by his original statement to the police.

About six months after the attack on Thomas, LaVerne Garland gave the police a second statement in which she claimed that a person named "Little Ockey" told Garland that her niece, Bouldin, could get hurt or killed if Bouldin did not take back what she had said to the police. LaVerne Garland also told the police that defendant had sent her a letter expressing displeasure with her niece's cooperation in the investigation. But, at trial, Garland recanted everything; she claimed that she had no knowledge of any events relating to the death of Thomas.

Defendant was tried for murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(1) and (2) (Count One); third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(d) (Count Two); fourth-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(d) (Count Three); and fourth-degree witness retaliation, N.J.S.A. 2C:28-5(b) (Count Four). In addition to the various witnesses who directly implicated defendant in Thomas's killing, the prosecution presented evidence indicating that defendant attacked Thomas in retaliation for his testimony against defendant in defendant's trial for the death of Mark Cotton. That evidence included Detective Bruce DeShields's testimony that immediately prior to Cotton's death in 1997, Thomas had seen defendant with a gun and that later Thomas had identified defendant as Cotton's killer from a photographic array. Detective DeShields also stated that Thomas had testified against defendant in that trial, which took place in 1999. Defendant raised no objection to any of that evidence. Defendant did object, however, to the introduction of an excerpted videotape-recording of Thomas's testimony at the Cotton trial. The court overruled the objection and allowed the jury to view the tape.

The prosecutor adduced additional information concerning the killing of Cotton during examination of Bouldin's parole officer, Terry McClain. McClain testified that Bouldin expressed concern to her about testifying against defendant for the killing of Thomas because defendant "had already killed." Making clear the connection with the Cotton trial, the prosecutor then asked, "Does the name Mark Cotton mean anything to you?" McClain responded, "I have heard the name, yes." Again, defendant did not object. Defendant did not testify or present any witnesses.

At the charging conference, defendant argued against instructing the jury on lesser-included offenses pertaining to homicide, preferring to gamble with an all-or-nothing approach on the murder charge. The State countered that the evidence presented at trial necessitated instructions on reckless manslaughter and aggravated manslaughter, as well as murder. The trial court determined that because there was no doubt that defendant struck Thomas either knowingly, purposefully, or intentionally, the facts did not support a charge on any lesser-included homicide offenses. Thus, on Count One, the court instructed the jury only on murder. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts, including a conviction for first-degree murder. The court merged the weapons offenses into the murder conviction and sentenced defendant to life with thirty years of parole ineligibility. In addition to appropriate fines and penalties, the court imposed a concurrent term of eighteen months on the count of witness retaliation.

On appeal, defendant reversed positions. He argued that, notwithstanding his request at trial, the court erred in failing to instruct on lesser-included offenses of reckless manslaughter and aggravated manslaughter. He also maintained that the court committed reversible error in admitting other-crimes evidence and in failing to offer necessary limiting instructions for evidence that the trial court otherwise properly admitted. The Appellate Division agreed and vacated defendant's convictions. State v. Jenkins, 356 N.J.Super. 413, 431, 812 A.2d 1143, 1154 (2003).

The appellate court found that, based on the evidence presented, a jury could have reasonably concluded that defendant intentionally struck Thomas without being "practically certain" that the attack would kill but, nevertheless, in reckless disregard of the probability or possibility that death might result. Id. at 426, 812 A.2d at 1151. Accordingly, the trial court had a duty, irrespective of defendant's wishes, to instruct on manslaughter and aggravated manslaughter. Ibid. Additionally, the Appellate Division held that the "cumulative effect of the multitude of other crimes evidence admitted at trial without clear and complete limiting instructions deprived defendant of a fair trial." Id. at 430, 812 A.2d at 1153.

Both parties sought certification. The State requested review of the Appellate Division's decision and a clarification of the circumstances in which a jury must be instructed on manslaughter. Defendant cross-petitioned for certification to preserve the issues not reached by the Appellate Division in the event this Court were to reverse the panel's decision. We granted both petitions for certification, 176 N.J. 279, 822 A.2d 609 (2003), and now affirm.

II.

As noted, the Appellate Division vacated defendant's convictions because the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on lesser-included offenses of aggravated manslaughter and reckless manslaughter. The State maintains that the panel erroneously disregarded the fact that defendant asked the...