State v. Maldonado

• Decision Date: 01 August 1994
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Lucy MALDONADO, Defendant-Appellant. STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Carlos RODRIGUEZ, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 536

137 N.J. 536

645 A.2d 1165

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Lucy MALDONADO, Defendant-Appellant.

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Carlos RODRIGUEZ, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Oct. 13, 1992.

Decided Aug. 1, 1994.

Claudia Van Wyk, Deputy Public Defender II, for appellants (Zulima V. Farber, Public Defender, attorney).

Robin Parker, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent in State v. Lucy Maldonado (Robert J. Del Tufo, Atty. Gen. of New Jersey, attorney).

Chana Barron, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent in State v. Carlos Rodriguez (Robert J. Del Tufo, Atty. Gen. of New Jersey, attorney).

PER CURIAM.

Defendants in these two cases challenge the constitutionality of that portion of the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act of 1986 (the Act) that imposes strict criminal liability on manufacturers and distributors of certain controlled dangerous substances (CDS) when death results from the ingestion of the CDSs. N.J.S.A. 2C:35-9. A defendant convicted of distribution or manufacturing is subject to second or third-degree punishment, but if a person dies from ingestion of those CDSs then the defendant is guilty of a first-degree offense. Conviction under the drug death statute requires only that but for the ingestion the death would not have occurred, no matter how "innocent" defendant might otherwise be, if the State can also prove that the death was neither too remote from the defendant's actions nor too dependent on another's conduct to make the conviction unjust.

N.J.S.A. 2C:35-9 (section 9) reads as follows:

a. Any person who manufactures, distributes or dispenses methamphetamine, lysergic acid diethylamide, phencyclidine or any other controlled dangerous substance classified in Schedules I or II, or any controlled substance analog thereof, in violation of subsection a. of N.J.S. 2C:35-5, is strictly liable for a death which results from the injection, inhalation or ingestion of that substance, and is guilty of a crime of the first degree.

b. The provisions of N.J.S. 2C:2-3 (governing the causal relationship between conduct and result) shall not apply in a prosecution under this section. For purposes of this offense, the defendant's act of manufacturing, distributing or dispensing a substance is the cause of a death when:

(1) The injection, inhalation or ingestion of the substance is an antecedent but for which the death would not have occurred; and

(2) The death was not:

(a) too remote in its occurrence as to have a just bearing on the defendant's liability; or

(b) too dependent upon conduct of another person which was unrelated to the injection, inhalation or ingestion of the substance or its effect as to have a just bearing on the defendant's liability.

c. It shall not be a defense to a prosecution under this section that the decedent contributed to his own death by his purposeful, knowing, reckless or negligent injection, inhalation or ingestion of the substance, or by his consenting to the administration of the substance by another.

d. Nothing in this section shall be construed to preclude or limit any prosecution for homicide. Notwithstanding the provisions of N.J.S. 2C:1-8 or any other provision of law, a conviction arising under this section shall not merge with a conviction for leader of narcotics trafficking network, maintaining or operating a controlled dangerous substance production facility, or for unlawfully manufacturing, distributing, dispensing or possessing with intent to manufacture, distribute or dispense the controlled dangerous substance or controlled substance analog which resulted in the death.

In Maldonado, the only question is the constitutionality of section 9, the Court having limited its grant of certification to that issue, 127 N.J. 564, 606 A.2d 374 (1992). In Rodriguez, in which we likewise granted certification, 130 N.J. 11, 611 A.2d 650 (1992), in addition to the issue of constitutionality, we must decide claims of error concerning the charge and the sentence.

We find section 9 to be constitutional in all respects, and affirm the judgments of the Appellate Division in both cases.

I

Maldonado is a straightforward drug distribution and strict-liability-death case. Lucy Maldonado obtained heroin for her friend Larry Dunka on May 7, 1988 as an accommodation--she made no profit. Larry's brother John accompanied him in making the purchase and participated in the use of the heroin. After the purchase Larry and John took the heroin to another location where Larry injected some of it into his own arm and then into John's arm. When John came to the next morning, he found Larry on the floor dead. Maldonado was prosecuted for various offenses including violation of section 9, to which she pleaded guilty, reserving, however, her right to appeal on constitutional grounds. She was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of fifteen years, with a parole ineligibility term of seven years. The Appellate Division affirmed the conviction and upheld the constitutionality of section 9 in an unpublished opinion. The court relied on State v. Ervin, 242 N.J.Super. 584, 577 A.2d 1273 (App.Div.), certif. denied, 122 N.J. 400, 585 A.2d 399 (1990), and rejected an attack, not raised in Ervin, that section 9 "violates due process because it reaches unduly remote results" and is "unconstitutionally vague."

In Rodriguez, defendant distributed cocaine to Fred Bennett. Present were Susan Hendricks, defendant's girlfriend, and another man who had accompanied Bennett to defendant's apartment. The cocaine had been weighed and bagged when the police broke into the apartment. In an attempt to hide the evidence, Hendricks and Bennett each swallowed a plastic bag containing cocaine. Within minutes of the police entry, Hendricks collapsed in convulsions on the floor. Emergency medical workers were summoned and, with Bennett looking on, they attempted to resuscitate her. While the medical workers attempted to revive Hendricks, they specifically asked whether anyone else had swallowed drugs. Bennett responded that he had not. Approximately a half hour later, Bennett also went into convulsions and died at the scene. Hendricks subsequently died at the hospital. Rodriguez was charged with violating section 9 for Bennett's death only.

A jury convicted Rodriguez for violating section 9 and for other offenses. On the section 9 count the court sentenced him to an eighteen-year term. The court merged the counts for possession and possession with intent to distribute into the distribution count, for which he was sentenced to a five-year term. On the school zone count he was sentenced to a term of four years subject to a three-year parole disqualification. The three sentences were to run consecutively. On appeal the Appellate Division upheld the constitutionality of section 9, affirmed the convictions, merged the distribution conviction into the school zone conviction, and ordered that the sentences for the school zone conviction and the drug death conviction run concurrently.

In addition to sustaining the constitutionality of section 9, the Appellate Division rejected Rodriguez's claims that the death was too remote as a matter of law, that the charge did not adequately explain his factual claims of remoteness, and, in any event, that it improperly placed the burden of proof on defendant. In sustaining section 9's constitutionality the court, as it did in Maldonado, relied also on our decision in State v. Martin, 119 N.J. 2, 573 A.2d 1359 (1990), in which we imported a remoteness factor into felony-murder jurisprudence. Id. at 31-33, 573 A.2d 1359. The court also rejected defendant's contention that his school distribution conviction should merge into the section 9 conviction.

II

Defendants' constitutional arguments are essentially the same, requiring no differentiation of the two cases except for the special circumstances surrounding the death in Rodriguez, which require some additional discussion of the remoteness issue. The challenge asserts that section 9 is facially unconstitutional because the strict liability aspect of section 9 deprives the defendants of due process of law, and inflicts cruel and unusual punishment, and the "not too remote" element is unconstitutionally vague and unfair. Defendants rely on the Federal and State Constitutions, although no differentiation is suggested by either defendant.

A. The Due Process Claim--Lack of Mens Rea

Although recognizing the Legislature's power to impose criminal liability regardless of a defendant's state of mind, or put differently, regardless of culpability, defendants contend that such power is constitutionally limited, is ordinarily applied only to regulatory offenses, and in any event is not a power that encompasses the enactment of section 9.

Section 9 eliminates mens rea (criminal intent), in that a defendant is culpable for the underlying distribution offense but no culpability is required for the deadly result. A defendant is guilty whether the defendant intends the death or has absolutely no idea that it may occur. Criminal liability under section 9, therefore, is similar to liability for felony murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(3). See Assembly Judiciary Committee, Commentary to the Comprehensive Drug Act 24 (1987) [hereinafter Commentary ] (drawing comparison between liability under section 9 and felony-murder statute). A person is liable for felony murder if a death occurs in the commission of a felony notwithstanding that the felon did not purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently cause the death. Martin, supra, 119 N.J. at 28, 573 A.2d 1359 (concluding that felony murder is absolute-liability offense). Similarly, under section 9, a defendant will be criminally liable in the first degree for a death caused by the defendant's distribution of a CDS even if the defendant did not purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently cause the death.

The conceptual framework of defendants'...