State v. Martini

• Decision Date: 27 July 1999
• Citation: 734 A.2d 257,160 N.J. 248
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John MARTINI, Sr., Defendant-Respondent, v. Office of Public Defender, Petitioner-Appellant.

734 A.2d 257

160 N.J. 248

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John MARTINI, Sr., Defendant-Respondent, v. Office of Public Defender, Petitioner-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Submitted October 14, 1998.

Decided July 27, 1999.

Mark H. Friedman and Theresa Yvette Kyles, Assistant Deputy Public Defenders, submitted briefs on behalf of petitioner-appellant (Ivelisse Torres, Public Defender, attorney).

Susan W. Sciacca, Deputy First Assistant Prosecutor, submitted a brief on behalf of plaintiff-respondent State of New Jersey (William H. Schmidt, Bergen County Prosecutor, attorney; Ms. Sciacca, Fred L. Schwanwede, First Assistant Prosecutor, and Marilyn Goceliak Zdobinski, Special Deputy Attorney General, of counsel).

Alan L. Zegas, Chatham, submitted a brief on behalf of defendant-respondent John Martini, Sr. The opinion of the Court was delivered by PORITZ, C.J.

This case comes to us on the Public Defender's petition for post-conviction relief over the objection of the defendant, John Martini, Sr., whose conviction of murder and sentence of death have been upheld by this Court. The gravamen of the Public Defender's petition is that the failure to present certain mitigating evidence at defendant's penalty-phase trial "constituted ineffective assistance of counsel and otherwise violated defendant's constitutional rights." State v. Martini, 148 N.J. 453, 454, 690 A.2d 603 (1997) (Martini IV). Because this claim bears directly on the "reliability and integrity" of the jury's decision to impose death, we permitted the petition to go forward despite Martini's objection and remanded for further proceedings. We directed the appointment of standby counsel to represent Martini and required the proceedings below to be conducted in camera in furtherance of defendant's interest in maintaining the confidentiality of evidence the Public Defender wished to present to the trial court.

Today, we hold that in this case counsel's failure to discover and put forward evidence that contains both mitigating and damaging elements does not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Because we do not find merit in the Public Defender's other claims, we affirm the trial court's decision to deny post-conviction relief.

I FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In 1990, a jury convicted Martini of the kidnapping murder of Irving Flax, a Fair Lawn business executive. The evidence at trial established that Martini and codefendant Therese Afdahl abducted Flax and demanded ransom money from his wife. Although the money was paid, Martini nevertheless shot Flax three times in the back of the head. The jury found that Martini killed Flax to prevent him from identifying defendant.

During the trial Martini did not dispute the kidnapping or that he had fired the three fatal shots. Instead, defendant asserted that his cocaine addiction diminished his capacity such that the murder was not committed purposely or knowingly. The jury rejected his claim at both the guilt and penalty-phase trials, finding at the conclusion of the penalty phase that the aggravating factors, taken together or individually, outweighed the mitigating factors. The trial judge thereafter sentenced Martini to death.

Defendant's conviction and death sentence were upheld by this Court on direct appeal, State v. Martini, 131 N.J. 176, 619 A.2d 1208 (1993) (Martini I), and on proportionality review, State v. Martini, 139 N.J. 3, 651 A.2d 949 (1994) (Martini II). After the United States Supreme Court denied Martini's petition for certiorari on October 2, 1995, 516 U.S. 875, 116 S.Ct. 203, 133 L.Ed.2d 137 (1995), the Law Division issued a warrant scheduling defendant's execution for November 15, 1995. On October 30, 1995, the Public Defender sought post-conviction relief ("PCR") and a stay of execution on defendant's behalf, even though Martini said that he did not wish to file any further appeals. In response, the trial court entered a stay and appointed independent counsel to represent Martini. The court also appointed a psychiatrist to conduct an examination of defendant to determine whether he was competent to waive PCR proceedings. Following a two-day hearing the court concluded that Martini was competent, and that the Public Defender could not pursue PCR on Martini's behalf without his consent. The stay of execution was continued pending review by this Court.

We held oral arguments on an expedited schedule. State v. Martini, 144 N.J. 603, 606, 677 A.2d 1106 (1996) (Martini III). We agreed with the trial court that the psychiatric evidence demonstrated Martini's competence to make the waiver decision and that he "ha[d] voluntarily expressed a desire to prosecute no further appeals." Id. at 617, 677 A.2d 1106. We explained, however, that the "`State and its citizens have an overwhelming interest in insuring that there is no mistake in the imposition of the death penalty.'" Ibid. (quoting State v. Koedatich, 112 N.J. 225, 332, 548 A.2d 939 (1988) (Koedatich II), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1017, 109 S.Ct. 813, 102 L.Ed.2d 803 (1989)). Respect for Martini's choice could not take precedence over the paramount concern for "the reliability and integrity of a death sentencing decision." Id. at 605, 677 A.2d 1106. Accordingly, we remanded the matter for a PCR hearing consonant with our decision and focused on three issues that were not capable of review on defendant's initial appeal:

(1) a defense based on certain undisclosed information that has been imparted to the Public Defender and presumably was not disclosed to the jury below; (2) a new constitutional principle announced by the Supreme Court after Martini's trial in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994); and (3) evidence disclosed after Martini's conviction that suggests that New Jersey's death penalty system may be constitutionally flawed because of systematic discrimination against blacks and other minorities.

[Id. at 610-11, 677 A.2d 1106.]

On remand, the Public Defender attempted to present materials Martini considered confidential, claiming that the information contained therein constituted mitigating evidence erroneously omitted at the penalty-phase trial. As Martini expressed his continuing desire that this evidence remain confidential, the court conducted an in camera inspection of the Public Defender's submission and ruled that Martini's interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the submitted materials prevented their use in the PCR proceeding. The Public Defender sought leave to appeal the court's decision, which we granted.

On reviewing the record and written arguments of counsel, this Court vacated the trial court's order and again remanded the matter to permit the judge to "reconsider the issue of the omission of mitigating evidence from defendant's penaltyphase trial." Martini IV, supra, 148 N.J. at 453, 690 A.2d 603. We directed the lower court to determine:

1. Whether the evidence was mitigating;

2. If the evidence was mitigating, whether defense counsel's failure to obtain the evidence constituted ineffective assistance of counsel or whether the omission of the evidence constituted a manifest injustice and a violation of defendant's constitutional rights, entitling defendant to post-conviction relief;

3. If defendant is entitled to post-conviction relief because of the failure to obtain or the omission of the evidence, whether defendant has an interest in preserving the confidentiality of the evidence;

4. If defendant has such a confidentiality interest, whether that interest can be protected in a penalty-phase proceeding by imposing conditions on the admission of the evidence, such as in camera proceedings, redaction of information, or the presentation of the evidence through summarization or paraphrasing in a form that will eliminate the concerns for confidentiality; and 5. If the evidence can be used subject to such conditions, whether the failure to use the evidence at the penaltyphase proceeding of defendant constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel or a manifest injustice and a violation of defendant's constitutional rights, entitling defendant to post-conviction relief....

[Id. at 454, 690 A.2d 603.]

Lastly, we ordered the "hearing on remand [to] be conducted in camera, with the State and defendant being provided with all of the evidence at issue ... subject to its absolute confidentiality and strict non-disclosure." Ibid.

Over the course of one year and one week, the trial judge heard testimony from Martini's original trial counsel (who had withdrawn from the case prior to trial), Martini's actual trial counsel, a member of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Homicide Squad (who initially investigated the Flax murder), and other witnesses. After hearing the testimony, reviewing all of the confidential evidence and listening to argument, the court determined that the evidence was not mitigating.

The court found that the testimony of Martini's trial counsel and the Public Defender first assigned to his case established that none of those attorneys would have used the alleged mitigating evidence in Martini's penalty-phase trial. To the contrary, trial counsel believed there was a substantial downside to the presentation of this evidence that outweighed any mitigating factors, and the Public Defender at that time saw the evidence as both "possibly good" and "not so hot." From this, the court concluded that the evidence "would [not] have had a significant impact on [the jury's] deliberations in that it [would not] have changed any one of [the juror's] minds[.]" Because the trial judge found that the Public Defender's evidence was not mitigating, counsel's failure to obtain it was not ineffective assistance of counsel. Similarly, the potentially damaging effect of the evidence eliminated the possibility that its omission constituted a manifest injustice to Martini.

In reaching this conclusion, the judge refused to allow two experts to...