State v. Melendez
| Decision Date | 08 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | A-22/23 September Term 2018,081246 |
| Citation | 240 N.J. 268,222 A.3d 639 |
| Parties | STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent/Cross-Appellant, v. Luis MELENDEZ, a/k/a Arturo Melendez and Pito Melendez, Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Respondent. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Laura B. Lasota, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant/cross-respondent (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Laura B. Lasota, of counsel and on the briefs).
Stephanie Davis Elson, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent/cross-appellant (Esther Suarez, Hudson County Prosecutor, attorney; Kerry J. Salkin and Nicole D. DePalma, Assistant Prosecutors, on the briefs).
Alexander Shalom argued the cause for amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey Foundation, attorneys; Alexander Shalom, Liza Weisberg, and Jeanne LoCicero, on the brief).
Valeria Dominguez, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey (Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney; Valeria Dominguez, of counsel and on the brief).
In this appeal, we consider whether a defendant's answer to a civil forfeiture complaint can be introduced against him in a related criminal trial.
After defendant's arrest on drug and weapons charges, the State filed a civil forfeiture action against $2928 in cash. The police found most of the money during a search of an apartment. In the criminal case, the State alleged that the cash -- as well as drugs, drug paraphernalia, and a handgun also found in the apartment -- belonged to defendant.
Defendant faced a dilemma about whether to answer the civil complaint. Under the forfeiture statute, a claimant must file an answer and assert an "interest in the property." N.J.S.A. 2C:64-3(d). That step, however, can incriminate a defendant in a related criminal case. On the other hand, if a defendant fails to respond to a forfeiture complaint, he risks losing his property.
Here, without the benefit of an attorney, defendant filed an answer. He asserted that the cash belonged to him and came from a lawful source. The State, in turn, introduced that answer in defendant's criminal trial to try to link him to the incriminating items found in the apartment.
The Appellate Division concluded the answer should not have been admitted under the doctrine of fundamental fairness. State v. Melendez, 454 N.J. Super. 445, 475, 186 A.3d 284 (App. Div. 2018). We agree with that outcome for different reasons.
Defendant faced an untenable situation -- forced to choose between his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and his right not to be deprived of property in the forfeiture matter without due process. Under the reasoning of Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 87 S.Ct. 616, 17 L.Ed.2d 562 (1967), defendants cannot be compelled to give up their Fifth Amendment protections in that way. We therefore hold that a defendant's statements in an answer to a civil forfeiture action cannot be introduced in a parallel criminal proceeding in the State's case in chief.
Like the Appellate Division, we find the error was harmless in light of other strong evidence connecting defendant to the apartment. Accordingly, we affirm and modify the judgment of the Appellate Division.
We also agree with the Appellate Division that criminal defendants who have been served with civil forfeiture complaints are entitled to enhanced notice of certain issues. We outline several points about notice and refer the matter to the Civil and Criminal Practice Committees for further review.
Starting in October 2010, the Hoboken Police Department and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office Municipal Task Force conducted a month-long investigation into drug sales by defendant Luis Melendez. The police used a confidential informant to buy drugs from defendant on four occasions at a sixth-floor apartment in a building in Hoboken. Armed with that information, the police obtained a search warrant for the apartment, and they executed the warrant on November 8, 2010.
Defendant's parents and a young girl were in the apartment when the police entered. The search focused primarily on the back bedroom. From a dresser in the room and inside the bedroom closet, officers seized 347 glassine bags of heroin packaged in bundles, drug paraphernalia, a handgun, six hollow-point bullets, a radio scanner, two-way radios, and $2900 in cash in a bank envelope. The police also found pill bottles prescribed to defendant at addresses in Newark and Brooklyn as well as a set of handcuffs with a woman's name etched into them. A law enforcement officer who previously had a long-term relationship with defendant testified at trial that the handcuffs belonged to her. In addition, a detective testified that he saw personal papers in the back bedroom with defendant's name on some of them. The documents were not seized.
During the search, another officer saw defendant leave an interior stairwell onto the sixth-floor landing. The officer arrested him and seized $28 in his possession.
Defendant was charged with various narcotics and weapons offenses. The next day, a public defender represented him at a bail hearing.
A month later, on December 20, 2010, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office -- the same office prosecuting the criminal case against defendant -- filed a civil forfeiture complaint. The complaint named defendant and sought to forfeit the $2928 in cash.
The Prosecutor's Office alleged the funds were proceeds of illegal activities for which defendant had been charged criminally.
Defendant was served with a copy of the civil forfeiture complaint in the Hudson County jail on February 3, 2011; the State did not serve a copy on the public defender who represented defendant in the parallel criminal proceeding.
The summons also advised defendant he could contact Legal Services if he could not afford a lawyer.
Twelve days after defendant received the civil forfeiture complaint, a grand jury in Hudson County returned an indictment that charged him with thirteen drug and weapons offenses.
The following month, on March 22, 2011, defendant sent a handwritten letter to the court and asked for an extension of time to file an answer in the forfeiture case. He also asked the court to appoint counsel to represent him.
Defendant attached a copy of a U.S. Treasury check to the answer.
Four months later, in August 2012, the State sought to adjourn the forfeiture matter until the end of the criminal case. Ultimately, the court dismissed the civil forfeiture case on December 10, 2012 for lack of prosecution.
The State moved to admit defendant's answer to the forfeiture complaint at his criminal trial to "show a nexus between" defendant and the contraband found in the apartment. Over defendant's objection, the trial court granted the motion.
The trial court found that (1) defendant waived his right against self-incrimination by answering the complaint; (2) defendant was not entitled to receive the warnings outlined in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), because there was no custodial interrogation; (3) the State was not required to give defendant notice of his right to seek a stay of the forfeiture action, under N.J.S.A. 2C:64-3(f) ; (4) there was no Sixth Amendment violation; and (5) the admission of defendant's answer did not offend fundamental fairness because the State did not file the forfeiture complaint to advance the criminal matter and did not act in bad faith. The trial court later denied defendant's motion for reconsideration and noted that defendant could have asked for the civil action to be stayed rather than answer the forfeiture complaint.
The prosecutor then read aloud to the jury defendant's answer to the civil forfeiture complaint, and described the information on the attached government check, with minor redactions the parties had agreed to.
Defendant was convicted of the ten counts submitted to the jury; three counts had...
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...States Supreme Court's ruling in Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 496-500, 87 S.Ct. 616, 17 L.Ed.2d 562 (1967). 240 N.J. 268, 278–82, 222 A.3d 639, 2020 WL 86613 (2020). To protect the Fifth Amendment right of such a claimant, we found that an answer filed in a civil forfeiture action p......
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...themselves by admitting an interest in the property or not answer the complaint and forfeit the property. Cf. State v. Melendez , 240 N.J. 268, 222 A.3d 639, 647–48 (2020) (holding the State cannot use a defendant's statements in an answer to a forfeiture complaint in a later criminal proce......
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... ... 2C:64-3(a); defendant and his girlfriend were ... notified of the action but never filed an answer, ... id. at -3(c), -3(e); and, consequently, the court ... properly entered an August 8, 2013 default judgment and order ... to forfeit the money, State v. Melendez , 240 N.J ... 268, 280 (2020) (observing if a defendant does not timely ... file an answer, "the property is forfeited" (citing ... N.J.S.A. 2C:64-3(e))). In other words, the order to forfeit ... the $2,747, entered three years before defendant accepted the ... ...
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