State v. Richter

• Decision Date: 04 June 1956
• Docket Number: No. A--143,A--143
• Citation: 21 N.J. 421,122 A.2d 502
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Russell RICHTER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 421

21 N.J. 421

122 A.2d 502

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Russell RICHTER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. A--143.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Submitted April 23, 1956.

Decided April 30, 1956.

Writ of Certiorari Denial June 4, 1956.

See 76 S.Ct. 1039.

On appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court, Appellate Division, where Judge Goldmann filed the following opinion:

'Defendant appeals from the Passaic County Court's denial of his application for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, Viz., an alibi different from that urged at the trial.

'A robbery occurred in Paterson, N.J., late in the evening of June 12, 1954. Defendant was arrested on June 21 and brought to police headquarters where he was identified in a line-up as a participant in the robbery. He was released on $5,000 bail the next day. On August 31, 1954 he pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with armed robbery. Assigned counsel represented him throughout the five-day trial which followed on September 13 through 17, 1954. The defense was alibi, defendant insisting throughout the trial that he had been at the 3 O'clock Club, Paterson, and not at the scene of the crime on the evening in question. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of robbery without a gun. On October 8, 1954 defendant was sentenced to serve a period of not less than seven nor more than ten years in the New Jersey State Prison, credit being given for the time spent in the county jail.

'The motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence was filed November 4, 1955 and denied November 23, 1955. Application for a rehearing was denied December 7, 1955. The notice of appeal was filed December 19, 1955, although defendant claims he actually mailed it to the county clerk, trial judge and prosecutor on December 9.

'The new alibi on which defendant based his motion for a new trial is supported by three very short affidavits of his lady friend Mrs. Margaret De Angeli, her mother Grace Miles, and her brother William Miles. They placed defendant in Grace Miles' home from about 6 P.M. on June 12, 1954 to 11:30 A.M. the next day. Defendant explains this belated alibi at some length. He states that on June 28 or 29, 1954, shortly after he was released on bail, he met Mrs. DeAngeli but did not mention his arrest 'because of prior disagreements between them.' He next saw her when she visited at the county jail on October 4, 1954, while he was awaiting sentence. He told her the essentials of his case, said he would be sentenced on October 8, and promised to have his mother phone her as to the outcome. Mrs. DeAngeli again visited defendant in the county jail on October 11, prior to his removal to State Prison. His story is that she asked him when the crime had taken place, and when he gave her the June 12, 1954 date she told him that 'while discussing the case in general with his mother on the telephone on the 8th day of October, 1954, that she remembered Jackie's (her son's) birthday was celebrated on the 12th of June, 1954, and that he was at her house all that night and had stayed overnight at the house and slept in the company of her brother William until the following morning when they had departed with her brother to her place of employment.' According to defendant he then, on October 11, recalled for the first time that he had not been at the 3 O'clock Club as he had testified at the trial, but with Mrs. DeAngeli and members of her family in Bergenfield, N.J., celebrating the birthday of Jackie, the two-year-old son of Mrs. DeAngeli. (Incidentally, Jackie's birthday actually fell on June 3, 1954, but defendant expains it was being celebrated late so that all members of the family might be present.) Defendant also represents that he did not realize, from October 11, 1954 up until September 1955, that this 'newly discovered evidence' could be used as grounds for a new trial. The three affidavits mentioned above were executed October 24, 1955.

The court properly denied the motion for a new trial based upon the so-called newly discovered evidence. To entitle a defendant to a new trial on that ground, he must show that the new evidence (1) is material to the issue and not merely cumulative, nor impeaching nor contradictory; (2) could not in fact have been discovered before such trial by the exercise of due diligence; and (3) would probably change the result if a new trial were granted. State v. Bunk, 4 N.J. 482, 486 (73 A.2d 245) (1950); State v. Vaszorich, 13 N.J. 99, 130 (98 A.2d 299) (1953). In denying the application for a new trial, the County Court specifically found that defendant had not met the second and third requirements of the quoted rule. We agree.

'Defendant was arrested nine days after the robbery. It is highly unlikely that he did not know then just where he had been on the night of June 12, 1954. He certainly could have remembered being present at the celebration for his lady friend's little boy, if that unusual occasion actually transpired. If, as he thought and as he insisted throughout the trial, he was in the 3 O'clock Club on the night of the crime, there was ample time following his release on bail on June 22, 1954 and prior to the trial on September 13 following, in which to confirm and verify his recollection as to his whereabouts on the evening of June 12. The alibi which he now advances as 'newly discovered evidence' could have been discovered before trial by the exercise of due diligence. Defendant's account as to how his memory was refreshed by Mrs. DeAngeli--after he had spoken to her on at least two occasions--is a strained one and does not invite credence.

'It should also be observed that the alleged new evidence is of a recanting nature, 'a particularly unreliable form of proof,' which, if true, involves a confession of perjury. See State v. Vaszorich, above, 13 N.J. at page 130 (98 A.2d at page 315) where the Supreme Court, in resolving the question of whether the trial judge erred in exercising his discretion by denying a new trial, quoted from the concurring opinion of Judge Cardozo in People v. Shilitano, 218 N.Y. 161, 180, 112 N.E. 733 (L.R.A.1916F, 1044) (Ct.App.916):

"* * * I do not mean that to justify a new trial, he must have been convinced--firmly or with a sense of certainty convinced--that the first story of the witnesses was false and that their new story was true. He might act upon a reasonable probability. But, if, on the contrary, he was Convinced that the second tale was false, that a criminal league had been formed to set at naught the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the court, his duty was clearly marked. * * * He was not at liberty to shift upon the shoulders of another jury his own responsibility. That would have been to make the conspiracy triumph. He was charged with a responsibility to seek the truth himself.'

'The recanting nature of defendant's proffered new alibi adversely affects its status as 'newly discovered evidence' and strongly supports the ruling of the County ...