State v. Sims

• Decision Date: 16 March 2022
• Docket Number: A-53 September Term 2020,085369
• Citation: 250 N.J. 189,271 A.3d 288
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Anthony SIMS, Jr., Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

250 N.J. 189

271 A.3d 288

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Anthony SIMS, Jr., Defendant-Respondent.

A-53 September Term 2020

085369

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued October 12, 2021

Decided March 16, 2022

Revised March 16, 2022

Monica do Outeiro, Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for appellant (Lori Linskey, Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor, attorney; Maura K. Tully, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the briefs).

Rochelle M. Watson, Deputy Public Defender II, argued the cause for respondent (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Rochelle M. Watson, and Robert Carter Pierce, Designated Counsel, on the briefs).

Frank Muroski, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey (Andrew J. Bruck, Acting Attorney General, attorney; Frank Muroski, of counsel and on the brief).

John McNamara, Jr., Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Chief Assistant Morris County Prosecutor, argued the cause for amicus curiae County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey (Esther A. Suarez, President, County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey, attorney; John McNamara, Jr., of counsel and on the brief).

Aidan P. O'Connor, Hackensack, argued the cause for amicus curiae Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, attorneys; CJ Griffin, on the brief).

JUSTICE PATTERSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this appeal, defendant Anthony Sims, Jr. challenges his conviction of attempted murder and weapons offenses arising from the April 9, 2014 shooting of a twenty-eight-year-old man, P.V., outside his grandmother's home.

The appeal requires that we consider two issues. First, we review as of right the decision of a divided Appellate Division panel vacating defendant's convictions and remanding for a new trial on the ground that the police officers who interrogated defendant violated his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). State v. Sims, 466 N.J. Super. 346, 361-69, 246 A.3d 814 (2021). Deciding an issue that defendant did not raise before the trial court, the Appellate Division adopted a new rule requiring police officers, prior to interrogation, to inform an arrestee of the charges that will be filed against him, even when no complaint or arrest warrant has been issued identifying those charges. Id. at 369, 246 A.3d 814. We decline to adopt the rule prescribed by the Appellate Division and find no plain error in the trial court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress his statement to police.

Second, we consider the Appellate Division's ruling that defendant was deprived of a fair trial because of an evidentiary determination by the trial court. The Appellate Division held that the trial court's decision to admit at trial P.V.’s prior testimony at a pretrial hearing, in which P.V. claimed that he had no recollection of an earlier out-of-court statement to police implicating defendant in the crime, violated the rule against hearsay and the Confrontation Clause. Id. at 377-78, 246 A.3d 814. We concur with the trial court that the victim's testimony at the pretrial hearing was admissible under N.J.R.E. 804(b)(1)(A) ’s exception to the hearsay rule for the prior testimony of a witness unavailable at trial, and that the admission of that testimony did not violate defendant's confrontation rights.

Accordingly, we reverse the Appellate Division's judgment and remand this matter to the appellate court so that it may consider two issues raised by defendant that it did not reach.

I.

A.

We derive our summary of the facts from the record presented to the trial court in pretrial motions and the trial record.

On April 9, 2014, P.V.’s grandmother heard P.V. calling for help outside her home in Red Bank. She found her grandson "partially in the driveway on the pavement" and "partially in the car." P.V. had sustained twelve bullet wounds to the torso, leg, buttocks, and upper arm, and was bleeding "in two, three places very badly." According to P.V.’s grandmother's trial testimony, she asked P.V. "who did this to you," and he responded, "Sims." She stated that when she pressed her grandson to tell her who "Sims" was, he responded, "B.J.’s brother." P.V.’s grandmother testified that the nickname "B.J." denoted defendant's brother, whom she knew because he was a friend of several members of her family.

P.V.’s uncle called 9-1-1, and P.V. was taken to a hospital. Police officers were initially unable to speak with P.V. because he was intubated. On April 13, 2014, four days after the shooting, P.V.’s mother informed Detective Robert Campanella of the Red Bank Police Department that P.V. was no longer intubated. Later that day, Detective Brian Weisbrot of the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, accompanied by Campanella and another Red Bank officer, Detective James DePonte, went to the hospital and met with P.V., who agreed to give them a recorded statement.

In his statement, P.V. said that on the evening of the shooting, he was sitting in his car talking on his phone and "noticed a man crouched down holding a gun with two hands aiming in a like crouching position" and that the man "started shooting" at him. P.V. stated that "[t]he minute that I looked at him, I knew what it was and I knew who it was, Anthony Sims, Jr.," whom P.V. had known for ten years through defendant's brother, B.J. According to the statement, P.V. told the detectives that he and defendant's brother "had a falling out," "were supposed to fight," and that "B.J. and Anthony Sims are brothers." P.V. said that he thought that defendant's brother was involved in the shooting incident because he did not have "any other problems with Anthony Sims, Jr." and because, when he saw defendant's brother B.J. two hours before the shooting, B.J. "pulled off." P.V. identified the weapon used by defendant in the shooting as a "black semiautomatic."

P.V. identified a photograph of defendant, marked it with defendant's name, and wrote the date and time of the identification and his initials on defendant's photograph.

On April 14, 2014, prior to the issuance of any complaint or warrant or the filing of formal charges against defendant, Campanella and Weisbrot arrested defendant. According to Campanella's trial testimony, he advised defendant "that he was being placed under arrest," handcuffed him, and told him that they would transport him to a satellite facility of the prosecutor's office. Campanella recalled that defendant asked "what was going on and why he was being placed under arrest," and that he told defendant that the officers "would get into the details" when they reached the prosecutor's office. Weisbrot, Campanella, and DePonte then transported defendant to the prosecutor's office and escorted him to an interview room.

Weisbrot and Campanella then conducted a videorecorded interview. Using a Miranda waiver form, Weisbrot read defendant his Miranda rights. Defendant asked, "[s]o I'm under arrest or something?" Weisbrot told defendant, "[y]ou are under arrest yes.. I'm sure you have a ton of questions. I'll be happy to get into all that, okay, in just a few minutes. Let's just finish this form. Okay?" Defendant then acknowledged and waived his Miranda rights.

In an interview that lasted just over two hours, defendant gave a statement in which he said that he knew P.V., that he was aware of the shooting, and that his girlfriend owned a blue Ford Explorer, a vehicle that matched the description of a vehicle observed near the scene of P.V.’s shooting. Defendant denied that he was involved in the shooting and stated that his brother, B.J., had no "beef or issues" with P.V. or his family.

B.

1.

A grand jury indicted defendant for first-degree attempted murder, with a sentencing enhancer that the crime had been committed with a firearm; first-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, later downgraded by the trial court to a second-degree offense; second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose; and second-degree certain persons not to possess weapons, a charge that the State dismissed before trial.

2.

Defendant moved to suppress his April 14, 2014 statement to police. He conceded that the officers had informed him of his Miranda rights and that he had acknowledged those rights and signed a waiver form. Defendant argued, however, that because the detectives were aware that he was on parole on the date of his arrest, they should have refrained from questioning him until they determined whether he had an attorney. He also contended that the officers used deceptive techniques in a lengthy interrogation, and that they should have either repeated the Miranda warnings or terminated questioning. Defendant did not claim before the trial court that his statement should be suppressed because he was not informed before his interrogation of the reason for his arrest or the charges that he would later face.

The trial court conducted a hearing pursuant to N.J.R.E. 104 with respect to defendant's motion to suppress his statement. Based on the totality of the circumstances, the court held that the State had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights was knowing and voluntary, and accordingly denied defendant's motion to suppress.

3.

Defendant also moved to suppress P.V.’s April 13, 2014 statement to police at the hospital, in which P.V. identified defendant as the man who shot him.

On April 14, 2016, the trial court held a hearing pursuant to United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967) and State v. Henderson, 208 N.J. 208, 27 A.3d 872 (2011). The State called P.V. as a witness at the Wade/ Henderson hearing. During his direct examination, P.V. claimed that because of the "traumatic experience" of the shooting, he remembered nothing about the incident. P.V. testified that he had no recollection of telling Campanella, Weisbrot, or DePonte that defendant was the...