State v. Smith
| Decision Date | 23 November 2021 |
| Docket Number | A-2048-18 |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. JASHAWN SMITH, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division |
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
Argued September 22, 2021
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division Mercer County, Indictment No. 17-07-0389.
Morgan A. Birck, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney Molly O'Donnell Meng, Assistant Public Defender, of counsel and on the brief).
William P. Cooper-Daub, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Andrew J. Bruck, Acting Attorney General, attorney; William P. CooperDaub, of counsel and on the brief).
Before Judges Fuentes, Gooden Brown, and Gummer.
After the trial court denied defendant's motions to suppress his statement to police detectives and evidence seized in an investigatory stop, defendant Jashawn Smith pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree aggravated manslaughter, N.J.S.A 2C:11-4(a)(1), was sentenced to a fifteen-year term of imprisonment subject to the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A 2C:43-7.2, and ordered to pay restitution. Because the trial court did not err in denying the suppression motions or ordering restitution, we affirm.
We glean the following facts from the record of the suppression hearings.
On June 11, 2016, Trenton Police Detectives Crystal Everett and Jonathan Cincilla were patrolling in an unmarked white Crown Victoria sedan, well-known in the community as a police vehicle. At approximately 3:45 p.m., they received a dispatch advising police units a shooting was in progress at 5 Prospect Village, a neighborhood on the west side of Trenton. From the dispatch, the detectives understood three suspects were fleeing the area of the shooting. Recorded transmissions did not confirm the detectives' recollection about a broadcast concerning three suspects fleeing from Prospect Village, but not all transmissions are recorded. A CAD[1] report indicated one dispatch contained information that "three . . . young males [had] jumped into a four-door white car and fled up Prospect Street towards Oak ...." Neither detective recalled hearing that information.
As members of the Street Crimes Unit, Everett and Cincilla were familiar with Trenton "hot spots," areas with high crime and recent shootings. They knew about an "ongoing feud between gang members of Prospect Village and gang members of North 25," which was a housing project located about a quarter mile from Prospect Village. After receiving the dispatch, Cincilla initially drove in the Prospect Village area, but, hearing other police units responding to Prospect Village, he drove towards North 25 to intercept any potential suspects returning to North 25 from the crime scene.
Approximately one minute after the radio dispatch, before the detectives reached North 25, Everett saw three men, who were later identified as defendant and his two co-defendants, on a sidewalk on Louise Lane running towards North 25 in the opposite direction of the location of the shooting. According to Everett, Louise Lane was "the quickest route between North 25 and Prospect Village." When Everett told Cincilla she had seen the three men, he turned the vehicle onto Louis Lane, driving slowly.
When defendant and his co-defendants saw the detectives, "they all immediately and instantaneously began walking as if to act natural." The detectives noticed the three men "were all sweating" and "breathing heavily." Cincilla recognized co-defendant Wilson George as someone he previously had seen at North 25 during prior investigations. Defendant had a "hoodie" in his hand and George was "carrying a black hooded sweatshirt at his waist" even though it was a sunny, ninety-degree day. George was "manipulating [the] . . . sweatshirt in his hands while holding it very low and he was kind of shifting it . . . left and right . . . as if he was attempting to discard something." Everett saw George drop "the sweatshirt right next to the parked car" and then walk away from the car without the sweatshirt. Cincilla also saw George "shaking" the sweatshirt against the car.
The detectives stopped and exited their vehicle. Everett believed the three men were "potential suspects in the shooting" because of the known feud between the North 25 and Prospect Village gangs and her observations of them, including the direction in which they were running, that they stopped running when they saw the detectives, their clothing, and George's apparent effort to drop something. Out of safety concerns and "to possibly detain them," Everett, with her handgun drawn, ordered the three men to get on the ground. Codefendants complied immediately; defendant ran. Cincilla ran after him for thirty to forty-five seconds. During the chase, Cincilla saw defendant drop his sweatshirt, revealing he was holding a handgun. Cincilla told defendant to stop; defendant continued to run. Police officer Pedro Nieves pulled his patrol car alongside defendant and ordered him to stop running.
Eventually, defendant stopped and dropped the handgun. Cincilla brought defendant to the ground to distance him from the handgun and to gain control of him. While Cincilla and defendant were on the ground, they engaged in a brief struggle as defendant attempted to crawl away. Cincilla hit defendant "a couple of times to get him to stop" resisting and to prevent defendant from "get[ting] to the gun." Nieves took control of defendant, while Cincilla recovered the nine-millimeter, semi-automatic handgun defendant had dropped. Officer Nieves transported defendant to headquarters.
Mercer County Prosecutor's homicide task force detectives Ryan Woodhead and Patrick Holt interrogated defendant in the early morning hours of the next day. Holt began the video-recorded interrogation by telling defendant, "[w]e're going to talk to you about a couple of things," but first they would "advise [him] appropriately what [his] charges [were]." Defendant was provided with a Mercer County Uniform Complaint Arrest Warrant Notification form. Holt confirmed defendant had a copy of his charges and told him, "I need to explain them to you verbatim and then have you sign off on this form." Holt advised defendant Holt asked defendant to sign the form if he understood "these four charges." Defendant signed the form.
Holt said to defendant, "[o]bviously you've been charged with these four charges . . . I want to discuss this and some other things with you but before we can talk to you I've got to advise you of your Miranda rights." Holt read defendant his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966); defendant acknowledged understanding his rights, stated his willingness to talk to the detectives, and signed the Miranda waiver form. According to Woodhead, defendant, who was eighteen-years old, appeared to understand his rights, answering in the affirmative and nodding his head; he seemed relaxed and alert, and did not manifest any signs of being under the influence of any narcotics or other inebriating substances. In the course of the interrogation, Holt asked defendant if he knew "somebody was murdered tonight . . . a [fifteen] year old . . . got killed in Prospect Village." When asked why that information was not provided to defendant earlier in the interrogation, Woodhead answered, "there was no secret that we were going to talk to him about a homicide that happened."
Defendant ultimately admitted he and his co-defendants went to Prospect Village because they wanted "payback" for a friend who had been killed. Defendant stated he fired his gun three times at a crowd of people he believed were responsible for his friend's death.
According to Woodhead, sometime after an interrogation of a suspect, the result of the interrogation is given to the assistant prosecutor assigned to the case. Based on the assistant prosecutor's recommendation, a determination is made about whether to issue additional charges. On December 6, 2016, defendant was charged with murder.
A grand jury indicted defendant and his co-defendants jointly on first-degree murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(2) and 2C:2-6, and other second-degree weapons-related offenses and defendant individually for second-degree unlawful possession of handgun, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(b), and fourth-degree obstructing the administration of law or other government function, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a).
Defendant moved to suppress "all evidence illegally obtained pursuant and subsequent to a warrantless seizure by Trenton Police officers on June 11, 2016." Co-defendant Juprie E. Wadley similarly moved to suppress. Codefendant George joined in their motions. After a two-day evidentiary hearing, Judge Robert C. Billmeier denied the motions in a twenty-three-page written opinion. Finding the detectives credible, Judge Billmeier held their decision to stop defendant was based on "reasonable articulable suspicion, "defendant's flight created "an individual basis for seizure of the handgun recovered from him," and the plain-view doctrine supported the seizure of the handgun.
Defendant moved to suppress his statement to Detectives Woodhead and Holt, arguing, among other things, he was "very visibly exhausted" and his waiver of rights was not fully informed because the detectives had not identified themselves as members of a homicide unit and had not initially told him he was...
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