State v. Woetzel

Decision Date28 April 2020
Docket NumberDOCKET NO. A-4034-17T4
PartiesSTATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. JAMES WOETZEL, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtNew Jersey Superior Court – Appellate Division

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

Before Judges Yannotti, Hoffman and Firko.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Passaic County, Indictment No. 15-05-0385.

Margaret Ruth McLane, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Margaret Ruth McLane, of counsel and on the briefs).

Ali Y. Ozbek, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Camelia M. Valdes, Passaic County Prosecutor, attorney; Ali Y. Ozbek, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Defendant James Woetzel was tried before a jury and found guilty of first-degree vehicular homicide and other offenses, as charged in a Passaic County indictment. Defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction entered by the trial court. We affirm.

I.

On May 4, 2015, defendant was charged with first-degree vehicular homicide in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-5(b)(3) (count one), for causing the death of Donna Wine while recklessly operating his vehicle while intoxicated within 1000 feet of a school; second-degree vehicular homicide for causing the death while operating his vehicle recklessly, but not intoxicated, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-5A (count two); second-degree leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident resulting in death in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-5.1 (count three); and first-degree aggravated manslaughter in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-4(a) (count four).

The evidence presented at the suppression hearing and trial showed that on August 10, 2014, defendant drove his pickup truck through police barricades and into an open-air farmer's market in Hawthorne, injuring pedestrians, and causing the death of Donna Wine. When police arrived at the scene, defendant was mumbling, claimed he did not know what happened, and "blacked out"before the accident. He was sweaty, experienced difficulty breathing, had a fast pulse, and was agitated. After being transported to the emergency room at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center (St. Joseph's) for an evaluation, defendant eventually became mentally alert, oriented, and able to follow commands. Defendant could not recall anything about the accident. His urine screen tested negative for illicit drugs.

Detective David Ware from the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office visited defendant at St. Joseph's and asked for his consent to draw blood for a drug and alcohol analysis. Defendant readily agreed to the testing of his blood, insisting that there was "nothing" in it that related to the investigation. After being apprised of his right to refuse, defendant consented to the blood draw and signed a Hawthorne Police Department form that stated:

I, James Woetzel, hereby authorize and consent to the taking of a sample of my blood and/or urine for an analysis to determine the presence of alcohol and/or controlled dangerous substances [(CDS)]. The blood will be extracted in a medically acceptable manner by a qualified professional. I understand that I have the absolute right to refuse to provide this sample(s).

Shortly after defendant's blood sample was taken, he was discharged and voluntarily accompanied Ware and another officer to the Passaic CountyProsecutor's Office to give a statement. After waiving his Miranda1 rights, defendant gave a recorded interview that was played for the jury at trial. In the interview, defendant stated that a few hours before the subject accident, he went to Micro Center to purchase computer parts and "Dust-Off," an aerosol product used to clean dust from electronics. He also admitted he caused an accident a few years earlier in Fair Lawn when he similarly "blacked out" and explained, "the same [expletive] thing happened" that time as what happened earlier that day in Hawthorne.

On August 18, 2014, Hawthorne police delivered defendant's blood sample to the State Police laboratory for a toxicological analysis. Because of the similarities in the accidents, the Hawthorne police also requested that defendant's blood be tested for aerosol "huffing" substances. Pursuant to a search warrant executed on August 20, 2014, the police uncovered a Micro Center bag, a canister of Dust-Off on the passenger seat of defendant's pickup truck, and a receipt confirming he purchased Dust-Off at 1:21 p.m. on the day of the accident, less than an hour before losing consciousness. A similar scenario occurred relative to the 2012 collision.

Dust-Off contains difluoroethane (DFE). The canister found in defendant's truck was missing its safety tab and was more than a quarter empty. DFE can be an intoxicant if inhaled and cause brain impairment.

On August 22, 2014, police purchased two canisters of Dust-Off and sent them, along with the canister found in defendant's vehicle, to the Central Regional Laboratory of the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences (OFS) for a comparative weight analysis. The Dust-Off canister retrieved from defendant's truck weighed 437.67 grams, which was about 158 grams less than the new canisters purchased.

Min Tang, a forensic analyst with the toxicology unit of the OFS, tested defendant's blood using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) machine. Defendant's blood tested negative for alcohol and CDS's, but positive for DFE. At the suppression hearing, Monica Tramontin, supervisor of the toxicology unit of the OFS and a scientist employed by the State Police laboratory for thirty years, testified about the laboratory procedures for testing blood for impairing substances, including DFE. She described DFE as an odorless, volatile compound used as an industrial refrigerant and a propellant in aerosol products, including Dust-Off. Tramontin testified that when inhaled,DFE travels from the blood to the brain and can cause intoxication and impairment. After being ingested, DFE remains in the body only a few hours.

Tramontin also stated that in toxicological blood analyses in fatal cases, the state laboratory always tests the sample for drug content irrespective of the blood alcohol reading, whether law enforcement requests it or not. A blood sample is placed in the mass spectrometer to determine the molecular fingerprint of the detected gas. Tramontin further testified that the molecular fingerprint of DFE is unique and cannot be mistaken for any other substance. She also testified that DFE in the human body can cause depletion of oxygen, the hampering of motor functioning and hand-eye coordination, difficulty breathing, and loss of consciousness.

The State also presented testimony at the motion hearing from Dr. Robert Pandina, who was qualified as an expert in psychopharmacology. Pandina testified that after pressing the lever on the canister of Dust-Off, the substance would enter the lungs and "rapidly find [] its way to the blood supply . . . within seconds." He also stated that DFE remains in the blood for about four to five hours. Here, defendant's blood was drawn at 6:28 p.m., approximately four and one-half hours after the accident. According to Pandina, following the euphoriaresulting from inhaling DFE, a user may experience confusion, cognitive dysfunction, and difficulty with motor coordination.

Prior to trial, the trial judge denied defendant's motion to suppress the blood test results, information relating to the 2012 car accident, and defendant's prior purchases of Dust-Off. The judge determined that the initial extraction of defendant's blood and initial tests for alcohol and CDS were lawful, and the later testing of the blood for DFE was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

As to the prior accident, the judge found the evidence could be admitted at trial because it was intrinsic to the charged offenses. During the trial, the judge gave a limiting instruction to the jury that the evidence could only be considered to show an absence of mistake as to defendant's loss of consciousness. The judge also instructed the jury that the evidence could be considered in determining if defendant consciously disregarded a known risk and showed extreme indifference to human life when he operated his truck on the date of the subject accident.

The jury found defendant guilty of vehicular homicide and aggravated manslaughter. On December 1, 2017, the trial judge merged count two into count one and sentenced defendant to twenty-years imprisonment, subject to the No Early Release Act (NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2. Defendant also received aconcurrent twenty-year term of incarceration subject to NERA on count four, aggravated manslaughter. The judge ordered defendant to pay $12,750 in restitution, in addition to statutory fines and penalties.

Defendant presents the following arguments on appeal:

POINT ONE
THE BLOOD-TEST RESULTS MUST BE SUPPRESSED BECAUSE TESTING DEFENDANT'S BLOOD FOR A CHEMICAL THAT IS NOT A [CDS] EXCEEDED THE SCOPE OF HIS CONSENT.
POINT II
EVIDENCE OF A PRIOR CAR ACCIDENT ALLEGEDLY CAUSED BY DEFENDANT'S INTOXICATION WAS INADMISSIBLE. THE STATE COULD NOT PROVE THE CAUSE OF THE PRIOR ACCIDENT, AND EVEN IF [IT] COULD, ITS ADMISSION WAS SO UNDULY PREJUDICIAL THAT IT TAINTED DEFENDANT'S ENTIRE TRIAL.
POINT III
THE STATE'S TWO EXPERT WITNESSES [MS. TRAMONTIN AND DR. PANDINA] WERE NOT QUALIFIED TO TESTIFY ABOUT [DFE], AND THEIR TESTIMONY SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXCLUDED UNDER [RULES] 702 AND 703.
POINT IV
THE DEFENDANT'S SENTENCE OF TWENTY YEARS WITH AN [EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT]
PAROLE DISQUALIFIER IS MANIFESTLY EXCESSIVE.
II.

We will begin our review with defendant's argument that his blood test results were erroneously admitted into evidence. He contends that while he...

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