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State v. Fortin2/3/2004
Argued October 22, 2002
Defendant Steven Fortin was convicted by a jury of capital murder and sentenced to death. He claims that he was denied a fair trial as a result of various rulings of the trial court in the guilt and penalty phases of the trial. We conclude that the trial errors were sufficiently egregious so as to deny defendant a fair trial and, therefore, we are constrained to reverse.
I. Facts and Procedural History
On August 11, 1994, twenty-five-year-old Melissa Padilla resided at the Gem Motel in Woodbridge with her four young children, ages two through five, and her boyfriend, Hector Fernandez. Padilla and her children were receiving public assistance and had been placed at the motel by a social service agency. That day, at approximately 11 00 p.m., she left the motel to buy some food for her family and walked to a nearby Quick Chek convenience store located at the intersection of U.S. Highway Route 1 North and Avenel Street. Padilla's walk took her along a 1000-foot dirt path that ran parallel to Route 1 North. At 11:29 p.m., she purchased iced tea, pizza, bread, three sandwiches, a candy bar, and coffee with a $20 bill, receiving $0.66 in change. She left the Quick Chek and began on her way back to the motel.
When Padilla did not return, Fernandez became concerned and went to look for her, accompanied by the sons of the motel desk clerk, eleven-year-old Christopher and five-year-old Antoine, and a friend, Trent Eubanks, who was staying at the Gem Motel that evening. Five-year-old Antoine discovered Padilla's body 500 feet from the motel inside one of four concrete thirty-inch pipes, which lay on the path Padilla had taken to and from the store.
By the time the first police officer arrived on the scene at approximately 1:00 a.m., Fernandez had pulled Padilla's body out of the pipe. The officer found Fernandez and Eubanks standing near Padilla's badly battered body, which was naked from the waist down. Dr. Marvin Schuster, the county medical examiner, was called to the scene and pronounced Padilla dead at 1:06 a.m.
County investigators also arrived and canvassed the area for evidence. They observed Padilla's bloodied face, her blood soaked shirt, and blood on her arms and hands. A pool of blood had collected in the concrete pipe and a bloody trail marked the distance Padilla's body had been dragged from the pipe. Blood spattering evidence indicated that the assault had taken place inside the construction pipe.
The police found no money or jewelry on or near Padilla's body. They did discover, however, a bloody dollar bill and receipt from the convenience store in the vicinity. Padilla's groceries were strewn about the area, including three sandwich containers, one of which was empty. The sandwich was later discovered, partially eaten, on a nearby street. The police found Padilla's shorts, with her underpants inside, in a tree a short distance from the sandwich. The investigation uncovered no identifiable fingerprints other than those of the victim.
An autopsy was conducted the next day. Dr. Schuster determined that Padilla had suffered numerous injuries, including a broken nose and bruises to her face and chest; lacerations to her chin and left breast that were possibly bite marks; and lacerations to the anus inflicted shortly before death that were consistent with forceful penetration by an object, possibly a finger or penis. Padilla suffered no observable injuries to her vagina. The evidence and absence of evidence 23af the presence of "few and scattered spermatozoa" in the vagina and no semen found on the body 23af suggested that Padilla was not vaginally assaulted. The bruises to Padilla's fa
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