 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Fortin2/3/2004
escaping detection. The jury unanimously found the mitigating factors that Fortin was an abuser of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, and heroin, and an abuser of alcohol for a substantial period of time, and other factors relevant to his record, his character, or the offense. The jury concluded that the two aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. Consequently, the trial court filed a judgment of capital conviction on the date of the jury's verdict and sentenced Fortin to the penalty of death.
On April 24, 2001, the trial court sentenced defendant on the non-capital convictions. The court merged the two felony murder counts into the capital murder conviction. Fortin was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment with ten years of parole ineligibility on the aggravated sexual assault conviction and to a consecutive twenty years imprisonment on the first-degree robbery conviction. Both of those sentences were made to run consecutive to the twenty-year sentence Fortin received in Maine for the crimes he committed against Trooper Gardner.
Defendant appeals to this Court as of right under Rule 2:2-1(a).
GUILT PHASE
II. Voir Dire
Defendant did not contest that he had committed the savage sexual assault on Trooper Gardner in Maine. With defendant clearly identified as the perpetrator of that brutal crime, the State's central theory was that whoever attacked Trooper Gardner also attacked Melissa Padilla because the distinctive characteristics of the sexual assaults against Gardner and Padilla were so "bizarre" and "unique" as to constitute the signature of a single individual.
In Fortin I, supra, this Court recognized that the N.J.R.E. 404(b) "other-crime" evidence 23af the depraved attack on Trooper Gardner 23af had the clear capacity to inflame the passions of the jury and cause irreparable prejudice if not used for the limited purpose of establishing identity. 162 N.J. at 534. In that regard, we proposed a limiting instruction to be given to the guilt-phase jury to ensure the proper use of that evidence. Id. at 534-35. The purpose of the instruction was to make certain that the jury did not convict defendant of the Padilla murder solely because he "committed another crime elsewhere" and, was, therefore, "a bad man with a propensity for crime." Id. at 535.
The assault on Trooper Gardner was not relevant to any aggravating factor in the penalty phase. The trial court considered evidence of the assault on Gardner so potentially prejudicial that it bifurcated the penalty phase 23af at which that evidence was not admissible 23af from the guilt phase. Even a limiting instruction was not considered an adequate safeguard to protect penalty-phase jurors from the taint of such powerful and irrelevant evidence.
Against that background, the selection of the jury in the guilt phase of this capital murder trial proceeded. The trial court turned aside defendant's repeated requests that the court advise the juror panelists that they would hear evidence of a sexual assault committed by defendant against a Maine State Trooper, and that it instruct them on the consideration to be given to that evidence. Defendant contends that the trial court's failure to ask prospective jurors whether that evidence would impair their ability to remain fair and impartial and abide by the court's instruction on the limited use to be given to that evidence denied him the opportunity to "intelligently exercise" his for-cause and peremptory challenges. He claims the court's dereliction violated his right to a fair and impartial trial under the Federal and State Constitutions. U.S. Const. amends. VI, XIV; N.J. Const. ar
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 New Jersey DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|