State Of New Jersey v. Julius Smith

The Court considers the circumstances under which a trial court should grant a mistrial or continuance to allow defendant the opportunity to investigate newly discovered evidence revealed during trial. At 11:30 p.m. on July 2, 2009, as Jayne Gourgiotis was walking home, a car with two men inside pulled up near her. The passenger got out of the car, approached her, and spoke to her. She looked at the man, whom she later described as black and heavyset, with short hair, thick eyebrows, a small nose, and some facial hair. He tapped Gourgiotis’s hip with a gun and asked for her phone. She gave him her purse, which contained a cell phone, iPod, keys, wallet, identification, and about fifty dollars. The assailant immediately returned to the passenger seat of the car, and the car drove off. Gourgiotis ran to a police station to report the crime. She described the robber and the car to a detective who then relayed the information to patrol units. While still at the station, Gourgiotis canceled her cell phone service. A patrol unit stopped a car that matched the description she had given. The detective drove her to the scene to look at the car and two suspects. She said that neither was the robber. A few hours after the robbery, two officers spotted a black Oldsmobile Aurora, which matched the description of a car involved in multiple robberies in Jersey City that night. The car was parked at a gas station. The officers saw two African-American men get into the car. One of the men, later identified as defendant, was about six feet tall, heavyset, had short hair, had some facial hair, and wore a white t-shirt. The other man, Jerry Martin, was a little taller, stocky, and had cornrows. The officers stopped the car as it started to pull away and saw a third man, Derrick McCrae, in the back seat. The officers spoke with the men, who gave conflicting stories, and then brought them to the police station where they were photographed and questioned further. The officers also searched the car but did not find any weapons or stolen items. Since Martin did not have the car’s registration form, the police impounded the vehicle. Three days after the robbery, Detective Angel Pastrana asked Gourgiotis to come to the police station to try to identify her assailant by reviewing photobooks. Detective Pastrana arranged for photos of defendant, Martin, and McCrae to be added to the photobooks before Gourgiotis saw them. She picked out defendant’s photograph and said she was “pretty positive” that he had robbed her. Detective Pastrana then brought Gourgiotis to the impound lot to see if she could identify the car. Gourgiotis picked the Oldsmobile Aurora in which defendant had been stopped and said it “looked like” the car from the robbery. Based on her identification, the police obtained and executed an arrest warrant for defendant. At the time of his arrest, defendant had heroin in his possession. About six weeks after the robbery, the State Police arrested Stebbin Drew in a stolen black Infiniti and found Gourgiotis’s cell phone in his possession. Drew is an African-American male, about six feet tall, and he weighed 175 pounds at the time. In August, a State Trooper called Gourgiotis and relayed the news to her. She told the assistant prosecutor about the call on the afternoon of jury selection in defendant’s trial, more than one year later. The trial began on November 1, 2010 and lasted four days. Defendant first learned about the new evidence on the morning of the second day of trial when the assistant prosecutor told defense counsel about Gourgiotis’s call from the State Police. The State called Gourgiotis as its first witness. During cross-examination, defense counsel asked Gourgiotis some questions about the Trooper’s call. Counsel then moved for a mistrial at sidebar, arguing that he had been denied what could be important exculpatory information. The trial judge denied the motion. The parties and the court later discussed a State Police report that the prosecutor’s office had tracked down. The report confirmed Drew’s arrest in August 2009 and noted that he had a bag of several stolen items including Gourgiotis’s cell phone. Defense counsel renewed his request for a mistrial, arguing that the information should have been given to him in advance of trial and that he needed to investigate it. The State explained that it was in the midst of conducting an investigation and was searching for a photo of Drew. The court denied defendant’s motion. The State obtained Drew’s 2009 arrest photo in time for the start of the next trial day. Gourgiotis returned to the witness stand and, when shown Drew’s recent arrest photo, testified that she was confident that he was not the robber. The next day, the jury convicted defendant of armed robbery and possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, but acquitted him of unlawful possession of a handgun. At sentencing, the judge imposed a twenty-year term of imprisonment for the robbery offense, subject to an eighty-five percent period of parole ineligibility. The court imposed a concurrent three-year sentence for defendant’s possession of heroin at the time of his arrest. On appeal, defendant claimed that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial. Defendant argued, in the alternative, that the court should have granted a continuance to allow him to investigate the newly discovered evidence about Gourgiotis’s cell phone. The Appellate Division affirmed in an unpublished decision, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion. The Court granted certification limited to whether the trial court should have granted defendant’s motion for a mistrial or a continuance to allow him to investigate the newly discovered evidence revealed during trial. 217 N.J. 282 (2014). HELD: The trial court abused its discretion in declining to grant a mistrial, particularly in light of the materiality of the evidence that surfaced midtrial, defendant’s inability to investigate it while the trial proceeded, and the nature and strength of the evidence against defendant. 1. Defendant claims that the delay in the disclosure of key evidence until trial warranted a mistrial and that the trial court’s denial of his motion compromised his right to a fair trial. A mistrial should only be granted to prevent an obvious failure of justice. Whether an event at trial justifies a mistrial is a decision entrusted to the sound discretion of the trial court. Appellate courts will not disturb a trial court’s ruling on a motion for a mistrial, absent an abuse of discretion that results in a manifest injustice. When addressing a motion for a mistrial, trial courts must consider the unique circumstances of the case. If there is an appropriate alternative course of action, a mistrial is not a proper exercise of discretion. (pp. 14-15) 2. The Federal and State Constitutions guarantee criminal defendants a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense. Basic elements of due process enable defendants to face and challenge the State’s evidence. These rights are not absolute and may be limited by other legitimate public interests. The Court Rules also assist defendants in mounting a complete defense and place a continuing duty on the State to provide discovery. Late discovery can cause unfair surprise and raise due process concerns. When a party fails to comply with its obligations, the discovery rule expressly states that the court may grant a continuance or delay during trial or enter such other order as it deems appropriate. (pp. 15-16) 3. Here, the State asserts that defendant waived the argument he advances on appeal. There is no support in the record for this assertion as defendant made two motions for a mistrial and did not withdraw or waive either request. Further, defendant’s request for a new trial relies in part on case law about newly discovered evidence, discussed in State v. Carter, 85 N.J. 300, 314 (1981), and other decisions of the Court. To obtain a new trial under that standard, a defendant must show that the new evidence is (1) material to the issue and not merely cumulative or impeaching or contradictory; (2) discovered since the trial and not discoverable by reasonable diligence beforehand; and (3) of the sort that would probably change the jury’s verdict if a new trial were granted. The test does not control in this case for two reasons. First, the settled body of law on newly discovered evidence addresses how to assess evidence acquired by the defense after trial. Here, defendant focuses on evidence that was disclosed late, but not after trial. Second, the test asks whether evidence that the jury did not hear would probably change its verdict. In this case, the jury heard about the discovery of Gourgiotis’s cell phone. Counsel sought a mistrial to investigate that new information further, rather than be forced to rely on the State’s rapid investigation in the middle of trial. (pp. 16-17) 4. Defendant was entitled to timely discovery of the evidence in question as it went to the heart of the defense. The trial court took steps to try to remedy the late disclosure. Once the court denied the request for a mistrial and directed that the trial continue, defendant did not have the ability to investigate the new material. A trial court, in its discretion, has wide latitude to order a brief continuance and give defendant time to investigate key evidence that surfaces during trial. To determine whether a mistrial was needed to prevent an obvious failure of justice, the courts should also considers the nature and strength of the evidence presented. The evidence in this case was not overwhelming and rested on Gourgiotis’s identification of defendant. Certain undisputed facts raise questions about that identification. Gourgiotis saw her assailant only for a brief amount of time. The opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime affects the reliability of an identification. Further, the victim and defendant are of different races. For many years, this Court has recognized that witnesses may have a more difficult time when they identify a person of a different race and that cross-racial identifications require careful scrutiny. Defendant moved for a mistrial when the evidence came to light in the midst of a fast-paced, short trial. Under these unusual facts, it was an abuse of discretion for the trial court to deny the motion.

The judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED and the matter is REMANDED to the trial court for a new trial. Defendant’s conviction for possession of a controlled dangerous substance remains intact.