SYLLABUS
(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has
been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the
reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please
note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not
have been summarized).
State v. Breane Starr Blakney (A-117-05)
Argued November 14, 2006 -- Decided
December 20, 2006
ALBIN, J., writing for a unanimous Court.
In this appeal from a murder conviction, defendant claims that the trial courts
defective limiting instructions on other-crimes evidence when combined with inappropriate, emotionally-charged remarks by
the assistant prosecutor in summation denied her a fair trial. The sole issue
before us arises from the dissent of Judge Weissbard who would have reversed
defendants murder conviction.
On September 14, 1999, S.B., a six-month old infant, was brought to Jersey
City Medical Center for symptoms related to shaken-baby syndrome. S.B. died four days
later. At trial, the State presented evidence of other serious but not life-threatening
injuries suffered by S.B. at the hands of his nineteen-year old mother, Breane
Starr Blakney. The jury convicted Blakney of murder, second-degree aggravated assault, fourth-degree child
abuse, and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child. Blakney was sentenced to
several concurrent terms of imprisonment, including thirty years without parole eligibility on the
murder charge.
The Appellate Division affirmed and remanded for resentencing on a merger issue. Judge
Weissbard dissented, taking the position that the trial courts inadequate limiting instructions on
other-crime evidence, when combined with the prosecutors inappropriate and inflammatory remarks in summation,
had the clear capacity to undermine confidence in the integrity of the murder
conviction and therefore cause an unjust result.
HELD : We agree with Judge Weissbard substantially for the reasons expressed in his
dissenting opinion. We therefore reverse defendants murder conviction and remand for a new
trial on that charge. In addition, we underscore the importance of well-crafted limiting
instructions when the State introduces other-crime evidence pursuant to N.J.R.E. 404(b), and remind
prosecutors of their obligation to keep their summation remarks within acceptable bounds of
advocacy.
When dealing with other-crimes evidence, a court must precisely instruct the jury that
the proper use of such evidence is to prove a relevant issue in
dispute and not to impugn the character of the defendant. Such instructions should
be given not only at the time that other-crimes evidence is presented, but
also in the final jury charge. On the whole, the other-crimes limiting instructions
in this case failed the test required by our jurisprudence and were susceptible
to misleading the jury in a closely-poised case in which the jury could
easily have concluded that defendant was guilty of aggravated manslaughter as opposed to
murder. (Pp. 4-8)
The assistant prosecutors highly emotional and personalized remarks in summation crossed the bounds
of propriety and compounded the prejudice flowing from the inadequate other-crimes limiting instructions.
The assistant prosecutors duty is to prove the States case based on the
evidence and not to play on the passions of the jury or trigger
emotional flashpoints, deflecting attention from the hard facts on which the States case
must rise or fall. (Pp. 8-10)
The inadequate jury instructions combined with the prosecutorial excesses in summation, when cast
against the less than overwhelming evidence supporting a murder conviction, cannot be viewed
as harmless. (Pp. 10-12)
The judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED and the matter is REMANDED
for a new trial on the charge of murder.
CHIEF JUSTICE ZAZZALI and JUSTICES LONG, LaVECCHIA, WALLACE, RIVERA-SOTO, and HOENS join in
JUSTICE ALBINs opinion.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
A-
117 September Term 2005
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
BREANE STARR BLAKNEY,
Defendant-Appellant.
Argued November 14, 2006 Decided December 20, 2006
On appeal from the Superior Court, Appellate Division.
Alyssa A. Aiello, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Yvonne
Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney).
Robyn B. Mitchell, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Stuart J.
Rabner, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney).
JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this appeal from a murder conviction, defendant claims that the trial courts
defective limiting instructions on other-crimes evidence when combined with inappropriate, emotionally-charged remarks by
the assistant prosecutor in summation denied her a fair trial. We agree and
therefore remand for a new trial on the charge of murder.
I.
This appeal, which comes to us as of right based on the dissent
in the Appellate Division,
see R. 2:2-1(a)(2), involves the tragic death of a
six-month old child, S.B., at the hands of his nineteen-year old mother, defendant
Breane Starr Blakney. At a jury trial, the State presented evidence that, during
his short life, S.B. suffered from multiple acts of abuse that resulted in
burn marks and scars on his chest and right arm, fractures of his
ribs and left leg, a lesion on the back of his right ear,
and abrasions and a superficial laceration on his left foot. Those non-life-threatening yet
horrific injuries well preceded S.B.s admission to Jersey City Medical Center on September
14, 1999 for symptoms related to shaken-baby syndrome. S.B. died four days later
from a fatal brain injury inflicted by the violent shaking of his body
sometime shortly before his arrival at the hospital.
The jury convicted defendant of murder in violation of
N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3; second-degree aggravated
assault in violation of
N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1(b)(1); fourth-degree child abuse in violation of
N.J.S.A.
9:6-1 and 9:6-3; and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child in violation
of
N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4(a). The trial court sentenced defendant to a thirty-year term of
imprisonment without parole eligibility for murder, a concurrent ten-year term with an eighty-five
percent period of parole ineligibility for aggravated assault, a concurrent ten-year term for
endangering the welfare of a child, and a concurrent fiveyear term for child
abuse.
See footnote 1
The endangering conviction was merged with the aggravated assault conviction.
The Appellate Division affirmed defendants convictions as well as the sentences for murder
and aggravated assault, but remanded for resentencing because the endangering conviction should have
merged with the child abuse conviction instead of the aggravated assault conviction.
State
v. Blakney, __
N.J. Super. __ (App. Div. 2006) (slip op. at 60-61).
The sole issue before us arises from the dissent of Judge Weissbard who
would have reversed defendants murder conviction.
R. 2:2-1(a)(2). In Judge Weissbards view, the
trial courts inadequate limiting instructions on other-crimes evidence, when combined with the prosecutors
inappropriate and inflammatory remarks in summation, had the clear capacity to undermine confidence
in the integrity of the murder conviction and therefore cause an unjust result.
Blakney,
supra, __
N.J. Super. at __ (slip op. at 10) (Weissbard, J.,
dissenting). We agree with Judge Weissbard, substantially for the reasons expressed in his
dissenting opinion.
Id. at __ (slip op. at 1-12) (Weissbard, J., dissenting).
We therefore reverse defendants murder conviction and remand for a new trial on
that charge. We offer these comments to underscore the importance of well-crafted limiting
instructions when the State introduces other-crimes evidence pursuant to
N.J.R.E. 404(b) and to
remind prosecutors of their obligation to keep their summation remarks within acceptable bounds
of advocacy.
II.
When dealing with other-crimes evidence, a court must precisely instruct the jury that
the proper use of such evidence is to prove a relevant issue in
dispute and not to impugn the character of the defendant.
See State v.
Stevens,
115 N.J. 289, 302-04 (1989).
N.J.R.E. 404(b) specifically provides:
Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the
disposition of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity
therewith. Such evidence may be admitted for other purposes, such as proof of
motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident
when such matters are relevant to a material issue in dispute.
[
N.J.R.E. 404(b).]
In this case, the State presented other-crimes evidence -- the prior injuries suffered
by S.B. -- to prove that defendant intended to kill her son and
to refute any argument that S.B.s death was caused by mistake or accident.
However probative other-crimes evidence may be to an issue in dispute, such evidence
creates the strong potential for prejudice because of its natural tendency to demonstrate
a criminal predisposition.
State v. G.S.,
145 N.J. 460, 468 (1996). It is
the danger that other-crimes evidence may indelibly brand the defendant as a bad
person and blind the jury from a careful consideration of the elements of
the charged offense that requires the trial court to deliver the limiting instructions
in a way that the jury can readily understand.
Id. at 469 ([T]his
Court has required that when a trial court admits [other-crimes] evidence, the court
must specifically instruct the jury about the evidences limited relevance.);
Stevens,
supra, 115
N.J. at 309 ([T]he inherently prejudicial nature of such evidence casts doubt on
a jurys ability to follow even the most precise limiting instruction. Recognizing this
dilemma, trial courts should take pains to instruct juries carefully and comprehensively, with
ample reference to the specific evidence and issues in a case . .
. . (citation omitted)). We note that the better practice is to give
limiting instructions not only at the time that other-crimes evidence is presented, but
also in the final jury charge.
State v. Angoy,
329 N.J. Super. 79,
89-90 (App. Div. 2000) (stating that in addition to its inclusion in the
final jury charge, limiting instructions preferably should be given contemporaneous with admission of
other-crimes evidence, unless there is some compelling reason to do otherwise).
On the whole, the other-crimes limiting instructions in this case failed the test
required by our jurisprudence. The trial court did not give contemporaneous limiting instructions
when other-crimes evidence was placed before the jury. The limiting instructions in the
final jury charge, moreover, inadvertently were not presented in one uninterrupted reading, but
rather were fragmented, with one part of the instructions separated from another part
by seven pages of jury charge on an unrelated subject.
Blakney,
supra, __
N.J. Super. at __ (slip op. at 5) (Weissbard, J., dissenting). Further, the
trial court advised the jury that if it found that defendant caused the
prior injuries to her son, it could not then presume that that automatically
means she must have committed the crime on September 14. As Judge Weissbard
pointed out:
[T]he limiting instruction should have said that if defendant committed the earlier acts,
that evidence
may not be considered on the homicide charge to show that
defendant had a disposition to commit murder, not that it could not be
automatically considered for that purpose. Reasonably understood, the use of automatically implied that
the evidence could be considered, although not automatically.
[Id. at __ (slip op. at 7) (Weissbard, J., dissenting).]
Those defects, along with others detailed by Judge Weissbard, rendered the limiting instructions
less than effective and susceptible to misleading the jury in a closely-poised case
in which the jury could easily have concluded that defendant was guilty of
aggravated manslaughter as opposed to murder. Id. at __ (slip op. at 5-10)
(Weissbard, J., dissenting).
There were no witnesses or direct evidence to shed light on the precise
circumstances that led defendant to inflict the fatal injury on her son or
on her state of mind at that time. The defense posited that others
who cared for S.B. may have caused that injury and that, in any
event, S.B.s death was likely caused by an act of recklessness. A statement
that defendant gave to the police, however, suggested that she might have taken
out her frustration and anger with her father, boyfriend, and work situation on
S.B. Even if defendant acted out of frustration and anger in causing the
death of her son, that still would not have answered whether she purposely
or recklessly killed him. Whether defendant purposely or knowingly caused serious bodily injury
resulting in death (murder) or recklessly caused death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference
to human life (aggravated manslaughter) depended in large part on circumstantial evidence. That
evidence mostly consisted of the injuries that S.B. had suffered earlier during his
young life - the other-crimes evidence that the State offered to prove defendants
intent and absence of mistake and accident in committing the offense. For that
reason, proper instructions on other-crimes evidence were essential to a fair determination of
the murder charge in the cool light of reason.
III.
Additionally, the assistant prosecutors highly emotional and personalized remarks in summation crossed the
bounds of propriety and compounded the prejudice flowing from the inadequate other-crimes limiting
instructions. We will provide two of the assistant prosecutors remarks that are particularly
troubling to us.
The assistant prosecutor expressed his moral outrage at the injuries inflicted on S.B.,
injecting into the case his own personal views rather than solely presenting the
objective evidence by which to judge defendants culpability. The assistant prosecutor stated:
You dont have the luxury of looking at these photographs and feeling the
sorrow and anger and rage that I feel when I look at them,
and if during the course of this trial I let those feelings out
because I yelled too loud or because I threw a doll into that
seat, forgive me. Every once in awhile I cant remain distant anymore. It
just gets the better of you. So Im sorry if I offended you.
He concluded:
Im done. I could probably go on for, go on to lunch, maybe
longer, but I cant look at these photos anymore. I just cant.
The assistant prosecutors personal feelings of outrage and revulsion were not relevant to
the consideration of any issue in the case and were unnecessarily inflammatory. The
assistant prosecutor also wrongly suggested that defendant should be condemned solely on the
basis of her status as a mother who inflicted terrible injuries on her
young son. He declaimed:
Why the hell would you do that to a child? Why?
Because youre frustrated? Because you dont want to be a mother anymore? I
mean, what is most repulsive about this case is that we are confronted
with the notion that a mother can do this to her child. We
are repulsed by that. Motherhood, a more noble avocation you cant find.
Those remarks in no way advanced a fair determination of the most
serious charge before the jury -- whether defendant purposely or knowingly (as opposed
to recklessly) caused serious bodily injury resulting in death.
See footnote 2
We have often noted
that [t]he primary duty of a prosecutor is not to obtain convictions, but
to see that justice is done. State v. Ramseur,
106 N.J. 123, 320
(1987). We recognize that a trial is not a tidy affair and that
emotions may run high, particularly in a trial involving the death of a
child. State v. Bucanis,
26 N.J. 45, 56-57, cert. denied,
357 U.S. 910,
78 S. Ct. 1157,
2 L. Ed.2d 1160 (1958). That being said,
the assistant prosecutors duty is to prove the States case based on the
evidence and not to play on the passions of the jury or trigger
emotional flashpoints, deflecting attention from the hard facts on which the States case
must rise or fall. State v. Frost,
158 N.J. 76, 82 (1999) (recognizing
that prosecutors are granted significant leeway to make forceful arguments in summation as
long as their comments are reasonably related to the scope of the evidence);
State v. Marshall,
123 N.J. 1, 161 (1991) (commenting that although prosecutors may
vigorously sum up, they must not make inflammatory and highly emotional appeals that
possess[] the capacity to anger and arouse the jury and thereby divert them
from their solemn responsibility to render a verdict based on the evidence).
IV.
In determining whether a defendant has been denied a fair trial, we
necessarily look to the significance of the trial errors in light of the
evidence presented to the jury. Substantial trial errors are more likely to tip
the scales and affect the outcome in a close case, such as this
one.
See State v. Simon,
79 N.J. 191, 207 (1979) ([I]f the error
does not deflect the jury from a fair consideration of the competent evidence
of record and from reaching a verdict of guilt which is supported overwhelmingly
by properly admitted evidence, the conviction should not be impugned.);
State v. La
Porte,
62 N.J. 312, 318 (1973) (concluding that because evidence of defendants guilt
was so strong alleged error was inconsequential). Standing alone, the defective limiting instructions
or the assistant prosecutors inappropriate remarks might not have been sufficient to undermine
our confidence in the jurys verdict on the murder charge. However, the inadequate
jury instructions combined with the prosecutorial excesses in summation, when cast against the
less than overwhelming evidence supporting a murder conviction, cannot be viewed as harmless.
See State v. Reddish
181 N.J. 553, 616 (2004) (recognizing that isolated error
that might otherwise be harmless, in combination [with other errors] can cast sufficient
doubt upon the verdict to warrant reversal);
Feldman v. Lederle Labs.,
132 N.J. 339, 352 (1993) (finding that although each error independently did not necessarily require
reversal, [w]hen considered in combination, those errors had the cumulative effect of mandating
retrial). Because we conclude that the aggregate errors had the clear capacity to
cause an unjust result, we are constrained to reverse the murder conviction and
remand for a new trial.
CHIEF JUSTICE ZAZZALI and JUSTICES LONG, LaVECCHIA, WALLACE, RIVERA-SOTO and HOENS join in
JUSTICE ALBINs opinion.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
NO. A-117 SEPTEMBER TERM 2005
ON APPEAL FROM Appellate Division, Superior Court
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
BREANE STARR BLAKNEY,
Defendant-Appellant.
DECIDED December 20, 2006
Chief Justice Zazzali PRESIDING
OPINION BY Justice Albin
CONCURRING OPINION BY
DISSENTING OPINION BY
CHECKLIST
REVERSE AND REMAND
CHIEF JUSTICE ZAZZALI
X
JUSTICE LONG
X
JUSTICE LaVECCHIA
X
JUSTICE ALBIN
X
JUSTICE WALLACE
X
JUSTICE RIVERA-SOTO
X
JUSTICE HOENS
X
TOTALS
7
Footnote: 1
Although the sentencing transcript reflects that the trial court ordered a five-year
term for child abuse, the judgment of conviction erroneously reported the sentence as
a three-year term. Defendant does not contest that the sentence for child abuse
is, in fact, five years.
Footnote: 2
The assistant prosecutors remarks were raised as plain error for the first
time on direct appeal. Pursuant to Rule 2:10-2, an appellate court may, in
the interest of justice, notice plain error not brought to the attention of
the trial or appellate court.