STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. ERIC WHITEÂ (06-03-0291, CUMBERLAND COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) ( 2017 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE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.
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-3648-15T4
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
ERIC WHITE, a/k/a BUS DRIVER,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________
Submitted October 23, 2017 – Decided November 2, 2017
Before Judges Sabatino and Whipple.
On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey,
Law Division, Cumberland County, Indictment
No. 06-03-0291.
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney
for appellant (David A. Snyder, Designated
Counsel, on the brief).
Jennifer Webb-McRae, Cumberland County
Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (Stephen
C. Sayer, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and
on the brief).
PER CURIAM
Defendant Eric White, who was convicted in 2011 of murder and
the unlawful possession of a weapon, appeals the trial court's
denial of his petition for post-conviction relief ("PCR"). We
affirm.
The State's proofs are discussed at length in this court's
2014 opinion affirming defendant's conviction and sentence. We
incorporate that recitation here. State v. White, No. A-1988-11
(App. Div. Dec. 18, 2014), certif. denied, 221 N.J. 287 (2015).
The homicide victim was defendant's fifty-four-year-old
girlfriend. She was in the apartment when defendant, who was
seventy-three years old at the time, slashed her throat. Defendant
called 9-1-1 to report the situation. He was difficult to
understand on the phone, apparently due to his foreign accent.
Police responded to the location and discovered defendant there,
looking dazed and soiled with urine. He gave an incriminating
statement to the police at the station after receiving Miranda1
warnings.
The trial court sentenced defendant on the murder to a forty-
year custodial term with an eighty-five percent parole
ineligibility period pursuant to the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A.
2C:43-7.2. The weapons offense was merged for sentencing purposes.
On direct appeal, defendant's main argument was that he was
deprived of his right to a speedy trial. We rejected that argument
1
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d
694 (1966).
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because we agreed with the trial court that the delay in proceeding
with the trial was substantially the result of defense motions or
joint motions by the defense and the prosecutor. Id. at 24-26.
We also found defendant's other arguments on appeal lacked merit.
Id. at 3.
After the Supreme Court denied certification, defendant filed
the present PCR petition with the trial court. Defendant contends
that the two attorneys who represented him at trial were
constitutionally ineffective in two respects. First, defendant
faults his trial counsel for not arguing that he lacked the
physical capability as an elderly man to have committed the murder
of the younger victim. Second, he contends that his trial counsel,
in attempting to impeach his confession, should have emphasized
more vigorously his language barriers and his weakened condition.
Upon considering defendant's written submissions, the State's
opposition, and oral argument, Judge Robert G. Malestein 2 denied
the PCR petition. The judge set forth his reasons for doing so
in a detailed written opinion dated February 24, 2016. The judge
discerned no deprivation of defendant's constitutional right to
the effective assistance of his trial counsel. To the contrary,
the judge determined from the record that trial counsel had
2
A different judge had presided over the trial.
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"zealously and effectively" represented defendant, including their
efforts to impeach the State's witnesses, highlight defendant's
difficulties in communicating, and point out shortcomings in the
police's investigation. The judge also noted trial counsel had
used these and other points in closing arguments to the jury. The
judge found without legal merit defendant's claim that his
attorneys had not sufficiently emphasized these points, deeming
the choice of what weight to place upon arguments raised at trial
to be a "strategic decision for trial counsel." The judge found
no need for an evidentiary hearing.
In his present appeal, defendant raises the following
argument in his brief:
POINT ONE
THE DEFENDANT MET HIS BURDEN BY A
PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE AND ESTABLISHED
A PRIMA FACIE CASE OF INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE
OF COUNSEL UNDER THE STRICKLAND/FRITZ
STANDARD. THE PCR COURT COMMITTED ERROR BY
DENYING THE PCR PETITION WITHOUT GRANTING AN
EVIDENTIARY HEARING.
Having duly considered this argument, we affirm the rejection of
defendant's PCR petition substantially for the reasons expressed
in Judge Malestein's soundly-reasoned written opinion. We add
only a few comments.
Judge Malestein's analysis adhered to several well-
established legal principles respecting a criminal defendant's
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constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel. To
establish a deprivation of that right, a convicted defendant must
demonstrate that: (1) counsel's performance was deficient, and
(2) the deficient performance actually prejudiced the accused's
defense. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S. Ct.
2052, 2064, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 693 (1984); see also State v. Fritz,
105 N.J. 42, 58 (1987) (adopting the Strickland two-part test in
New Jersey).
When reviewing such claims of ineffectiveness, courts apply
a strong presumption that defense counsel "rendered adequate
assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of
reasonable professional judgment." Id. at 690, 104 S. Ct. at
2066, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 695. "[C]omplaints 'merely of matters of
trial strategy' will not serve to ground a constitutional claim
of inadequacy[.]" Fritz, supra, 105 N.J. at 54 (quoting State v.
Williams, 39 N.J. 471, 489, cert. denied, 374 U.S. 855, 83 S. Ct.
1924, 10 L. Ed. 2d 1075 (1963), overruled in part on other grounds
by State v. Czachor, 82 N.J. 392, 402 (1980)); see also State v.
Echols, 199 N.J. 344, 357-59 (2009).
"The quality of counsel's performance cannot be fairly
assessed by focusing on a handful of issues while ignoring the
totality of counsel's performance in the context of the State's
evidence of defendant's guilt." State v. Castagna, 187 N.J. 293,
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314 (2006) (citing State v. Marshall, 123 N.J. 1, 165 (1991),
cert. denied, 507 U.S. 929, 113 S. Ct. 1306, 122 L. Ed. 2d 694
(1993)). "As a general rule, strategic miscalculations or trial
mistakes are insufficient to warrant reversal 'except in those
rare instances where they are of such magnitude as to thwart the
fundamental guarantee of [a] fair trial.'" Id. at 314-15 (quoting
State v. Buonadonna, 122 N.J. 22, 42 (1991)). "'[A]n otherwise
valid conviction will not be overturned merely because the
defendant is dissatisfied with his or her counsel's exercise of
judgment during the trial.'" State v. Allegro, 193 N.J. 352, 367
(2008) (quoting Castagna, supra, 187 N.J. at 314).
The record here substantiates Judge Malestein's assessment
that defendant's trial counsel advocated his interests at trial
professionally and zealously, and that he was not prejudiced by
any alleged defective performance. At multiple points before
trial in extensive motion practice and at the trial itself, trial
counsel pursued a contention that defendant had mental health and
communication deficits. They also asserted that, as an elderly
man with health problems, he was not likely to have overcome and
killed the younger female victim. At trial, counsel combined
those arguments with repeated attacks on the alleged insufficiency
of the State's investigation, engaging in vigorous cross-
examination of many of the State's witnesses.
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During summation to the jury, trial counsel appropriately
underscored these points, as illustrated by the following
excerpts:
Eric's clearly confused. You hear on the 911
tape, he cannot remember his own house number.
It even sounds like -- when you listen to the
tape, see if it sounds like there's someone
in the background, telling him his actual
number of his house. He mixes his 'me' and
'him' and 'I' and who; he's very difficult to
understand a whole sentence from Eric. The
operator is constantly, during that phone
call, trying to make sense out of what Eric
is saying.
(Emphasis added).
. . . .
What we do know is that many people have
been exonerated through DNA testing after
falsely confessing something. So, we know it
happens. We don't understand why it happens
that people would falsely say they did
something, but we know that it happens. And,
that's when the people concerned are speaking
the same language. God forbid you or I should
go to another country and be trying to explain
what we found at a murder scene in a country
where we only speak a very poor version of the
language. Maybe we'd have to resort to
actions such as (indicating) to describe what
we think, in order to explain what we've woken
up to find.
(Emphasis added).
Contrary to defendant's PCR claim, trial counsel expressly
suggested to the jury that a younger, stronger man would have been
more likely to be able to commit the killing, arguing:
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And, we can see that Eric could not have got
behind her and cut her throat. But, this could
have been the result of an attack by someone
younger, stronger, or maybe more than one
person.
(Emphasis added).
Defendant essentially asserts in his PCR petition that his
trial counsel should have pressed the "confusion" and "weakness"
arguments with more vehemence. As Judge Malestein correctly
determined, these criticisms fall squarely within counsel's zone
of discretion over trial strategy, as recognized in the case law.
See, e.g., Allegro, supra, 193 N.J. at 367.
There was no need for an evidentiary hearing to be conducted
here to confirm what is plainly obvious from the trial record:
that defendant received the effective assistance of his trial
attorneys. State v. Preciose, 129 N.J. 451, 462 (1992)
(establishing that an evidentiary hearing on a PCR application is
not necessary where the petition and the record fail to present a
prima facie case of a constitutional deprivation).
Affirmed.
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