State of New Jersey v. June Gorthy , 437 N.J. Super. 339 ( 2014 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-2678-09T2
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION
Plaintiff-Respondent,
September 9, 2014
v.
APPELLATE DIVISION
JUNE GORTHY a/k/a
JUNE GOVERNALE,
Defendant-Appellant.
Submitted December 5, 2011 – Decided October 9, 2012
Remanded by Supreme Court September 20, 2013
Submitted March 18, 2014 - Decided September 9, 2014
Before Judges Alvarez, Ostrer and Carroll.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New
Jersey, Law Division, Ocean County,
Indictment No. 06-11-2612.
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney
for appellant (Michele Adubato, Designated
Counsel, on the briefs).
Christopher J. Gramiccioni, Acting Monmouth
County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent
(Patricia B. Quelch, Special Deputy Attorney
General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, and
Mary R. Juliano, Special Deputy Attorney
General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, of
counsel and on the briefs).
The opinion of the court was delivered by
ALVAREZ, J.A.D.
A jury found defendant June Gorthy, also known as June
Governale, not guilty by reason of insanity, N.J.S.A. 2C:4-1, on
a charge of fourth-degree stalking, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-10(b).1
Before the trial commenced, the trial judge found her competent
to stand trial while unable to "voluntarily, intelligently, and
knowingly waive" the insanity defense as to the stalking count.
Defendant was sentenced to commitment in a mental health
facility for a term not to exceed eighteen months.
After defendant's trial, but prior to our decision on her
appeal, we decided State v. Handy, 421 N.J. Super. 559 (App.
Div. 2011). In Handy, we concluded that a defendant found
competent to stand trial, but not able to knowingly,
intelligently, and voluntarily waive the insanity defense to a
crime, should not be compelled to accept an acquittal by reason
of insanity unless his or her substantive defenses are addressed
first. See id. at 565. Only if the jury rejected a defendant's
substantive defenses would defendant then present the insanity
defense. Handy, supra, 421 N.J. Super. at 612-13. Consistent
1
The jury convicted defendant of fourth-degree possession of
prohibited weapons or devices, hollow-point bullets, N.J.S.A.
2C:39-3(f)(1), and third-degree unlawful possession of a
handgun, a .22 Ruger, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(b). The insanity defense
was not raised as to those crimes. Defendant was sentenced to
concurrent five years of probation on those offenses. Because
of several related arrests, incarceration pending evaluations,
and the trial itself, defendant accumulated 1215 days of jail
credit by September 30, 2009, the sentence date.
2 A-2678-09T2
with our decision in Handy, we remanded to the trial court, to
afford defendant the opportunity for a new trial on the stalking
charge — if she were again found competent to stand trial and if
she opted to waive double jeopardy. That new trial would follow
the bifurcated order described in our decision in Handy — an
initial trial at which defendant would present substantive
defense theories, and if convicted, a second trial at which she
would present only the insanity defense.
When the State's appeal of our decision reached the Supreme
Court, Handy and its predecessor, State v. Khan, 175 N.J. Super.
72 (App. Div. 1980), were overruled in part, and the bifurcated
procedure was disapproved. State v. Handy, 215 N.J. 334 (2013).
Henceforth, "trials involving a substantive defense and the
insanity defense [would] be tried in a unitary proceeding." Id.
at 364.
The Court also supplied the analytical solution to the
quandary posed by a defendant found competent to stand trial,
who wishes to waive the insanity defense altogether when that
option appears unwise. As the Court said,
part of the legacy of the Khan decision has
been confusion about whether one can be
competent to stand trial but incompetent to
waive the insanity defense . . . . Part of
the confusion arises from the assumption
that the question involves not so much the
defendant's competence to waive the insanity
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defense but the wisdom of making that
choice.
[Id. at 361.]
The Court went on to observe the decision can be made by
applying:
a procedure akin to that which we utilize in
evaluating a competent defendant's effort to
waive other significant rights. That is, a
thorough and searching inquiry of an
otherwise competent defendant concerning his
or her understanding of the nature of the
right being waived and the implications that
flow from that choice . . . the trial court
[must] determine whether the decision to
waive the insanity defense, particularly in
the context of a unified trial proceeding,
is indeed knowing, voluntary and
intelligent.
[Id. at 362 (citation omitted).]
After certification was granted on defendant's appeal, the
matter was summarily remanded for reconsideration in light of
the Handy decision.
Given the Court's instruction that the waiver of an
insanity defense by a competent defendant was to be scrutinized
on appellate review as would be any other waiver made by a
competent defendant, we now affirm. The Law Division judge's
decision that defendant lacked the capacity to make a knowing,
intelligent, and voluntary waiver was adequately supported by
the record and thus warrants affirmance.
4 A-2678-09T2
The stalking charge was the culmination of defendant's
relocation to New Jersey in 2002 from her home in Colorado,
during which she moved her personal belongings, including a
number of weapons, in a truck and horse trailer. Defendant came
to New Jersey with the hope of encountering a seminar presenter,
the victim of the stalking, whom she had met several years
earlier. Defendant was eventually charged with the offenses at
issue when she left a voicemail on the victim's phone despite a
no-contact order.
Defendant's pretrial competency hearings extended over
approximately a year. Multiple psychiatric and psychological
evaluations were completed, as well as a fitness to proceed
assessment under N.J.S.A. 2C:4-5 by the Department of Human
Services. On April 25, 2008, the trial judge determined that
defendant met the statutory test pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:4-4 and
N.J.S.A. 2C:4-6 for competence to stand trial.2
On September 18, 2008, a final hearing was conducted after
counsel provided the court with an evaluation by defendant's
expert, Dr. Kenneth J. Weiss. It was on that date that the
2
The trial judge summarized his conclusions thus: "[Defendant]
comprehends that she is in a court of justice charged with a
criminal offense, that there is a judge on the bench, that there
is a prosecutor present who will try to convict her . . . . that
she has a lawyer . . . . and [] she understands her right not to
testify." Defendant does not appeal from the finding of
competence to stand trial.
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judge determined that, while defendant was competent to stand
trial, she could not waive the insanity defense. The
determination relied heavily on Weiss's report.
On remand, defendant again contends that the trial judge
"should have accepted [defendant's] waiver of the insanity
defense and proceeded solely on the substantive defenses." The
argument is premised on the court's earlier finding that she was
competent to stand trial. Defendant argues from that finding
that she should therefore "also have been competent to waive the
insanity defense." But, a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary
waiver requires more than competence as defined by statute.
In the competency hearing, the trial judge heard testimony
and reviewed reports regarding defendant's extensive mental
health history and diagnoses. It became clear that defendant,
despite medication and treatment efforts, persisted in her
delusion that the victim wanted to continue a relationship with
her. In fact, when the judge addressed defendant directly, she
complained to the judge that her attorney was not representing
her in the fashion that she wished because counsel would not
present the defense that the victim had solicited contact.
Defendant also insisted that she and the victim had enjoyed a
relationship for years, the victim had asked her to relocate,
and that after she did so, on multiple occasions, the victim
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would attempt to see her in public, "at the post office, at the
store," and would jog and ride her bicycle past defendant's
house.
Along those lines, Weiss's report quoted defendant denying
that her relationship with the victim was a delusion, stating
that she was not actually insane during the times that she
contacted the victim and that "she did not want to raise issues
of her mental state at trial because the prosecutor is anti-
mental illness." Defendant, who was initially in the Pretrial
Intervention Program (PTI),3 said to Weiss that the PTI probation
officer had told her that the only way she would be granted the
opportunity to explain her relationship with the victim to a
judge would be to violate PTI, which she did, resulting in the
trial.
Defendant also believed that, unless the victim stopped
lying about her, she had to have a trial, as the victim was
"'trying to save herself.'" Defendant agreed with Weiss that
"she was mentally disturbed during the time in question[] but
rather than making that an issue at trial, she want[ed] 'the
truth' to come out." Defendant perceived the State to be
overreacting to the situation and believed the prosecutor wanted
"to do a great deal of harm to her."
3
N.J.S.A. 2C:43-12 to -22.
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In Weiss's opinion, defendant, despite being a person of
above-average intelligence, was completely unable to
realistically assess her situation vis-à-vis the victim. She
repeated to Weiss the statement that she had made to others —
that the victim loved her. That, Weiss said, was "most clearly
against all evidence and would have to be considered delusional.
Because of this, [defendant] does not see that what she did was
wrong. . . . [S]he would not have a rational understanding of
the basis for the charges."
Weiss opined that, on the stalking charge, defendant:
was psychotic and delusional during the
dates in question, to the point that she was
unable to observe the nature and quality of
her conduct. . . . [S]he did not have the
residual ability to know that she would be
placing the victim in fear of bodily injury
or to know that she was doing wrong.
As a result of mental disease, she had a "defect of reason such
that she did not know what she was doing was wrong[] . . .
consistent with the requirements of N.J.S.A. 2C:4-1."
Weiss further opined that, even if defendant was found to
be competent to stand trial:
she would be making the choice to forego an
insanity defense knowingly, but neither
intelligently nor voluntarily. She is aware
of her rights and alternatives, but fails to
comprehend the consequences of failing to
assert the defense, which bears on the
question of an intelligent refusal. Her
delusional condition has narrowed her
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ability to form judgments about her case,
and in that sense she is not acting of her
own free will, which bears on the question
of a voluntary refusal.
Ultimately, he concluded that defendant met "the test for
'insanity' with respect to the stalking charge" and "f[ell]
short of the requirements in Khan[4] for a refusal to utilize the
available insanity defense."
Substantially relying on Weiss's report, along with all the
other evidence, the judge found that, despite defendant's
superficially rational expressed rejection of the insanity
defense because of the potential for "hospital time" that she
considered the equivalent of incarceration, the real impetus
behind her waiver was her imagined relationship with the victim.
The judge was convinced by the State's proofs that no
relationship had ever existed with the victim. He therefore
decided, pursuant to Khan, to "assert the insanity defense" on
defendant's behalf as to the stalking charge because she could
not "voluntarily, intelligently and knowingly waive that
defense."
The Court in Handy reaffirmed the notion that a trial judge
could find a defendant competent to stand trial, while
simultaneously finding he or she cannot voluntarily, knowingly,
4
Weiss' report predated the decision in Handy.
9 A-2678-09T2
and intelligently waive the insanity defense. Handy, supra, 215
N.J. at 361-62. In that scenario, the trial judge must, after a
"searching inquiry," determine whether a defendant truly
understands that which he or she is waiving and the potential
consequences of the choice. Handy, supra, 215 N.J. at 362. In
other words, whether the waiver is indeed knowing, voluntary,
and intelligent. Ibid.
When considering whether a criminal defendant's waiver is
sustainable, trial courts must "apply a procedure akin to that
which we utilize in evaluating a competent defendant's effort to
waive other significant rights." See Handy, supra, 215 N.J. at
362.
For instance, in State v. DuBois, 189 N.J. 454, 464-66
(2007), the Court entrusted the issue of a defendant's waiver of
the right to counsel to the "sound discretion" of our trial
judges, explaining that they are "in the best position to
evaluate [a] defendant's understanding of what it mean[s] to
[self-]represent [] and whether [a] defendant's decision to
proceed pro se [i]s knowing and intelligent." See id. at 475.
Examining the record, as mandated by Handy, created by the
judge's "thorough and searching inquiry," it is clear that the
trial judge, over the multiple days of pretrial testimony
regarding defendant's competence to stand trial, delved
10 A-2678-09T2
thoroughly into defendant's psychiatric history, diagnosis, and
treatment. When addressing her attempted waiver of the insanity
defense, he engaged in a colloquy with her about her reasons.
Defendant's responses were not related to any legal issue or
consequence. The responses related on the whole to her false
beliefs about the victim and her desire to affirm her imagined
relationship in court. She also claimed that she could not
raise the insanity defense because the prosecutor was "anti-
mental illness," a statement irrelevant to the question posed.
Clearly, defendant lacked the ability to make a rational
choice on the question of defenses to the stalking count. She
wanted validation of the "truth" of her imagined relationship
with the victim, a motive irrelevant to the legal decision of
waiver, unrelated to trial strategy, or even to any legal
question. On the subject of the stalking charge, defendant's
reasons for waiving the insanity defense were neither
intelligent, nor voluntary, arising as they did from a
compulsion.
Accordingly, we find that the trial judge did not err. His
conclusion was, indeed, based on "sufficient supporting
evidence." See State v. Purnell, 394 N.J. Super. 28, 50 (App.
Div. 2007). Defendant's decision to waive the insanity defense
was not knowing, voluntary, and intelligent. See Handy, supra,
11 A-2678-09T2
215 N.J. at 362. The judge's decision to interpose the defense
over defendant's objection was correct.
Affirmed.
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