STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. C.W.H. (16-07-0617, CUMBERLAND COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) (RECORD IMPOUNDED) (A-5254-17T1)
Following a jury trial, defendant was convicted of sexual assault related offenses stemming from the sexual abuse of his daughter from the time she was five to the time she was twelve years old. The victim reported the molestation to police when she was thirty-one years old and, four years earlier, disclosed the abuse to her sister-in-law who testified at trial that the disclosure seemed credible to her because of defendant's "weird vibes" and her "intuition." During the investigation, detectives conducted a lengthy interrogation of defendant following the administration of Miranda warnings. In his recorded statement, despite repeated denials of the allegations, defendant made incriminating admissions relying on the fact that the victim had said "it happened." During the trial, after detailing his training and experience conducting interrogations, the interrogating detective assessed the veracity of defendant's denials during questioning after the recorded statement was played for the jury. Defendant produced eight character witnesses, each of whom testified at trial about his impeccable reputation in the community and was asked on cross-examination whether the witness' opinion of defendant would change if he or she knew that defendant had admitted to police inappropriately touching his daughter, the very allegations that were the subject of the trial.
The court reversed the convictions, reasoning that the evidentiary errors raised by defendant for the first time on appeal, either in isolation or in combination, were clearly capable of producing an unjust result pursuant to Rule 2:10-2 in the circumstances of the case. Specifically, the court found that the detective's testimony, which clearly conveyed the impression that defendant was being deceptive during questioning and, given the detective's expertise, impermissibly colored the jury's assessment of defendant's credibility, constituted impermissible lay opinion mandating reversal notwithstanding the trial judge's sua sponte curative instruction. Additionally, the testimony of the victim's sister-in-law did not satisfy the reasonable time requirement of the fresh complaint rule and injected inferential propensity evidence into the case in violation of N.J.R.E. 404. Finally, the prosecutor's inquiry into defendant's character witnesses' knowledge of defendant's alleged criminal conduct not evidenced by a criminal conviction was impermissible under N.J.R.E. 608 and 405.
