Opinion
DOCKET NO. A-1003-11T1
06-18-2012
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DEAN A. PORTER, Defendant-Respondent.
Warren W. Faulk, Camden County Prosecutor, attorney for appellant (Jason Magid, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief). Dean A. Porter, respondent pro se.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
Before Judges J. N. Harris and Koblitz.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, Municipal Appeal No. A-03-11.
Warren W. Faulk, Camden County Prosecutor, attorney for appellant (Jason Magid, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).
Dean A. Porter, respondent pro se. PER CURIAM
The State appeals the Law Division's September 15, 2011 Order Entering Judgment "find[ing] . . . [d]efendant [Dean A. Porter] [n]ot [g]uilty of driving while intoxicated, not guilty of speeding, not guilty of failure to maintain lane, and not guilty of failure to wear a seatbelt." The court's de novo determination arose out of its reluctant conclusion that
[i]t may very well be that [the court is] giving somebody who . . . was driving drunk, he had a couple .11's. Not horrendously drunk, but drunk he was. And the result in this case is obviously therefore preordained because . . . I have to find based upon this record that the State did not prove territorial jurisdiction beyond a reasonable doubt. Remember it is not . . . as though the State only has to prove that by preponderance of the evidence, or by clear or convincing evidence.We affirm because the jurisdictional facts were contested and the trial court's fresh look at the evidence convinced it that the State had failed to satisfy the requisite burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We discern no misapplication of the law or other error that would warrant reversing the finding that Porter was not guilty.
In light of our affirmance on conventional scope-of-review grounds, we need not address the nettlesome constitutional double jeopardy issues implicated by the State's appeal. See e.g., Randolph Town Ctr., L.P. v. Cnty. of Morris, 186 N.J. 78, 80 (2006) ("[c]ourts should not reach a constitutional question unless its resolution is imperative to the disposition of litigation").
I.
We recite the relevant facts as elicited during the evidentiary hearing on Porter's motion to dismiss the complaints for lack of territorial jurisdiction and at trial, which were both conducted in the Borough of Somerdale Municipal Court.
On May 9, 2010, Porter was arrested in the Borough of Stratford by Somerdale Police Sergeant James Abbott and charged with several Title 39 violations, including driving while intoxicated, N.J.S.A. 39:4-50. Sergeant Abbott observed Porter operating a motor vehicle "on the White Horse Pike in the area of Columbia Avenue. [Porter] was heading eastbound. [Abbott] was heading west." Abbott vaguely testified that the municipal boundary between Stratford and Somerdale was somewhere along the White Horse Pike, also known as Route 30, but he was never asked to specifically delineate the dividing line between the municipalities. Although Porter was clearly operating his vehicle in Stratford, Abbott believed that there was shared jurisdiction between Stratford and Somerdale on this stretch of roadway and he had "curb-to-curb jurisdiction." Abbott made a u-turn and proceeded to apprehend Porter in Stratford. Porter was arrested, handcuffed, and transported to the Somerdale police station for further processing.
Eastbound leads towards Atlantic City; westbound leads towards Philadelphia.
At trial, Abbott testified, "[w]hen I made my u-turn, [Porter] was at Laurel Road and Route 30, which is in the Borough of Stratford." Abbott also confirmed that he first observed Porter's motor vehicle while it was in Stratford: "[Porter was] heading eastbound. I'm heading westbound. Eastbound that section of the roadway is the Borough of Stratford. Westbound is the Borough of Somerdale."
Prior to trial, Porter moved to dismiss the complaints contending that the Somerdale municipal court lacked territorial jurisdiction. The municipal court judge denied the jurisdictional motion, finding the following:
My ruling is that Sergeant Abbott has testified as a credible witness that he saw the defendant's vehicle on the White Horse Pike at Columbia Avenue, which is curb-to-curb jurisdiction which is in Somerdale as well. The jurisdiction covers Somerdale. He says — he does also say he turned around there, but he saw [Porter] — as common sense would delineate, [Porter was] coming through Somerdale when he sees [Porter] speeding, and he turns around on Columbia, because he saw [Porter] coming through Somerdale. So, you obviously were speeding while in Somerdale, and he pulls [Porter] over when he believes I guess it's a safe opportunity to do so, and so he does. Clearly in this case Somerdale had jurisdiction over the issuing of any complaints so I do find that there's jurisdiction on behalf of the Borough of Somerdale and Sergeant Abbott in this case.
Several months later, a trial on the merits took place. The municipal judge, returning to the jurisdictional issue, found:
There's testimony that the Columbia Avenue, that the officer has curb-to-curb jurisdiction in that area and that's where he saw the driving, initially saw the driving, and in a previous time, and I confirm that, do find that that aspect of his driving was within the Borough of Stratford — excuse me — was in the Borough of Somerdale, which continued onto the Borough of Stratford.After canvassing the entire record, the municipal judge found Porter guilty of all of the charges on the merits.
Porter filed an appeal with the Law Division. He raised three issues: (1) Somerdale's lack of jurisdiction, (2) the denial of his right to a speedy trial, and (3) the denial of his right to represent himself. The Law Division focused primarily on the jurisdictional issue, which it found was a factual geography question that the record did not convincingly answer.
The Law Division briefly analyzed Porter's speedy trial and self-representation claims, finding that they were unpersuasive and not warranting a reversal of the Somerdale convictions.
In order to prove territorial jurisdiction, the State relied exclusively upon Sergeant Abbott's testimony regarding his understanding of jurisdictional concurrency. The State did not produce an official map depicting the precise location of the municipal boundary between Stratford and Somerdale. It assumed that the boundary line was either the centerline of the White Horse Pike or was parallel to it in the vicinity of Porter's operation of the motor vehicle. The Law Division found the State's proofs inexact, ambiguous, and unsatisfying. More importantly, the court found that the evidence was insufficient to surmount the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt threshold.
The Law Division noted the paucity of proof of an accurate delineation of the boundary line when it called discernment of the dividing line "convoluted." In passing, the court also observed that the unauthenticated map provided by Porter showed that the boundary "does not run exactly parallel to the White Horse Pike. It runs at a bit of an angle . . . ." Consequently, Porter exhorted the court to remember that he was not challenging the legal principle of "curb-to-curb" jurisdiction espoused by Sergeant Abbott, but rather that "it was the State's responsibility to come into [court and] actually prove they have this relationship with the [B]orough of Stratford. And there's nothing here that shows that they have this type of relationship."
Porter claimed that the map he provided to the Law Division was obtained from "Stratford's borough's website." We have been provided with a copy of that map, but its evidentiary significance is nil.
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The court recognized that "the difficulty in this case has always been territorial jurisdiction." It characterized the State's proof of this element as "arguably and plausibl[y] support[ive] [of] the notion that the case was appropriately prosecuted in the Somerdale Municipal Court." However, it ultimately concluded that
there's no plausible way given the way this transcript reads that this court, tryingThe court explained that "sometimes in life people benefit when they get a break," commenting directly to Porter,
this case de novo, can say with a straight face that [it is] convinced beyond a reasonable [doubt] . . . that the first time that the Porter vehicle was observed, [it] was in Somerdale, rather than Stratford.
[m]aybe you were lucky because the officer was confused. Maybe you were lucky because the record simply wasn't complete enough, now whereas had they known they would [have] supplemented the record in terms of getting diagrams, or explaining better . . . where one borough begins and where one ends and very specifically placing you within the jurisdiction of the municipality that you were prosecuted in.Consequently, the court factually found that "the State did not prove territorial jurisdiction beyond a reasonable doubt." After the Order Entering Judgment of acquittal was entered, this appeal ensued.
II.
Our role on appeal is quite unlike that of the Law Division. We do not try the matter anew; rather, we assess whether there was "sufficient credible evidence" in the record to uphold the Law Division's findings. State v. Johnson, 42 N.J. 146, 162 (1964). "[I]t [is] improper for [us] to engage in an independent assessment of the evidence as if [we] were the court of first instance." State v. Locurto, 157 N.J. 463, 471 (1999). "[T]his court is governed by the substantial evidence rule." State v. Heine, 424 N.J. Super. 48, 58 (App. Div. 2012). Conversely, the Law Division's task "contemplates an independent fact-finding function" in respect of the State's ability to prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Ibid. Notwithstanding the foregoing, our review of the legal conclusions that flow from established facts is plenary. See State v. Handy, 412 N.J. Super. 492, 498 (App. Div. 2010) (citing Manalapan Realty, L.P. v. Twp. Comm. of Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995)).
The Law Division reasonably and appropriately reviewed the record produced at the jurisdictional motion and trial, deferred to the credibility findings of the municipal judge, see Locurto, supra, 157 N.J. at 472-74, and reached an independent conclusion of the operative facts. It rendered its decision well-apprised of the circumstance that territorial jurisdiction was hotly contested. After reviewing the record, the municipal judge's determinations, and the Law Division's factual findings, we conclude that the Law Division's finding that there was a sufficient gap in the State's proofs to warrant Porter's acquittal does not require our intervention.
The State contends that there were no disputed facts and the Law Division merely misapplied the so-called curb-to-curb statute, N.J.S.A. 39:5-3(c). We disagree.
N.J.S.A. 39:5-3(c), which provides a jurisdictional framework for traffic offenses, states as follows:
All proceedings shall be brought before a judge having jurisdiction in the municipality in which it is alleged that the violation occurred, but when a violation occurs on a street through which the boundary line of two or more municipalities runs or crosses, then the proceeding may be brought before the judge having jurisdiction in any one of the municipalities divided by said boundary line, and in the event there shall be no judge or should no judge having such jurisdiction be available for the acceptance of bail and disposition of the case, or should the judges having such jurisdiction be disqualified because of personal interest in the proceedings, or for any other legal cause, said proceeding shall be brought before a judge having jurisdiction in the nearest municipality to the one in which it is alleged such a violation occurred.We would have no hesitation in applying this statute if there were evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Porter's violation actually "occur[red] on a street through which the boundary line of two or more municipalities runs or crosses." Id. The Law Division recognized that Sergeant Abbott's mere assertion of "curb-to-curb jurisdiction" did not necessarily prove that this shared statutory jurisdiction was invoked. Given the unilluminating geographical evidence and the vague testimony about where and when Porter was actually operating his vehicle, we cannot say that the Law Division erred.
The jurisdictional issue is not, as asserted by the State, "purely a legal question." Nor is it a trivial matter of little significance even in light of Porter's seeming indubitable guilt of the underlying traffic offenses. State v. Sylvia, 424 N.J. Super. 151, 157 (App. Div. 2012) (citing State v. Denofa, 187 N.J. 24, 46 (2006) (noting that "jurisdiction is an essential element, albeit not a material element, of a criminal offense that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt"). We are in no position to challenge the Law Division's characterization of the quality of the State's (or Porter's) proofs, and we decline to take judicial notice — even if it were possible to do so — to demarcate the murky boundary line, as testified by Abbott, "in the area of Columbia Avenue."
Affirmed.
I hereby certify that the foregoing
is a true copy of the original on
file in my office.
CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION