against interest can be transferred to the portion
exonerating himself from criminal liability. State v.
DeRoxtro, 327 N.J. Super. 212, 222 (App. Div. 2000);
State v. Gomez, 246 N.J. Super. 209, 218-19 (App. Div.
1991).
In State v. Abrams, 72 N.J. 342 (1977), aff’g o.b., 140
N.J. Super. 232 (App. Div. 1976), the Supreme Court
held that the trial court erred in refusing to admit into
evidence a confession made to police by the codefendant.
That written confession contained two discrete sentences
which exculpated the defendant. These passages could
not, in effect, be “excised” from their inculpatory context.
In State v. West, 145 N.J. Super. 226 (App. Div.
1976), certif. denied, 73 N.J. 67 (1977), a defendant was
charged with having distributed narcotics to an
undercover police officer in a transaction arranged by a
confidential informant. At trial the defendant claimed
that he was framed by the confidential informant and
alleged that a defense witness overheard the informant
boast of having framed the defendant. The Appellate
Division held that the statement was admissible as a
declaration against interest if it could be established that
the declarant was in fact, the confidential informant. 145
N.J. Super. at 232-33. See also State v. Rechtschaffer, 70
N.J. 395 (1976), where the court held that defendant’s
statement that he would kill the informer if he discovered
his identity was admissible as a declaration against
interest.
- Corroboration
An uncorroborated extra-judicial confession cannot
provide the evidential basis to sustain a conviction for
crime. State v. Lucas, 30 N.J. 37, 62 (1959). As the Court
in State v. Johnson, 31 N.J. 489 (1960), cert. denied, 368
U.S. 933 (1961), explained:
The reason for requiring evidence independent of the
confession and corroborating it is to avoid the danger of
convicting a defendant solely out of his own mouth of a
crime that never occurred or a crime committed by
someone else.
See also State v. Boyer, 221 N.J. Super. 387 (App. Div.
1987), certif. denied, 110 N.J. 299 (1988).
A trial court must determine whether there is any
legal evidence, apart from the confession of facts and
circumstances, from which the jury might determine
that the confession is trustworthy. State v. Lucas, 30 N.J.
at 62; see also State v. Mancine, 124 N.J. 232, 250 (1991).
The State need only produce independent proof of facts
and circumstances which strengthen or bolster the
confession and tend to generate a belief in its
trustworthiness. State v. DiFrisco, 118 N.J. 253, 273
(1990), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1129 (1995); State v.
Lucas, 30 N.J. at 56.In State v. Kreiger, 193 N.J. Super. 568 (App. Div.
1983), the court held that defendant’s confession,
obtained after a polygraph test, was inadequately
corroborated to meet the trustworthiness standard, and
its details were both so sparse and so contradicted by the
State’s undisputed evidence as to generate an affirmative
belief in its untrustworthiness, thereby requiring reversal
of defendant’s conviction. The decision of the Appellate
Division was reversed by the New Jersey Supreme Court,
State v. Krieger, 96 N.J. 256, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1017
(1984), for the reasons set forth in the dissent. The
dissenting judge was convinced that the State’s proofs
were sufficiently corroborated on the record to present
the question to the jury as to the trustworthiness of the
defendant’s confession.The corroboration rule applies in juvenile
proceedings. State in Interest of J.F., 286 N.J. Super. 89,
101 (App. Div. 1995); State in the Interest of W.J., 116
N.J. Super. 462, 465 (App. Div. 1971).Circumstantial evidence of a crime is sufficient to
satisfy the corroboration rule. In State v. Zarinsky, 143
N.J. Super. 35 (App. Div. 1976), aff’d, 75 N.J. 101
(1977), the defendant was indicted in 1975 for
committing a murder in 1969. The victim’s body could
not be found. The Appellate Division held that
circumstantial evidence, such as testimony that the
defendant was seen with the victim on the day she
disappeared, sufficed to corroborate his confessions to the
murder. The Zarinsky court also noted that “a voir dire to
determine the existence of corroboration is not a
condition precedent to the admission of a confession.” It
is sufficient if the State’s proofs, adduced during its case
in chief, disclose evidence of corroboration. Hence, the
appropriate remedy for a failure to corroborate a
confession is a motion for a judgment of acquittal at the
close of the State’s case.- Co-Conspirator Statements
N.J.R.E. 803(b)(5), replacing Evid. R. 63(9)(b),
permits the admission of a hearsay statement against a
party if “at the time the party and the declarant were
participating in a plan to commit a crime or civil wrong
and the statement was made in furtherance of that plan.”