See also State v. Fogarty, 128 N.J. 59 (1992) (statutory
defense of entrapment does not apply to motor vehicle
offense of driving while intoxicated); State v. Riccardi, 284
N.J. Super. 459 (App. Div. 1995) (fact that officer had a
general telephone conversation with defendant prior to
obtaining evidence of drug activity did not compel
finding of entrapment); State v. Abdelnoor, 273 N.J.
Super. 321 (App. Div. 1994) (State’s limited role in
cooperating with participant in scheme to import heroin
did not constitute due process entrapment); State v.
Soltys, 270 N.J. Super. 182 (App. Div. 1994) (While
defendant, as accomplice or conspirator may be liable for
conduct of another who commits substantive offense,
until such act is committed, defendant can assert
entrapment defense; however, there can be no
justification for entrapment once plan is culminated).
E. Evidence
Montana v. Egelhoff, 518 U.S. 37 (1996) held that an
accused does not have unfettered right to offer evidence
that is incompetent, privileged, or otherwise inadmis-
sible under standard rules of evidence. Restriction on the
right to present relevant evidence violates due process
clause only where it offends some principle of justice so
rooted in traditions and conscience of the people as to be
ranked as fundamental. Defendant’s right to have the
jury consider evidence of his voluntary intoxication in
determining whether he possessed mental state required
for conviction was not “fundamental principle of justice,”
and therefore, Montana’s statutory ban on consideration
of such evidence, consistent with state interests in
deterring crime, holding one responsible for conse-
quences of his actions, and excluding misleading
evidence, did not violate due process clause.
State v. Dimitrov, 325 N.J. Super. 506 (App. Div.
1999) explained that the demands of due process are
never more seriously tested than when a defendant in a
criminal case is, for any reason, denied an opportunity to
present a witness whose testimony has ostensible
exculpatory value. Here, the preclusion of a defense
witness’s testimony as the sanction for a discovery
violation deprived defendant of a fair trial.
State v. Timmendequas, 161 N.J. 515 (1999) held
that excluding a hearsay statement by defendant’s
housemate indicating knowledge of the murder before
the defendant confessed did not violate the defendant’s
due process right to present evidence of third-party guilt;
no evidence linked the housemate to the crime itself.
In State v. Marshall III, 148 N.J. 89, cert. denied, 522
U.S. 850 (1997), the State’s plea agreement with murder
codefendant, conditioned upon codefendant’s truthful
cooperation and truthful testimony, in which
codefendant pled guilty to conspiracy to commit murder
and escaped charge of capital murder, did not violate
defendant’s due process rights by providing codefendant
with irresistible reasons to provide perjured testimony
against defendant. The fact that codefendant may have
been motivated to lie did not establish that codefendant
in fact perjured himself concerning material aspects of his
testimony, and State was not precluded from entering
into plea agreement at issue.State v. James, 144 N.J. 538 (1996), explained that
an accused’s right to due process of law protects him from
introduction of identification testimony that is
determined to be patently unreliable because it was the
result of unduly suggestive police practices. Once out-of-
court and in-court identification evidence is excluded as
impermissibly suggestive, it is error to admit this
evidence substantively under the “opening the door”
doctrine if defendant sought to question carjacking
victim about an earlier misidentification of another as the
perpetrator or about his earlier description of the
perpetrator. Forcing defendant to chose between his
right to cross-examine the victim about the earlier
misidentification and his due process right to exclusion of
unreliable identification evidence was reversible error.
The State was entitled to rebut evidence that victim
identified another with subsequent retraction but not
with suppressed identification testimony.Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62 (1991). Evidence
that infant victim suffered from battered child syndrome
was relevant in second-degree murder prosecution to
establish intent, so that admission of such evidence did
not violate due process, although defendant did not claim
that victim died accidentally.Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991). In the
event that victim impact evidence introduced at
sentencing phase of criminal case is so unduly prejudicial
that it renders the trial fundamentally unfair, the due
process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides a
mechanism for relief.State v. Baker, 270 N.J. Super. 55 (App. Div.), aff’d
o.b., 138 N.J. 89 (1994), ruled that the mere fact that
plea bargain involves illegal sentence does not deny due
process of law to defendant against whom person
receiving benefit of that bargain gives testimony.