New Jersey Court Reverses Murder Conviction Based Upon Hearsay Improperly Admitted Under the State of Mind Exception

Similar to its federal counterpart, New Jersey Rule of Evidence 803(c)(3) provides an exception to the rule against hearsay for 

A statement made in good faith of the declarant’s then-existing state of mind, emotion, sensation or physical condition (such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, or bodily health), but not including a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless it relates to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of declarant’s will.

Courts have noted that this “state of mind” hearsay exception must be scrupulously applied in cases involving statements made by murder victims. This is because such statements are often irrelevant. For example, assume that a victim is shot in the back, the defendant is on trial for the victim’s murder, and the prosecution wants to present evidence that, in the days before the shooting, the victim told his friends that he feared the defendant. Would the defendant’s acts/words that made the victim afraid of him relevant? Yes.. Would the victim’s state of mind — fear of the defendant — be relevant? Probably not. 

So, how did this all play out in State v. Montone, 2022 WL 16335 (N.J.App. 2022)?

In Montone, Kevin Montone was tried before a jury and convicted of first degree murder by purposely or knowingly causing the death of his wife Monica Montone, second degree endangering the welfare of his infant son, and third degree possession of heroin. After he was convicted, he appealed, claiming that the court improperly allowed for the admission of statements Monica made about fearing him.

The court agreed, noting that, in its prior opinion in State v. Scharf, 225 N.J. 547 (2016), the Supreme Court of New Jersey upheld the admission of statements of fear by a murder vicim only because

the statements: (1) were “close enough in time to enhance their probative value;” (2) were a direct response to the defendant’s “narrative that this was all just an accidental death;” and (3) were sufficiently reliable to allow the jury to assess their probative value for this limited purpose.

The court, however, found that this logic did not extend to the case at hand because

Unlike the defendant in Scharf, defendant did not raise the defense of accident in response to the State’s charge. Here, the State’s theory of culpability required the jury to find defendant intentionally or knowingly strangled his wife in the presence of or nearby his two-year-old son. Under these circumstances, defendant’s trial strategy was not predicated on his wife being accidentally strangled.

Defendant has consistently maintained his wife had a serious addiction to illicit narcotics and died from a self-induced overdose. It is now well-settled that drug addiction is a disease that, since 1999, took the lives of more than 841,000 people nationwide. Our own State is not exempt from this dreaded disease nor its consequences. The record reflects neither the State nor the trial judge were able to grasp this fundamental point.

The court thus reversed the defendant’s convictions.

-CM