STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. DENISE STAPLES

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

DENISE STAPLES,

Defendant-Appellant.

__________________________

January 15, 2014

Before Judges Fasciale and Haas.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Cumberland County, Indictment No. 03-07-0600.

Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Richard Sparaco, Designated Counsel, on the brief).

Jennifer Webb-McRae, Cumberland County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (David M. Galemba, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Defendant appeals from an August 17, 2011 order denying her petition for post-conviction relief (PCR). She contends that she received ineffective assistance of counsel from her trial attorney. We affirm.

Defendant was charged with first-degree murder and related offenses. Defendant stabbed the victim while the two were engaged in an altercation. The State offered defendant a plea agreement, whereby defendant would plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter and unlawful possession of a weapon and receive an aggregate fourteen-year term of imprisonment, with an eight and one-half year period of parole ineligibility. Defendant rejected the offer. At trial, defendant raised the defense of self-defense. At the conclusion of trial, the jury found defendant guilty of murder.

In July 2004, Judge John M. Waters, Jr. sentenced defendant to a sixty-year term of imprisonment, with a fifty-one-year period of parole ineligibility pursuant to the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2.1 We affirmed the conviction and sentence. State v. Staples, No. A-0141-04 (App. Div. May 19, 2006), certif. denied, 188 N.J. 490 (2006).

In February 2007, defendant filed her petition for PCR, contending in part that her trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel by not fully explaining the plea agreement to her. Judge Benjamin C. Telsey issued a comprehensive written opinion stating in part that

[d]ue to the fact that the Court finds that Mr. Swift adequately explained the plea agreement terms to defendant, that defendant was responsive to all questions during her plea rejection colloquy and that this Court rejects the psychological testimony suggesting she did not have the ability to understand the plea, the Court finds that [d]efendant fails to meet her burden under the first prong of the Strickland/Fritz[2] analysis, to establish that her attorney was deficient in his explanation of the plea offer or that he failed to identify any mental defects that could have prevented defendant from understanding the nature of the plea offer or both.

. . . .

Even conceding the first prong . . . arguendo, [defendant] does not meet the second prong, particularly that such ineffective assistance would potentially change the outcome.

. . . .

In the present matter, [defendant] has consistently maintained that she acted in self-defense. Self-defense is an absolute defense to [a]ggravated [m]anslaughter, the charge to which the State proposed that she plead guilty. Specifically, she told the police immediately after the incident that she acted in self-defense, she told her trial attorney that she acted in self-defense, she testified during trial that she acted in self-defense, she told the probation officer writing the pre-sentence report that she acted in self-defense . . . . Clearly, she has maintained that she is not guilty of any homicide, including [a]ggravated [m]anslaughter.

Based upon all of the above, even if it would have been defendant's desire to plead guilty then and/or now, the Court would not accept such a plea, considering her consistent denial of guilt.

The judge rejected defendant's remaining PCR contentions, including defendant's assertion that her trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to raise the defense of intoxication.

On appeal, defendant raises the following points:

POINT I

DEFENDANT WAS DENIED THE RIGHT TO EFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL, AND THE RESULT WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT BUT FOR THE ERRORS OF COUNSEL BELOW.

POINT I(A) THE DEFENDANT WAS ENTITLED TO POST-CONVICTION RELIEF DUE TO TRIAL COUNSEL'S FAILURE TO PROPERLY COMMUNICATE THE STATE'S PLEA OFFER OF 14 YEARS, IN VIOLATION OF MISSOURI V. FRYE, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S. Ct. 1399 (2012) AND LAFLER V. COOPER, 566 U.S. ___, 132 S. Ct. 1376 (2012).

POINT I(B) BECAUSE DEFENSE COUNSEL ADMITTED HIS ERRORS BELOW IN FAILING TO PURSUE PERTINENT DEFENSES WHICH CLEARLY EXISTED IN THIS CASE, THE DEFENDANT WAS ENTITLED TO PCR RELIEF.

POINT I(C) COUNSEL FAILED TO HIRE APPROPRIATE EXPERTS.

POINT I(D) COUNSEL'S FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE AND CONSIDER POTENTIAL DEFENSES CONSTITUTED INEFFECTIVE ASSITANCE OF COUNSEL AND DEFENDANT WAS THEREFORE DEPRIVED OF A FAIR DISPOSITION OF HER CASE.

POINT II

THE CUMULATIVE EFFECT OF THE ERRORS IN THIS MATTER SHOW THAT THE DEFENDANT WAS DEPRIVED OF A FAIR TRIAL.

We find no merit to these contentions, Rule 2:11-3(e)(2), and therefore affirm substantially for the reasons stated by Judge Telsey in his thorough written decision of August 17, 2011. Suffice it to say, for defendant to obtain relief based on ineffective assistance grounds, she is obliged to show not only the particular manner in which counsel's performance was deficient, but also that the deficiency prejudiced her right to a fair trial. Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 687, l04 S. Ct. at 2064, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 693; State v. Fritz, supra, 105 N.J. at 58. We are persuaded that the alleged deficiencies here clearly fail to meet either the performance or prejudice prong of the Strickland test.

1 Defendant was also convicted of possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4d, which merged with the murder count.

2 Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, l 04 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984); State v. Fritz, 105 N.J. 42 (1987).