STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. MIGUEL JESURUM

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-3373-07T43373-07T4

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

MIGUEL JESURUM,

Defendant-Appellant.

_________________________________

 

Submitted October 1, 2009 - Decided

Before Judges Miniman and Waugh.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Bergen County, Indictment No. 04-10-2136.

Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Monique Moyse, Designated Counsel, on the brief).

John L. Molinelli, Bergen County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (John J. Scaliti, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Defendant Miguel Jesurum appeals his conviction on one count of third-degree theft by unlawful taking, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:20-3(a). We affirm.

I.

On the afternoon of May 4, 2004, Detective David J. LaGrone and his partner, Detective Glenn Pagano, both of the Paramus Police Department, began working their shift at the Garden State Mall in Paramus. The officers were assigned to the anti-crime unit, which was a plain-clothes, self-directed detail designed to apprehend shoplifters at the mall. About an hour into their shift, the detectives observed two males exiting Macy's department store carrying wrinkled, worn-looking Banana Republic shopping bags, which appeared full. At trial, LaGrone identified Jesurum as one of the men he saw carrying the bags.

LaGrone observed Jesurum and the other man walk over to a black car with a temporary registration affixed to the rear windshield. They opened the trunk of the car and deposited the contents of the Banana Republic bags into the trunk. LaGrone noticed that the contents of the bags appeared to be multiples of the same clothing items; for example, "[i]f it was a belt, it was like ten belts." LaGrone also saw that the clothing still had price tags attached. LaGrone's training and experience led him to believe the clothing was stolen.

Jesurum and the other man finished emptying their bags into the car's trunk, folded the bags up, put them underneath their clothing, and walked back into the mall. About five minutes after Jesurum and the other man left the car, two more men came out of the mall, walked to the vehicle and repeated the process, also using worn-and-tattered shopping bags. The two men emptied multiples of the same item with price tags attached into the back of the car. LaGrone identified co-defendant Harry Abreu as one of the two men in the second group.

The detectives then entered the mall. LaGrone followed Abreu and the other man. Pagano contacted LaGrone on his cell phone and informed him that the other pair of suspects had left Macy's, entered the black car, and left the area. LaGrone continued watching Abreu and his companion in Macy's.

LaGrone, keeping his distance so as to not alert the men of his presence, observed Abreu and the other man acting in tandem. One would stack clothing; and the other would come up afterward and put the clothing into a worn bag. He also noticed the men would go into corners and other areas where surveillance cameras were not likely to be present. Eventually, the two men left Macy's. The other man was carrying the bag and Abreu walked with him. They went up and down the escalators several times, which according to LaGrone was done to see "if they're being tailed." During the period LaGrone was watching them, they never approached a cash register.

As Abreu and his companion exited the mall, they were making calls on their cell phones. Shortly thereafter, the black car, driven by Jesurum, pulled up nearby. Abreu and the other man walked up to the car, put the bag into the vehicle, and got in. At that point, LaGrone, Pagano, and another detective approached the car and identified themselves as police officers.

After observing "numerous belts and other items" in one of the worn bags in open view, the detective began to search the car. They recovered clothing items from Macy's totaling $1,995, as well as items from Nordstrom, The Gap, Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, and Club Monaco. The grand total of recovered items, based on their price tags, was $6,947.

During the search, the detectives also recovered two screwdrivers and a box cutter. They found two New York license plates on the floor of the vehicle, from which they determined the registered owner of the vehicle was Jesurum's mother. When detectives asked the men if they had receipts, the men failed to produce receipts for the clothing. During the subsequent search of the car, however, the police found receipts from Nordstrom for several items. All four men were arrested.

The detectives then contacted Macy's. Luis J. Jimenez, who was a Macy's store detective, came to the scene. He examined the clothing, and identified some of it as being from Macy's. At the request of the Paramus Police Department, Jimenez reviewed surveillance videotape taken in the Macy's store on the afternoon of the arrest. Jimenez's review of the footage did not show defendants, or anyone else, taking clothing and putting it into bags in the manner described by LaGrone.

The police also contacted the Nordstrom loss-prevention department. David M. Suscreba, a loss-prevention agent from Nordstrom, retrieved some of the clothing from the police station and identified it as being from Nordstrom. Christian Biamonte, the Nordstrom loss-prevention manager, testified that on May 4, he reported to the scene in the parking lot outside Nordstrom and observed quantities of clothing and merchandise with Nordstrom tags. He identified two receipts from Nordstrom found inside defendants' car, which were generated with a gift card at 7:12 p.m. and 7:29 p.m. that day. The gift card was the result of merchandise that was returned to the Westchester Nordstrom store without proof of purchase. However, Biamonte could not say with complete certainty that all of the items he examined were from Nordstrom.

The police transported the clothing to the police station and photographed each individual item with a "close-up" of the price tag attached to the item. They eventually returned the stolen merchandise to the stores. The photographs were stored on a computer hard drive, which was accidentally erased. Consequently, the photographs were not produced at trial.

Jesurum and Abreu were tried together before a jury over the course of six days from March 27 to April 4, 2007. The jury found both of them guilty of theft by deception. The trial judge found Jesurum guilty of one count of the disorderly persons offense of possession of burglary tools, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:5-5(a), based upon the trial testimony. Jesurum received a probationary sentence on each offense.

II.

Jesurum raises the following issue on appeal:

THE TRIAL COURT BOLSTERED THE STATE'S CASE BY INTERRUPTING DELIBERATIONS TO OFFER THE JURY A READBACK OF THE TESTIMONY OF THE STATE'S MAIN WITNESS, DEPRIVING MR. JESURUM OF A FAIR TRIAL AND DUE PROCESS OF LAW. U.S. Const. Amend. VI; XIV; N.J. Const. Art. I, Paras. 1, 9 and 10.

Jesurum contends that the trial judge improperly interfered with the jury's deliberations when she corrected her earlier response to a jury question about the availability of a copy of LaGrone's testimony. We disagree.

Trial courts have broad discretion with respect to jury requests for the reading of all or part of a witness's testimony, although that discretion is not "unbridled." State v. Wilson, 165 N.J. 657, 660-661 (2000); State v. Wolf, 44 N.J. 176, 185 (1965); State v. Rodriguez, 234 N.J. Super. 298, 311 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 117 N.J. 656 (1989). That discretion should be exercised only after consultation with counsel. State v. Whittaker, 326 N.J. Super. 252, 262 (App. Div. 1999).

In this case, the jury asked for a copy of LaGrone's testimony. After consulting with counsel, the trial judge informed the jury that no such transcript was available, adding: "[If] you're absolutely stuck on a particular part of the testimony, it would be possible to have that portion of the testimony read back to you." She subsequently said: "But the entire testimony, no." It is not entirely clear whether she intended to tell the jury that it could not have LaGrone's entire testimony read back, or whether she was merely reiterating that there was no transcript of his entire testimony. In context, her statement could readily be interpreted as expressing the former.

At the end of the day, the prosecutor expressed concern that the jury had been left with the impression that it was not entitled to have the entire testimony read back. Defense counsel objected to any suggestion to the jury that the entire LaGrone testimony could be read back. The following morning, the judge told the jury that she wanted to correct any misimpression from her earlier response and informed the jurors that they could also request a readback of the entire testimony of any witness. She did not specifically refer to LaGrone.

Shortly thereafter, the jury requested LaGrone's direct and cross-examination related to his observations in the Macy's store. She granted the request over the objection of defense counsel. The testimony was read following the lunch break. The jury returned the guilty verdict shortly after the readback.

We see no error in the judge's exercise of her discretion to correct what the jury may well have understood as a statement that it could not request a readback of a witness's entire testimony. See State v. Middleton, 299 N.J. Super. 22, 30 (App. Div. 1997) ("It is well[-]settled that the trial court must respond substantively to questions asked by the jury during deliberations and must assure itself that it understands the import of the questions."). While it would have been preferable to inform the jury of all the options initially, we do not see the corrective action as having produced a result that the jury would not otherwise have reached. We note that the jury had expressed its interest in LaGrone's testimony early in its deliberations, that the judge did not mention LaGrone in making the correction, and that the jury did not, in fact, ask for a readback of the entire testimony. Even if there was error, it was harmless. Defendants are entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect one. State v. Feaster, 156 N.J. 1, 84 (1998), cert. denied sub nom. Kenney v. New Jersey, 532 U.S 932, 121 S. Ct. 1380, 149 L. Ed. 2d 306 (2001); R. 2:10-2 ("Any error or omission shall be disregarded by the appellate court unless it is of such a nature as to have been clearly capable of producing an unjust result . . . .").

Consequently, we affirm Jesurum's conviction.

Affirmed.

 

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A-3373-07T4

October 29, 2009