STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. ADONIS SEPULVEDA (14-12-1883, BERGEN COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) ( 2021 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the
internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-0403-19
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
ADONIS SEPULVEDA,
Defendant-Appellant.
_______________________
Submitted February 10, 2021 – Decided May 18, 2021
Before Judges Alvarez and Mitterhoff.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law
Division, Bergen County, Indictment No. 14-12-1883.
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for
appellant (Suzannah Brown, Designated Counsel, on
the brief).
Mark Musella, Bergen County Prosecutor, attorney for
respondent (William P. Miller, Assistant Prosecutor, of
counsel and on the brief; Catherine A. Foddai, Legal
Assistant, on the brief).
PER CURIAM
Defendant Adonis Sepulveda appeals the August 9, 2019 Law Division
order denying his petition for post-conviction relief (PCR). We affirm.
Defendant, Jorge Valencia, Ramona P. Mercado-Vasquez, and Alexander
Suarez were charged in a nineteen-count indictment with, inter alia, two counts
of first-degree kidnapping, N.J.S.A. 2C:13-1(b) and N.J.S.A. 2C:2-6, and two
counts of first-degree robbery, N.J.S.A. 2C:15-1 and N.J.S.A. 2C:2-6. We draw
the facts from defendant's plea hearing. The offenses occurred 1 when defendant
and his co-defendants engaged in a home invasion burglary during which they
awoke the sleeping victim, placed a pillowcase over his head, and tied him up
at gunpoint. They forced the victim to call the building doorman to the
apartment and, at gunpoint, tied him up as well. Valencia was the building
superintendent and used a key to access the unit. The group took items of
substantial value, including money and jewelry.
Simultaneously, one of the co-conspirators removed some of the
surveillance camera hard drives. As they were leaving the building carrying
large white trash bags at approximately 3:53 a.m., however, they were captured
1
Discrepancies between the factual basis established in defendant's case, and
in those of his co-defendants, are not relevant to this appeal.
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by the remaining surveillance cameras. The building director later identified
defendant as a person depicted on film.
The building director's husband, a maintenance worker, on his own
initiative, searched defendant's apartment, and found a gun and a shoe that
matched one seen worn by defendant on the video. The affidavit police
submitted in support of the issuance of a warrant explained as follows: partial
shoe prints found near the scene matched defendant's shoes on the video,
defendant and Mercado-Vasquez gave conflicting statements about their
whereabouts at the time of the incident, Mercado-Vasquez had calls on her
phone log to defendant while she claimed the two were in a car together, and a
tenant saw a suspicious car in the parking lot between 1:00 and 1:30 a.m. When
police executed the search warrant, they recovered proceeds from the robbery in
defendant's apartment.
After defendant and Mercado-Vasquez were arrested, they were placed in
holding cells near each other. While speaking in Spanish, they made inculpatory
statements regarding the crimes. The conversation was tape recorded. Suarez
also inculpated defendant in his statement to police.
Faced with these proofs, defendant pled guilty to kidnapping and robbery.
The State recommended an aggregate of eighteen years' imprisonment, subject
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to eighty-five percent parole ineligibility pursuant to the No Early Release Act
(NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2, for both the robbery and the kidnapping. The
judge imposed an eighteen-year sentence for the kidnapping, but sixteen for the
robbery, on November 20, 2015. The terms were made concurrent to a violation
of probation sentence defendant incurred in another county, as he was on
probation at the time of this offense.
Defendant appealed his sentence to the excessive sentence oral argument
panel. R. 2:9-11. It was upheld, although we remanded the matter to the
sentencing judge to issue a statement of reasons. Defendant thereafter filed a
PCR petition, arguing, among other things, that his counsel was ineffective for
failing to file a motion to suppress the items taken from his apartment.
In his PCR decision, 2 the judge held that defendant failed to meet the
Strickland/Fritz 3 test. The court determined that trial counsel's decision to
forego a motion to suppress the evidence seized upon the execution of the search
warrant was a matter of trial strategy. In light of the overwhelming proofs
2
The judge acknowledged defendant may be entitled to an additional day of
credit, but no further mention was made of the subject in his decision or in the
appeal briefs. In the interests of justice, the trial court may wish to look into the
matter further. See R. 2:10-2.
3
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984); State v. Fritz. 105 N.J.
42, 58 (1987).
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against defendant, the filing of such an application would have almost certainly
resulted in a harsher plea bargain offer. Furthermore, the judge did not think
the motion would have been successful in light of the wealth of information
contained within the four corners of the affidavit.
Now on appeal, defendant raises the following points:
POINT I
THE PCR COURT ERRED IN RULING THAT THE
CLAIM THAT TRIAL COUNSEL WAS
INEFFECTIVE FOR FAILING TO FILE A MOTION
TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE WAS BARRED
BECAUSE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN RAISED ON
DIRECT APPEAL.
POINT II
THE PCR COURT ERRED IN DENYING THE
PETITION WITHOUT AN EVIDENTIARY
HEARING ON THE CLAIMS THAT TRIAL
COUNSEL WAS INEFFECTIVE FOR FAILING TO
FILE A MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE.
We find no merit to these arguments. 4 R. 2:11-3(e)(2).
4
We do not address the PCR judge's decision that the argument was
procedurally barred as defendant failed to make a prima facie case of ineffective
assistance of counsel. See Bandler v. Melillo, 443 N.J. Super. 203, 210 (App.
Div. 2015) (noting an appellate court affirms valid judgments, even if predicated
on incorrect reasoning).
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In cases such as these, where the trial court has not conducted an
evidentiary hearing, "we may review the factual inferences the court has drawn
from the documentary record de novo." State v. Blake, 444 N.J. Super. 285, 294
(App. Div. 2016). The PCR court's legal conclusions are also reviewed de novo.
State v. Harris, 181 N.J. 391, 415 (2004).
The now familiar Strickland test requires a defendant to first establish by
a preponderance of the evidence that counsel's performance "fell below an
objective standard of reasonableness." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688. It is
presumed that trial counsel acted reasonably. State v. Pierre, 223 N.J. 560, 579
(2015). A defendant must establish the second prong by demonstrating that "a
reasonable probability [exists] that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the
result of the proceeding would have been different." Strickland, 466 U.S. at
694. This reasonable probability must "undermine confidence in the outcome."
Pierre, 223 N.J. at 583 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694). In other words,
defendant bears the burden to show that, but for counsel's ineffective assistance,
he would have gone to trial and not entered a guilty plea.
The trial court correctly found that counsel's decision not to file a motion
to suppress was reasonable given the likelihood it would be denied and the
negative impact it no doubt would have on plea offers made by the State. Like
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the judge, we do not consider defendant's numerous attacks on the issuance of
the warrant to have merit.
For example, in this case the civilian search of defendant's apartment did
not invalidate the search warrant. The maintenance worker searched on his own
initiative. When a private individual obtains evidence from spaces protected by
the Fourth Amendment, the authorities may use that information to obtain a
search warrant. State v. Wright, 221 N.J. 456, 476-78 (2015). That is what
occurred here.
Additionally, at that juncture, police had the video in which defendant and
Mercado-Vasquez are seen carrying white trash bags from the building in the
middle of the night, and they knew that Mercado-Vasquez had misrepresented
her whereabouts based on her cell phone data. Any motion to suppress would
likely fail while increasing the State's offer. Counsel's decision was indeed
sound trial strategy.
Therefore, defendant did not establish a prima facie case requiring an
evidentiary hearing. The judge did not abuse his discretion by refusing to grant
one. See State v. Brewster, 429 N.J. Super. 387, 401 (App. Div. 2013).
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Affirmed.
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