STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. MATTHEW D. ROLLE(15-07-0387, SALEM COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) ( 2017 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE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-5239-15T4
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
MATTHEW D. ROLLE, a/k/a
DASHAUN CHEEKS,
Defendant-Appellant.
______________________________
Submitted August 8, 2017 – Decided August 15, 2017
Before Judges Sabatino and O'Connor.
On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey,
Law Division, Salem County, Indictment No. 15-
07-0387.
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney
for appellant (Mark H. Friedman, Assistant
Deputy Public Defender, of counsel and on the
brief).
John T. Lenahan, Salem County Prosecutor,
attorney for respondent (Derrick Diaz,
Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the
brief).
PER CURIAM
Tried by a jury, defendant Matthew D. Rolle was found guilty
of two counts of second-degree aggravated assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-
1(b)(1), by causing and attempting to cause bodily injury to two
separate victims, C.H. and C.H.'s mother, R.H.1 The jury also
found defendant guilty of two counts of third-degree aggravated
assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1(b)(2), with respect to the same two
victims. Lastly, the jury found defendant guilty of third-degree
possession of a weapon (described as "a knife or machete type
object") for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(d), and fourth-
degree unlawful possession of a weapon, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(d). The
jury acquitted defendant of two charged counts of attempted murder.
After merging several of the convictions, the trial court
imposed on defendant an extended-term custodial sentence of
seventeen years for the aggravated assault of C.H., plus a
consecutive custodial sentence of nine years for the aggravated
assault of R.H. Both sentences are subject to the parole
ineligibility consequences of the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A.
2C:43-7.2 ("NERA"). The court further imposed a concurrent
sixteen-month custodial sentence for the third-degree weapons
conviction. In addition, the court imposed customary penalties
and other conditions.
On appeal, defendant raises two points in his brief:
POINT I
1
We use initials to protect the victims' privacy interests.
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THE TRIAL COURT ERRED BY FAILING TO INSTRUCT
THE JURY THAT THE PRIOR INCONSISTENT
STATEMENTS MADE BY KEY WITNESSES WERE
ADMISSIBLE AS SUBSTANTIVE EVIDENCE. (Not
Raised Below).
POINT II
DEFENDANT'S SENTENCE IS MANIFESTLY EXCESSIVE
AND UNDULY PUNITIVE.
We affirm.
The underlying offenses arise from an incident in which
defendant, accompanied by two other men, physically attacked first
C.H., and then R.H., on the evening of March 16, 2015 in Penns
Grove. According to the testimony of the State's witnesses, C.H.
and R.H. were passengers in a car. The car passed the three men,
who were wearing dark hoodies, walking down the street outside of
the residence of the driver's grandmother. C.H. asked the driver
to turn the car around to see what was going on. As the car pulled
up, C.H. recognized defendant, whom he had known for eight or nine
years, and whom R.H. had taken care of for about two years.
According to C.H., defendant told him that he and the other
men were waiting for "beats" from the car driver's brother.2 C.H.
told defendant to leave, and that he would not be getting any
2
As noted in C.H.'s testimony, the term "beats" apparently is
slang associated in some manner with music.
3 A-5239-15T4
"beats." C.H. got out of the car and began to talk with the two
other men.
At that point, defendant struck C.H. multiple times in the
back of his head and face with a hard object, causing C.H. to
briefly lose consciousness. Meanwhile, R.H., having seen her son
get hit, got out of the car and yelled at defendant to stop. At
that point, defendant hit R.H. in the head with apparently the
same hard object he had used to strike her son. R.H. fell to the
ground and the three men ran away.
The car driver took C.H. and R.H. to a local hospital
emergency room. Because of the nature of his injuries, C.H. was
taken from the local hospital by helicopter to the trauma unit at
Cooper Hospital in Camden. Meanwhile, R.H. was treated locally
for an injury to her ear and then was driven to Cooper Hospital,
where she remained for three days.
While being treated at the hospital, both C.H. and R.H.
initially declined to speak with the police. According to C.H.,
he did not agree to be interviewed at that time because of his
serious injuries. Those injuries included, among other things, a
skull fracture and jaw fracture that were surgically addressed,
and the insertion of a breathing tube. Surgeons wired C.H.'s
mouth shut. R.H., who had a skull fracture and multiple
lacerations herself, also initially declined to be interviewed by
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the police because, as she later explained, she was more concerned
at that time about her son.
On the day after the assaults, as her condition stabilized,
R.H. gave an interview to the police. During that interview, she
positively identified defendant as the attacker, who was
subsequently charged and arrested. C.H. also eventually agreed
to be interviewed by the police, providing them with information
that supported defendant's arrest and prosecution.
At trial, the State presented testimony from both victims,
who detailed the attacks and inculpated defendant. The State also
presented testimony from various police witnesses who described
the steps they took in the investigation. The investigation
revealed copious amounts of blood on the sidewalk at the location
of the reported attacks. The State also presented testimony from
the attending trauma surgeon at Cooper Hospital. The surgeon
recounted that C.H. had suffered multiple fractures of his face
and jaw, a skull fracture, and a neck laceration. The doctor
opined that those fractures were consistent with blunt trauma, of
a kind that would occur when a person is hit with a hard object.
The doctor also testified how he had treated R.H. for multiple
lacerations, a skull fracture, and an intracranial hemorrhage.
Defendant did not testify on his own behalf, nor did he
present any witnesses.
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I.
In his first point on appeal, defendant argues that the jury
charge was incomplete, a contention he did not raise below.
Specifically, defendant argues that the trial court should have
instructed the jurors that the failure of both C.H. and R.H. to
provide the police initially with statements incriminating him
must be treated as substantive evidence in his favor. In
particular, defendant contends that the victims' initial refusals
to speak with the police, which his trial counsel brought out in
cross-examination and in closing argument, amount to "prior
inconsistent statements" admissible under N.J.R.E. 803(a)(1). He
therefore claims these refusals to speak supports an evidential
inference that defendant was not, in fact, the person who attacked
them. Defendant maintains that, although it was not requested,
the trial judge should have issued the model jury charge to the
jury relating to the substantive use of prior inconsistent
statements. See Model Jury Charges (Criminal), "Prior
Contradictory Statements of Witnesses (Not Defendant)" (1994),
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/attorneys/assets/
criminalcharges/non2c019.pdf.
We evaluate defendant's newly-minted argument criticizing the
jury charge under a plain error standard of review. R. 1:7-2; R.
2:10-2; State v. Singleton, 211 N.J. 157, 182-83 (2012). Under
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that standard, an appellate court will not set aside a guilty
verdict because of the omission of an unrequested jury charge
unless the defendant on appeal demonstrates that the omission was
"sufficiently grievous" and has a "clear capacity to bring about
an unjust result." Ibid. (internal quotations omitted). We
recognize, however, that when a jury instruction was clearly
indicated by the trial record, such an omission is a "poor
candidate" for the harmless error rule. State v. Weeks, 107 N.J.
396, 410 (1987) (citing State v. Warren, 104 N.J. 571 (1986);
State v. Crisantos, 102 N.J. 265 (1986)).
Aside from its belated nature, defendant's argument about the
victims' initial silence is fundamentally flawed on the merits.
Defendant's appellate counsel attempts to draw analogies with
situations in which a witness affirmatively gave an earlier
narrative of events to the police but left out certain details
that were later expressed in his or her trial testimony. By
contrast, the present situation concerns two victims who initially
declined to provide any statements whatsoever to the police. Their
reluctance to do so, given what was occurring, is understandable.
C.H. was suffering from a serious brain injury and other
medical traumas that required emergency surgery. He lost
consciousness both at the scene of the attacks and again at the
hospital. His jaw was wired shut. He certainly had a legitimate
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reason to defer any interview with the police until he had
sufficiently recovered to speak with them. Likewise, R.H.,
although she did not lose consciousness and did not undergo
surgery, had more than ample reason to postpone an interview with
the police while she was naturally concerned about the immediate
welfare of her son.
Neither C.H. nor R.H. provided, by their temporary silence,
any substantive prior inconsistent "statement" that warranted the
special jury charge now being advocated by defendant. The cases
cited in defendant's brief to support his argument are unavailing.
For example, in State v. Hammond, 338 N.J. Super. 330 (App. Div.),
certif. denied, 169 N.J. 609 (2001), we held that the model jury
instruction on the substantive use of prior inconsistent
statements was not warranted where the witnesses' pre-trial
account did not involve "conflicting versions" of the events, but
was instead a "mere blanket denial of any knowledge of the
crime[.]" Id. at 342-43. As such, the witnesses' prior
inconsistent statements lacked "any significant exculpatory
value[.]" Id. at 343. None of the other cases cited by defendant
compel a different result here. We therefore discern no error,
much less plain error, in the omission of the jury charge.
II.
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Defendant's second argument is that his aggregate twenty-six
year custodial NERA sentence is unduly punitive. He further
asserts that the sentencing judge did not adequately justify
imposing consecutive sentences for the two aggravated assaults,
and did not provide a sufficient analysis for relying in part on
aggravating factor nine, N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(a)(9) (deterrence). We
disagree.
As the trial judge recognized, the imposition of consecutive
sentences in this case are easily justified by defendant's brutal
attacks upon two separate victims. State v. Yarbough, 100 N.J.
627, 634-44 (1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1014, 106 S. Ct. 1193,
89 L. Ed. 2d 308 (1986). In addition, the judge did not abuse his
discretion in imposing an extended custodial term pursuant to
N.J.S.A. 2C:44-3. State v. Pierce, 188 N.J. 155, 166, 169-70
(2006) (applying an abuse-of-discretion appellate review standard
to extended term sentences). Defendant clearly was eligible for
an extended term as a persistent offender because of his adult
criminal history, which included a litany of multiple offenses and
violations of probation.
Moreover, although the judge conceivably could have been more
specific in his explanation of why aggravating factor nine applied,
the need to deter this defendant is manifest from record and
requires no remand for further elaboration. Cf. State v. Fuentes,
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217 N.J. 57, 75 (2014) (generally encouraging sentencing courts
to specify their reasons for finding discrete aggravating and
mitigating factors). The aggregate sentence is appropriately
lengthy for the very serious crimes that were committed, and do
not "'shock[] the judicial conscience." State v. Bieniek, 200
N.J. 601, 612 (2010) (quoting State v. Roth, 95 N.J. 334, 364-65
(1984)).
Affirmed.
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