Senator Diane Allen, R-Burlington, has introduced legislation to prevent violent gang members from avoiding prison by threatening witnesses to their crimes. Under New Jersey’s current court rules, statements to police officers or other officials made by a witness to a crime who later refuses to testify are usually not admissible in court, even if the refusal comes because threats of violence.
“Threats and intimidation can not be allowed to stop justice from being done,” Senator Allen said. “This legislation will allow juries to hear the whole truth in more cases against violent gang members and drug dealers.”
The senator’s action was prompted by a New Jersey Supreme Court opinion earlier this month that granted new trials to two men convicted of murdering a drug dealer. A lower court allowed a jury to consider statements to the police and to the court made by a witness. The witness refused to testify in open court and blamed the refusal on threats from the two defendants. The Supreme Court ruled that the pair had a Sixth Amendment right to confront a witness in open court, even if they had made threats against him.
The Supreme Court pointed out in its ruling that the witness’s statements outside court would have been admissible as evidence in the trial if the state operated under federal rules governing evidence. Senator Allen’s legislation is designed to make state law mirror a federal law that says that any defendant forfeits Sixth Amendment rights if he or she wrongfully causes a witness not to appear in court.
“The elderly, our children and the poor suffer the most when gangs and drug dealers terrorize their neighborhoods,” Allen said. “Passage of this legislation will help ensure that such criminals are not allowed to escape the punishment they richly deserve.”
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June 23, 2009
