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A judge in Hackensack sentenced Wilfredo Arias to six years in state prison after jurors convicted him of of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old Little Ferry girl.
But the state Supreme Court overturned the conviction in early 2005, sending it back to Hackensack for retrial, because Arias wasn’t allowed to participate in interviews of potential jurors.
He then took a plea instead.
Arias benefitted from another downgraded plea deal three years ago — again keeping him from Megan’s Law registration — after being charged with sexually assaulting a 7-year old Cliffside Park girl.
After completing his sentence on April 8, Arias was arrested on the Fourth of July after the Leonia teen said he molested her when she accepted a ride in his van.
Making it all possible: a procedural error.
The Author
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EXCLUSIVE REPORT by Mary K. Miraglia
(CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
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“The question before the Court is whether criminal defendants have a right to attend sidebar conferences held during jury selection,” which the justices ruled that they do, according to a syllabus prepared by the clerk of the Supreme Court, available on the Rutgers Law School web site.
It’s common practice for the trial judge and attorneys for both sides to interview each prospective juror privately at a small table, set up beside the judge’s bench, to discover any biases that might disqualify them.
Each attorney has a fixed number of challenges that they can use to dismiss a prospective juror, some for cause and some for no stated reason.
An Appellate Division panel previously ruled in 2004 that Arias’ rights weren’t violated because he didn’t ask to be present at the sidebar interviews and was able to participate though “standby counsel.”
On the first day of the trial, then-Superior Court Judge Harry Carroll told the defense attorney that he didn’t permit defendants at sidebar as a matter of practice. Arias’ appearance at sidebars wasn’t discussed again.
Jury verdicts needn’t be reversed because of such exclusions, the justices said. However, in Arias’s case, they noted, one of the jurors gave her background as “formerly a practicing attorney serving as a Law Guardian in New York, and said that she still had a children’s advocate mentality, but that she could be impartial and would apply the law as instructed.”
Defense attorney R.A. Daly didn’t object, even though he still had all his “peremptory challenges” remaining — as in: those that can be made with no reason given.
It didn’t appear that Daly had any real opportunity to consult with Arias, the Supreme Court said, even though “it is the defendant himself who plays the critical role in exercising the peremptory challenge.”
Because the juror’s view of herself as a child victims’ advocate “went to the heart of the issue in this case,” the justices ruled, “[Arias] may very well have peremptorily challenged her had he heard her responses.”
Since that decision, defendants in Bergen County sit at the defense table during jury selection and wear headphones that allow them to listen to the question-and-answer conversations among the judge, the attorneys and the prospective jurors. This includes them in the process.
Instead of retrying Arias, the assistant prosecutor who handled the case — and is no longer on staff — struck a deal that was approved by a judge.
Arias pleaded guilty on Oct. 24, 2005 to fourth-degree lewdness, a lesser offense that allowed him to stay off the sex offender registry.
Arias was again charged in 2011 with the sexual assault of a 7-year-old Cliffside Park girl.
He again pleaded guilty plea to a lesser lewdness offense, for which he was sentenced to 180 days in the Bergen County Jail and three years’ probation.
Arias completed that sentence on April 8 and was arrested July 4 in connection with the sexual assault of the 16-year-old Leonia girl — which, among other things, was a probation violation.
He is preliminarily charged in a criminal complaint with “sexual assault by force or coercion, no serious injury” to the victim. The complaint has gone to a grand jury in Hackensack for indictment.
Bail was originally set at $500,000, but Superior Court Judge John Conte in Hackensack cut it to $250,000 on July 15. A bondsman posted it and Arias was released.
His next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 17, although these can be cancelled without prior notice.
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