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Appeals panels rarely reverse verdicts in either circumstance. But the errors in this trial were so blatant, the justices said, they had no choice, CLIFFVIEW PILOT has learned.
The night of of May 22, 2006, Smith picked up Laquanna Stewart and Kendra Davis at their Jersey City homes and headed to Trevor Lewis’ apartment. Lewis buzzed the two women in while Smith stayed outside in his car, prosecutors said.
Inside, the three drank and smoke pot, with Stewart adding angel dust and Ecstasy to her mix. Eventually, they went to a bedroom for a pre-paid threesome.
“Hours later, Lewis was found dead, lying face down on his bedroom floor having been shot three times, twice in the torso and once in the head,” the judges wrote.
Stewart and Davis both blamed Smith, saying he snuck in while Lewis was distracted and “shot Lewis in a botched burglary plot.”
Originally indicted with Smith, Stewart and Davis pleaded guilty to lesser charges in return for testifying against Smith.
Stewart, then 18, had pot bought from Smith, sometimes in exchange for sex, defense attorneys said.
It was her idea, they said, to arrange the threesome with Lewis (which paid $200-$250), then have Smith sneak in and steal “a bucket of marijuana” from the apartment during the action. Then they’d split the proceeds three ways.
Stewart testified that she “chirp[ed]” Smith on his cell phone from the bedroom as a signal to sneak in.
But Lewis jumped out of bed and went into the living room, she said. He then ran back in, with Smith right behind him. Stewart said she was surprised to find Smith wearing a ski mask and black clothing and carrying a gun.
Smith shot him three times from behind and Lewis “fell face first onto the floor next to his bed,” she testified.
Stewart said she and Davis met Smith back at the car.
Davis, meanwhile, told jurors she’d had “flings” with Smith for about six months and had asked him for money. He finally agreed the night of the murder, she said.
In her version, Davis said Smith stood “in front of [Lewis] pointing a gun,” and then shot him three times.
Smith’s attorney argued that Stewart previously told police that Davis knew Lewis, that Davis already was at the apartment when she arrived, that Stewart fled on her own and that she never signaled Smith with her phone.
Like Stewart, Davis told jurors things that didn’t jibe with her initial statements to police, including that Smith first went up to the apartment alone, then came back with the pot.
Smith was no different. He originally told a detective with the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office that he didn’t know either woman, then claimed he drove them to the apartment “to get money,” and that Stewart was packing a gun.
He said he left with someone else to go to a gas station, and came back after Stewart called him. When he pulled up, Smith said, he saw both women: Stewart, who was carrying the pot, told him she “got this nigga for this weed.”
Smith testified that the women didn’t tell him they shot Lewis “till the next day.”
Smith’s cousin, Graceland Powell, who spent time behind bars with Stewart, testified on his behalf. She claimed that Stewart admitted shooting “the guy” because she panicked and became nervous when the victim “heard Nathaniel come in the house,” and that it was “a robbery that went bad.”
Powell also said she overheard Stewart on the phone say that she was going to “get [Smith] touched” for not “taking the weight for [the killing].”
Stewart said she never told Powell anything and even got into a fist fight with her over it.
Jurors acquitted Smith of first-degree murder, first-degree armed robbery and second-degree armed burglary.
However, they convicted him of conspiracy to commit armed burglary/robbery, first-degree felony murder, third-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, and second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.
Smith moved to set aside the verdict, calling it invalid because he was acquitted of the robbery and burglary offenses. The trial judge refused and granted state prosecutors‘ request for an extended term, sending Smith to prison for at least 30 years. Now 30 years old, he’s served nearly four years of that sentence at Northern State Prison in Newark.
The judge said he specifically instructed jurors that conspiracy couldn’t be a basis for a conviction of felony murder. He said he wasn’t sure how they reached what seemed to be conflicting decisions — nor could he have said so, under court rules — but he let the convictions stand.
Smith raised a variety of challenges in his appeal, the assistant prosecutor’s frequent references to his “alleged prior bad acts, alias (“Corrupt“), unemployment, and other improper comments,” which, he said, “unfairly prejudiced [him] in the jury’s eyes and denied him a fair trial.”
Acquitting him of robbery and burglary charges should have immediately vacated the charge of having a weapon for an unlawful purpose, he added.
As such, his sentence was “excessive“ and “improper,“ Smith argued.
The appeals judges agreed.
“Prosecutorial misconduct is not a basis for reversal unless the conduct was…egregious,” the justices noted, in a lengthy decision. “[The statements] must constitute a clear infraction and substantially prejudice the defendant’s fundamental right to have the jury fairly evaluate the merits of his or her defense in order to warrant a reversal.”
In this case, they said, the “remarks by the prosecutor, cumulatively considered, deprived [Smith] of a fair trial.”
During his opening statement, the prosecutor said: “Nathaniel Smith, also known as Corrupt,” to which defense counsel immediately objected. The judge overruled the objection, however.
Then, during his summation, the prosecutor said Stewart “got involved with a corrupt individual — he lives up to his name, by the way.”
“There was no real or genuine issue at trial related to either defendant’s identity or his relationship with Stewart,” the appeals panel emphasized. “Thus, the repeated reference to defendant’s nickname ‘Corrupt‘ was entirely gratuitous and prejudicial since the moniker was highly suggestive of prior criminal or bad conduct….”
“The remark unfortunately was neither isolated nor benign, but magnified by Stewart’s ‘unexpected‘ blurting out, on direct examination, that [Smith] “had been to jail,” they said.
“Although the judge sustained defense counsel’s objection and instructed the jury to ‘totally disregard‘ the comment, the damage had already been done,” the appeals judges wrote.
Adding to “this strong potential for prejudice” was the prosecutor getting the women to say they were afraid that Smith “probably would try to do something, get us hurt or something” without offering any proof.
The judge only compounded the situation, the appeals court said, by not warning the jurors that “such testimony may be used only for the specific purpose of assessing witness credibility and not as substantive proof of guilt.” This allowed jurors to infer that Smith “was a dangerous or violent person“ without any evidence of it.
Thanks to the prosecutor, they also went into deliberations thinking that Smith was poor and in need of money when, in fact, he lived with his mother, who was receiving disability checks. That, for the appeals judges, seemed the final straw. The law strictly prohibits prosecutors from using someone’s financial situation as part of a motive, they said.
“We therefore conclude the prosecutor’s comments denied [Smith] his right to a fair trial,” the appeals panel wrote. “Accordingly, [his] convictions are thus reversed.”
The judges also upheld Smith’s claim that the judge failed by not instructing jurors that a person commits felony murder when he “causes the death of a person other than one of the participants” while “engaged in
the commission of, or an attempt to commit, or flight after committing or attempting to commit robbery [and other enumerated offenses.]”
“In felony-murder cases,” they said, “courts should instruct juries that they may not convict a defendant of felony murder unless they convict the defendant of the underlying offense that is a predicate to the felony-murder conviction.”
In this case, the jurors cleared Smith of the “underlying felonies” — armed burglary and armed robbery, they noted.
The state Supreme Court has held that inconsistent verdicts are permitted “so long as the evidence was sufficient to establish guilt on the substantive offense beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In Smith’s case, the appeals court said, the jury was “led down the wrong path” by the judge. “The verdict cannot stand,” they insisted.
What the judge didn’t tell jurors, they said, was that they could have found Smith guilty of “accomplice liability“ if they believed he had solicited one of the women to commit the crime, knew and shared the intent going in, and “indirectly participate[d]” in the alleged theft.
“Here, although plainly indicated by the [evidence], the jury was not instructed on the principles of accomplice liability,” the appeals judges wrote.
The prosecutor argued that it actually worked to Smith’s benefit because jurors weren‘t “given another basis to convict.”
The appeals court wasn’t buying it:
“[T]he absence of such an instruction left the jury free to believe that defendant need not have shared the same intent as the principals in the robbery/burglary, and that mere ‘engagement‘ in the underlying event sufficed to establish the requisite mental state for, and therefore his guilt of, felony murder.”
“It appears the jury believed defendant had conspired with his co-defendants and had not been the principal actor in the robbery/burglary of Lewis, but his admitted conduct of driving the women to and from the victim’s apartment and his knowledge that one of the women possessed a weapon sufficed to establish that he was ‘engaged in the commission of or attempted’ [to rob Lewis].”
The reason for the inconsistent verdict, the panel unanimously concluded, appears a direct result of the trial judge’s “failure to instruct the jury on accomplice liability.” As a result, “there is no assurance that the jury applied the correct legal principles in reaching their verdict on felony murder.
“Accordingly, the conviction cannot stand.”
The judges disagreed, however, with Smith’s argument that the weapons conviction be thrown out ,given the fact that he was cleared of robbery and burglary charges. The trial judge properly explained the options to the jurors, and they acted upon them, the panel said.
However, they sent the case back to Hudson County for a proper hearing.
Whether the prosecutor’s office seeks to bring murder-related charges against Smith again has yet to be decided.
In a footnote: The appeals court rejected Smith’s argument that police violated his rights by not cutting off questioning when he made what amounted to a vague mention of his willingness “to cooperate with an attorney.”
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