By Jennifer Kohlhepp, Staff Writer
The Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey ruled Feb. 6 that the man who was convicted of raping and murdering 7-year-old Megan Kanka received a fair trial.
In his appeal, Jesse Timmendequas, 53, alleged numerous instances of prosecutorial misconduct in both the guilt and penalty phases of his trial.
”Our Supreme Court agreed that some of these were indeed ‘flagrant misconduct,’ but found overall that ‘in most instances of misconduct, the court sustained proper objections by defense counsel and offered curative instructions,’” the court ruling said. “As the court ultimately concluded, in the context of the overwhelming evidence against defendant, none of the alleged misconduct deprived him of a fair trial.”
Mr. Timmendequas was convicted of the July, 29, 1994 rape and murder of his neighbor, Megan Kanka and was sentenced to death in July 1997. The murder led the New Jersey Legislature to pass “Megan’s law,” which requires notifying community members when a previously convicted sex offender moves into a neighborhood.
In 1979, Mr. Timmendequas pleaded guilty to the attempted aggravated sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl in Piscataway.
Then, in 1981, he pleaded guilty again to the sexual assault of a 7-year-old girl.
Evidence at his murder trial included blood stains, hair, and fiber samples as well as a bite mark matching Megan Kanka’s teeth on Mr. Timmendequas’ hand led to him to being found guilty of purposeful-or-knowing murder, two counts of felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, four counts of aggravated sexual assault.
On Dec. 17, 2007, his death sentence was repealed, resulting in commuting his sentence to life without parole. His defense attorney alleged that he was coerced by police into confessing.
In his appeal, Mr. Timmendequas also contended that his Miranda waivers were invalid, based in part on his “mental limitations.”
The court found, however, “overall that the evidence did not support any claim that he was intellectually incapable of consenting to searches and waiving his Miranda rights.”
”Even if the definition of mental retardation changed in the intervening years, defendant’s expert did not explain in his second report the reason his subsequent opinion regarding defendant’s cognitive functioning was not contradicted by defendant’s lifestyle,” the court ruling said. “By that we mean that defendant having dropped out of 11th grade was able to obtain a GED, maintained a driver’s license, purchased a pickup truck, lived independently with roommates, maintained employment, and entered into a financing arrangement in order to purchase a boat. Additionally, the expert’s report does not explain how defendant, despite his alleged retardation, was able to take careful steps to conceal his crime.”
The court ruled that his “low intelligence” alone does not make the officers’ actions in questioning him coercive.
”Under the totality of the circumstances, the state courts’ finding that defendant’s waiver was knowing and intelligent was not unreasonable; he gave a valid waiver because he received warnings several times both while in custody and for prior crimes,” the court ruling said.
Mr. Timmendequas also requested that he be permitted to interview the jurors who sentenced him to death based on newspaper articles that some of them were crying as they rendered the verdict.
”That jurors would display emotion when rendering a death verdict is unremarkable,” the court ruling said. “Since the jury’s death sentence has been commuted to life without parole, the same sentence defendant would have received had he not been sentenced to death, we agree with (trial) Judge (Robert ) Billmeier that this point is now moot.”
Mr. Timmendequas also said that his defense team’s withdrawal of a motion to use an alias for him during the trial constituted ineffective assistance.
The court ruled that the trial court conducted many weeks of “extensive and careful” jury selection, and after reviewing the process found that the defendant “was tried by a fair and impartial jury at both the guilt and penalty phases of the trial.”
”The extensive publicity surrounding defendant’s crime made his name virtually synonymous with the victim’s,” the court ruling said. “For this reason, the trial judge gave all prospective jurors and overview of the case and its victim, to ensure defendant would not suffer the ‘gross prejudice’ that would result from a juror making the connection later in the trial process. Potential jurors were also exhaustively queried regarding their ability to be fair despite the information they had gleaned from pre-trial publicity and the voir dire process itself. Given those circumstances, withdrawal of the alias motion was not prejudicial: it did not affect the outcome.”
Lastly, Mr. Timmendequas contended that the cumulative effect of the alleged errors required reversal of his convictions.
”Since we found no error occurred, harmless or otherwise, no cumulative error prejudiced the outcome,” the court ruling said. “No prima facie case of ineffective assistance of counsel was established warranting any relief, including a plenary hearing.”
