State v. Vanderee

476 N.J.Super. 214

298 A.3d 1114

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.Jason W. VANDEREE, Defendant-Appellant.

DOCKET NO. A-2329-21

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.

Argued April 25, 2023

Decided July 5, 2023

Taylor L. Napolitano, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Taylor L. Napolitano, of counsel and on the brief).

Jennifer E. Kmieciak, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Matthew J. Platkin, Attorney General, attorney; Jennifer E. Kmieciak, of counsel and on the brief).

Before Judges Gilson, Rose, and Gummer.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

GILSON, J.A.D.

This appeal arises out of a drug-induced tragedy. During the morning of February 19, 2019, defendant Jason Vanderee injected himself with fentanyl-laced heroin. Thereafter, he lost control of an SUV he had been driving, and his vehicle crashed into a gas station killing three people and injuring others.

Following the denial of his motion to suppress heroin and a glass pipe seized from his clothing, defendant pled guilty to three counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-4(a). He was sentenced to an aggregate prison term of thirty years, with the requirement that he serve over twenty-five years before he is eligible for parole.

Defendant appeals from the denial of his motion to suppress and his sentence. He argues that the warrantless search of his clothes was unlawful, and that he is entitled to a resentencing. We reject defendant's arguments and affirm his convictions and sentence.

I.

The facts relevant to the suppression motion are not in dispute. The parties stipulated to the facts at the suppression hearing, and the trial court set forth those stipulated facts in its written decision. Thereafter, defendant admitted to other facts when he pled guilty.

Shortly before 9:00 a.m. on February 19, 2019, police received several calls reporting a multi-vehicle crash at a gas station on Route 23 in Wayne. Numerous police and emergency medical personnel responded to the scene.

At the gas station, the police found a station attendant motionless on the ground. Inside a Chevrolet Camaro parked at the gas pump, police saw two male occupants, one of whom had visible head injuries and neither of whom were moving. Those occupants were later identified as a father and his seventeen-year-old son. All three victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

Nearby, the police located a damaged Honda SUV with defendant inside the vehicle. Defendant was motionless and slumped over the steering wheel. A police officer checked defendant, found he had a pulse, and requested medical assistance. The officer also observed in plain view "an uncapped syringe (broken needle) on the driver's floor mat of the vehicle."

As medical personnel attended to defendant, the police determined that defendant should be arrested for driving while under the influence. Defendant was then placed in an ambulance, and Officer John Barrows was instructed to stay with him. Accordingly, Barrows followed the ambulance in his patrol car to the hospital.

While in the ambulance, paramedics observed that defendant was unconscious, his breathing was shallow, and he had a "track mark" on his left arm. Believing that defendant might have overdosed on opioids, defendant was given "IV Naloxone (Narcan )." Shortly thereafter, defendant regained consciousness, and a medical assistant asked defendant how much heroin he had used that day. Defendant responded: "I don't know."

When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, defendant was taken to a trauma room. Barrows, who had also arrived at the hospital, accompanied defendant. In the trauma room, medical personnel removed defendant's clothes to assess his injuries. Defendant's clothes were piled near the bed on which he was being treated.

At that time, which was between 9:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m., Barrows searched defendant's clothing. In the pocket of defendant's sweatpants, Barrows found nine glassine bags of suspected heroin and seven used bags. The bags were all stamped "DEATH ROW." Barrows also found a glass pipe in defendant's jacket. Laboratory testing later confirmed that the powder in the bags consisted of heroin, fentanyl, "4 ANPP," and methamphetamine. The pipe was found to have a trace amount of cocaine.

After he was assessed in the trauma room, defendant was taken to an emergency room for further treatment. There, Detective Michael Polifrone arrived, and Barrows updated the detective on what he had found. The detective then decided to apply for search warrants to obtain blood and urine samples from defendant and to search the SUV defendant had driven.

Barrows observed that defendant was coming in and out of consciousness. At approximately 10:15 a.m., defendant had regained consciousness, and Barrows told him that he was under arrest and placed a handcuff on his left wrist. The handcuff was then secured to the bed on which defendant was lying.

Subsequently, law-enforcement applied for and obtained warrants to search the SUV defendant had driven and to take blood and urine samples from defendant. From the SUV, police seized the used syringe, a plastic Walgreens bag containing an opened package of insulin syringes, and a receipt from Walgreens. The package of syringes had nine unused syringes and one missing syringe. The Walgreens receipt showed that the box of syringes had been purchased at a Walgreens in Paterson at 8:26 a.m. on February 19, 2019.

An analysis of defendant's blood showed the presence of morphine, fentanyl, benzoylecgonine, which is a cocaine metabolite, and alprazolam, also known as Xanax. Analysis of defendant's urine showed the presence of morphine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, codeine, alprazolam, and 6-monoacetylmorphine. The laboratory reports on the blood and urine screenings further "indicate[d] the presence of other drugs not confirmed in [these] item[s]." The police also obtained defendant's medical records from the hospital, which "revealed a positive urine screen for benzodiazepines, cocaine, and opiates."

The investigation of the crash revealed that it had involved four vehicles: the Honda Pilot, operated by defendant; the Chevrolet Camaro, in which two of the dead victims had been found; a Ford Transit work van, occupied by two men who had been injured; and a Nissan Rogue, occupied by three women, one of whom had been injured. In addition, five vehicles parked in the front lot of the nearby Wayne Mazda dealership were damaged from flying debris.

Defendant was indicted for twelve crimes related to the deaths of the three victims and the injuries to two other victims. Specifically, defendant was charged with three counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-4(a) ; three counts of second-degree death by auto, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-5(a) ; three counts of third-degree strict liability vehicular homicide, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-5.3(a) ; two counts of fourth-degree assault by auto, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1(c)(2) ; and third-degree possession of heroin, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(a)(1).

Thereafter, defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized from the SUV and his clothing. He later withdrew the portion of his motion seeking to suppress evidence seized as authorized by the warrants. Accordingly, his motion was limited to suppressing the bags and pipe seized from his clothes.

On October 13, 2021, the trial court issued a written opinion and order denying defendant's motion to suppress. The court found that the search of defendant's clothing was a lawful search incident to his arrest. In that regard, the trial court found that Barrows would have searched defendant incident to his arrest at the crash scene but could not do so because defendant was undergoing assessment and treatment. The search of defendant's clothes had been conducted at the hospital approximately forty-five minutes to one-and-a-half hours after the police were called to the crash scene. Consequently, the trial court found that the search of defendant's clothing "was substantially contemporaneous with his arrest, was conducted as soon as it was practically possible, and was entirely justified." Moreover, the court found that "Barrows was already aware of an uncapped syringe/broken needle discovered in the driver's floor area of the vehicle and it was further totally reasonable to search his clothing for the protection of the police and the possibility that a further dangerous syringe could be contained therein."

As an alternative basis, the trial court found that the warrantless search of defendant's clothing was lawfully conducted as an inventory search. Accordingly, on those two alternative and related grounds, the trial court denied defendant's suppression motion.

In November 2021, defendant pled guilty to three counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter. He also pled guilty to the motor vehicle offense of driving while under the influence, N.J.S.A 39:4-50. In pleading guilty, defendant admitted that before the crash, he had purchased and ingested heroin, "which had fentanyl contained in it," and then drove the SUV. He also admitted that on three previous occasions he had lost consciousness after ingesting heroin, including while driving a vehicle. Accordingly, he acknowledged that he had disregarded the risk that he could lose consciousness from ingesting heroin and "could cause deaths by then getting in a motor vehicle and driving on th[e] highway."

In exchange for defendant's guilty plea, the State agreed to recommend an aggregate prison term of thirty years, with periods of parole ineligibility and supervision as prescribed by the No Early Release Act (NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2. The State also agreed to recommend dismissal of all other criminal charges.

Defendant was sentenced on March 3, 2022. On each count of aggravated manslaughter, defendant was sentenced to ten years in prison subject to NERA. The court found that the three convictions involved...