A jury found defendant Andrew Howard-French guilty of first-degree murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(1) and (2); second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4(a)(2); and third-degree endangering an injured victim, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1.2(a). The offenses arose from the death of a twenty-three-month-old child who was under defendant's care.
The court holds the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting: defendant's prior bad acts in accordance with N.J.R.E. 404(b)(2); the treating physician's testimony regarding the child's injuries; a non-sanitized statement by an investigating detective accusing defendant of lying during an interrogation of defendant; and the State's forensic pathology expert's testimony regarding the child's cause of death in accordance with N.J.R.E. 705. Defendant's arguments that trial counsel's failure to object to the testimony by the treating physician, the detective, and the expert, lack merit. The admission of the testimony was not plain error clearly capable of producing an unjust result.
The court holds that the trial judge did not err in using the word "flight" in the jury charges as was it taken verbatim from the Model Jury Charges (Criminal), "Endangering Injured Victim (N.J.S.A. 2C:12.12)" (rev. Mar. 14, 2016). The court also concludes the trial judge did not err in failing to sua sponte instruct the jury on the affirmative defense of summoning medical treatment under N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1.2(c) because there was no evidence supporting the charge and, to the contrary, there was sufficient evidence that defendant endangered the injured child by leaving him in defendant's apartment with no other adult present.
Finally, even though the court normally does not entertain ineffective assistance of counsel claims on direct appeal, we address and dismiss defendant's claims because they relate to counsel's failure to object to evidence, which as noted, was properly admitted.