On May 12, 2026, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided the Union County case of State v. DiNapoli. The principal issues concerned the relevance of the defense expert’s testimony and whether a hearing was required before it could be admitted at trial.
Justice Noriega, a colleague with whom I presented a lecture on criminal law and immigration issues, wrote for the unanimous Court in relevant part: In this appeal, the Court considers whether a defendant’s proffered expert testimony on causation under N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c) is admissible in a vehicular homicide prosecution and whether an N.J.R.E. 104 hearing is required to make that determination.
In June 2019, defendant Thomas DiNapoli drove across double yellow lines and struck a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction whose front seat passenger, Michelina Mele, was ninety-four years old and suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Mele was transported to the hospital and found to have rib and patella fractures and lung contusions. Mele’s family determined that palliative care was the appropriate response to her overall condition. She died the next day. Defendant, who had taken his prescribed medication, Clonazepam, beyond a normal therapeutic dosage before driving that day, was charged with vehicular homicide. To challenge the State’s contention that Mele’s death was the result of defendant’s reckless conduct, defendant proffered three experts who contend that Mele would have recovered from her injuries sustained in the crash, but that the palliative care administered in response to her pre-existing conditions ultimately caused her death. The State moved to bar that testimony. The trial court denied the State’s motion to preclude the testimony of the three defense experts, opting to address their qualifications at trial. On appeal, the Appellate Division vacated that order and remanded for an N.J.R.E. 104 hearing to determine the admissibility of the proposed expert testimony. The Court granted the State’s motion for leave to appeal, limited to the issues noted.
Defendant’s proffered expert testimony regarding the assessment of defendant’s culpability for the victim’s death, pursuant to prong one of N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c), is relevant in a vehicular homicide prosecution. An N.J.R.E. 104 hearing is not necessary to determine whether defendant’s proposed experts may testify. To determine relevancy in a criminal case, courts look to the elements the State must prove to establish the charged offenses. Vehicular homicide requires that the State prove: (1) that defendant was driving a vehicle; (2) that defendant caused the death; and (3) that the death was caused by driving a vehicle recklessly. The second and third elements, which relate to causation, are governed by N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3. Vehicular homicide requires that the State prove not only “but for” causation but also an additional causal element.
N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c) presents two alternative showings to meet that additional causal requirement. Under prong one, the State may show causation by proving that “the actual result is within the risk of which the actor is aware.” Alternatively, under prong two of the statute, the State may prove causation by demonstrating that the “actual result involves the same kind of injury or harm as the probable result and must not be too remote, accidental in its occurrence, or dependent on another’s volitional act to have a just bearing on the actor’s liability or on the gravity of his offense.” Both the first and the second prongs of N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c) depend on the link between the “actual result” — i.e., the harm inflicted on the victim — and the defendant’s awareness of the risk of harm. Thus, under N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c), the jury must assess whether the actual result was within the risk that the defendant disregarded by acting recklessly. N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3 is derived from section 2.03 of the Model Penal Code.
The State bears the primary responsibility to decide whether to charge a defendant, which statutes to charge under, and what theory of liability to pursue. Accordingly, under N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c), the State may elect which theory of culpability to pursue, including whether to proceed exclusively under one prong rather than the other, as the State did here. The State’s election does not foreclose the defendant’s right to assert a defense as to causation or to develop and present challenges to the State’s theory, but it does affect what defenses might be relevant. In State v. Buckley, for example, the Court addressed whether the victim’s failure to wear a seatbelt in a fatal accident was admissible evidence in the defendant’s challenge to causation. The defendant sought to show that the victim would have survived the fatal accident had he worn a seatbelt. Analyzing the case under the State’s asserted prong one theory, the Court found the victim’s failure to wear a seatbelt irrelevant. The Court based its conclusion on the actual result — the victim’s death in the automobile accident. Whether or not the victim had a greater likelihood of surviving with one variable changed did not affect that. Because the State’s theory of the case can affect the evidence a defendant may choose to present, fairness and efficiency require that the State disclose its chosen theory of causation at the earliest possible opportunity, but no later than the pretrial conference.
Here, because the State has represented that it intends to proceed solely under prong one, the jury will have to determine whether Mele’s death was within the risk of which defendant was aware. Whereas Buckley did not involve any dispute as to whether the defendant’s conduct resulted in a fatal accident, defendant’s experts here contend that Mele would have recovered from her injuries and that her death was caused by her family’s decision to seek hospice care. Defendant’s proffered evidence need not rebut “but for” causation to be admissible at trial on the issue of reckless causation under prong one of N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c). The defendant may also raise defenses to the additional elements of causation that the State must prove under N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c). If the jury credits the testimony of defendant’s experts, it may reasonably infer that defendant’s allegedly reckless driving did not give rise to a fatal motor vehicle accident at all and that the actual result — Mele’s death — resulted from an intervening cause — palliative care to ease her Alzheimer’s symptoms — rather than defendant’s reckless driving, such that it cannot justify a conviction for vehicular homicide. The testimony of defendant’s experts is thus relevant to the issue of causation under prong one of N.J.S.A. 2C:2-3(c).
The State’s argument that intervening causes can never be a defense to prong one, and that defendant’s theory is irrelevant because it does not defeat “but for” causation, is unsupported by either the statutory text or the structure of the culpability analysis required under prong one. The defense is permitted to introduce evidence that challenges the causal chain advanced by the State under prong one, including evidence of an intervening cause.
Defendant’s proposed testimony is relevant to whether the manner of Mele’s death diverged from the result that defendant risked through his recklessness. A court need not hold an N.J.R.E. 104 hearing to determine whether the experts’ opinions are relevant. Any inconsistencies between the reports do not affect their admissibility. It is the jury’s responsibility to evaluate the credibility of all of the evidence and resolve factual disputes.
The Court now requires that the State disclose to defendants which prong it will be relying on at the earliest possible stage where the application of N.J.S.A. 2C:2 3(c) is warranted. The trial court ultimately decides whether to instruct the jury on prong one, prong two, or both, selecting instructions that best fit the applicable portions of the statute.
The State’s appeal and requested relief were denied. Their appeal also resulted in the Court ordering the State to disclose their causation theory pretrial. That ruling will be advantageous to similarly-situated defendants in future cases.
