Date: 03-13-2019

Case Style:

State of New Jersey v. Andrew J. Fede

Case Number: A-53 September Term 2017 079997

Judge: Walter F. Timpone

Court: SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY

Plaintiff's Attorney: William P. Miller, Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Dennis Calo, Acting Bergen County Prosecutor, attorney; Jenny X. Zhang, Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor

Defendant's Attorney: Michael A. Orozco argued the cause for appellant ,Price, Meese, Shulman & D’Arminio, attorneys; Michael A. Orozco, Brian J. Yarzab, and John R. Edwards, Jr.

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In this appeal, we consider whether defendant Andrew J. Fede violated
the criminal obstruction statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a), when he refused to
remove the chain lock from the door to his home and allow warrantless entry
by police officers who were responding to a report of potential domestic
violence.
We stress that the police officers had the right to enter defendant’s home
under the emergency-aid doctrine, which permits warrantless entry under
circumstances like those presented in this case. Because defendant’s refusal to
remove the door chain did not constitute an affirmative interference for
purposes of obstructing justice within the meaning of the obstruction statute,
we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and vacate defendant’s
conviction.


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I.
A.
We glean the following facts from the record. On the evening of March
16, 2014, two police officers from the Cliffside Park Police Department were
dispatched to a multi-family building on Palisades Avenue in response to a call
reporting a potential domestic violence situation. Patrol Officer Zoklu and
Sergeant Becker of the Cliffside Park Police Department were the first to
arrive at the building. Neither officer observed any commotion. In
consultation with the dispatcher, they learned the reported domestic altercation
was coming from apartment number three. The officers knocked on the door
of apartment three -- defendant Andrew Fede’s apartment. Defendant partially
opened the door, which was secured with a chain lock. The officers and
defendant could see one another.
The officers identified themselves, told defendant they were
investigating a domestic disturbance, and sought entry into his home to check
on the well-being of the occupants. During the initial stages of their
conversation, the officers learned that defendant lived with Stephanie
Santiago. Defendant explained that she was away in South Carolina and he
was alone in the apartment. Defendant insisted that the officers were at the
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wrong location. The officers requested entry to verify defendant’s assertions.
He refused.
As the conversation continued, the situation became more contentious.
Defendant asked if they had a warrant. The officers explained they were
acting under the community-caretaking doctrine and were permitted to enter
his home without a warrant to ensure the welfare of the occupants. Defendant
demanded a warrant. He remained by the door in view of the officers, refusing
to unchain his lock.
In an effort to defuse the situation, the officers gave defendant the
telephone number of their supervisor. Fede called and spoke to the supervisor,
who confirmed the officers’ reason for seeking entry. The supervisor
explained to Fede that the officers were responding to a report of domestic
violence inside his home, that they sought entry into the home to conduct a
welfare check, and that once they checked the home to verify that no one had
been injured, the officers would be on their way. Despite attempts to reason
with Fede for well over twenty minutes, the officers were unable to convince
him to unchain his door. Defendant later explained that he was exercising his
Fourth Amendment rights and that he always kept the chain lock engaged
when he answered the door. Fede also threatened to sue the police officers if
they broke the chain to enter.
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Concerned about the possibility of domestic violence, the officers broke
the chain lock on Fede’s door and entered his apartment. The entry was
uneventful, and after being instructed to move into the building’s hallway,
Fede stepped outside of his apartment and stood next to Zoklu as other officers
searched the home. The search confirmed that defendant was alone in the
apartment. The officers thereafter placed Fede under arrest for obstruction of
the administration of the law under N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a) for failing to remove
the chain lock from his door.
B.
On February 12, 2015, a bench trial was held in the Cliffside Park
Municipal Court. The court heard testimony from Officer Zoklu, Stephanie
Santiago -- defendant’s roommate -- and defendant. At trial, Zoklu recounted
the events leading to Fede’s arrest. In all material respects, Fede’s testimony
was similar to Zoklu’s.
The trial court found the officers had an objectively reasonable basis to
enter Fede’s apartment given the report of domestic violence and that Fede had
a legal obligation to admit officers into his home. The court found Fede’s
refusal to unchain his lock so the officers could enter the apartment constituted
an obstacle for purposes of N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a) and fined him $200 plus court
costs.
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C.
On Fede’s first appeal, a Law Division judge affirmed defendant’s
conviction in an opinion dated September 21, 2015. Recognizing that “[a]
necessary element of [N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1] requires defendant to have
affirmatively taken some action to physically interfere, or place an obstacle, to
prevent the police from performing their official function,” the court
nevertheless concluded that because defendant had “purposely prevented”
officers from gaining entry into his home by “refusing to unchain his door,” he
“creat[ed] an obstacle, which prevented the police from performing their
official function.” The court justified the responding officers’ warrantless
entry onto defendant’s premises under the emergency-aid doctrine.
D.
On further appeal to the Appellate Division, the panel affirmed the Law
Division’s holding, additionally relying on our decision in State v. Reece, 222
N.J. 154 (2015) (finding a defendant guilty of obstruction for closing his entry
door when police officers attempted entry into the defendant’s home).
We granted Fede’s petition for certification. 232 N.J. 412 (2018).



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II.
A.
Fede urges us to reverse the Appellate Division decision, arguing that
unlike the defendant in Reece, Fede took no affirmative act to obstruct the
police from fulfilling an official obligation.
B.
The ACLU largely echoes defendant’s position by arguing that Fede’s
refusal to permit a warrantless search of his home cannot give rise to
criminality for obstruction. The ACLU notes the record is devoid of any facts
that demonstrate Fede physically blocked the police’s entry, or that he
prevented the officers from breaking the chain lock. Thus, the ACLU
concludes Fede’s refusal to remove the already secured chain lock from his
door simply “maintained the status quo.”
C.
The State urges that our jurisprudence and sound public policy favor the
affirmance of the Appellate Division’s decision, arguing that leaving the chain
lock engaged was a category of obstacle that, under the statute, “affirmatively
interfered” with the police officers’ lawful entry into the home.


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D.
The Attorney General hews closely to the State’s position, agreeing that
Fede created a physical interference or obstacle when he refused to remove the
chain lock securing his apartment door. The Attorney General adds that Fede
further created an obstacle by standing in the doorway of his apartment with
the chain lock engaged, refusing the police entry. Finally, the Attorney
General suggests that Fede’s purpose in blocking the officers’ entry was to
prevent their lawful entry under the community-caretaking doctrine.
III.
As a preliminary matter, we consider the appropriateness of the officers’
actions in breaking the door’s chain lock.
Among their extensive duties, police officers serve a vital community
caretaking role. State v. Vargas, 213 N.J. 301, 323 (2013). In this role, they
are given the latitude to make warrantless entry into a home under the
emergency-aid exception to the warrant requirement. Ibid. (citing State v.
Frankel, 179 N.J. 586, 598-99 (2004)). This is not an unfettered right. It is
“derived from the commonsense understanding that exigent circumstances may
require . . . police . . . to enter a dwelling without a warrant for the purpose of
protecting or preserving life, or preventing serious injury.” State v. Edmonds,
211 N.J. 117, 130 (2012) (quoting Frankel, 179 N.J. at 598). High on the list
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of exigent circumstances is prevention of domestic violence. Our Legislature
codified its intent to ensure that complaints of domestic violence should be
handled immediately by enforcing the laws and protecting the victim when it
enacted the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act of 1991, N.J.S.A. 2C:25-17
to -35.
In Edmonds, we underscored that “[a]llegations of domestic violence,
even if coming from a seemingly anonymous source, cannot be breezily
dismissed and must be investigated.” Id. at 140. We stressed that “[t]he
community-caretaking doctrine is an exception to the warrant requirement, not
a roving commission to conduct a nonconsensual search of a home in the
absence of exigent circumstances.” Id. at 143. We simultaneously made clear
that the emergency-aid exception to the warrant requirement permitted police
to enter a home without a warrant to conduct a welfare check in response to a
report of domestic violence inside the home. Id. at 140. To distinguish roving
searches from permissible entries, we established in Edmonds that,
for a warrantless search to be justified by the emergency-aid doctrine, the State must prove only that (1) the officer had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that an emergency require[d] that he provide immediate assistance to protect or preserve life, or to prevent serious injury and (2) there was a reasonable nexus between the emergency and the area or places to be searched.

[Id. at 132 (internal quotation marks omitted).]
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Where, as here, a report of domestic violence provides the police with an
objectively reasonable basis to believe an emergency exists inside the home, a
warrantless search is permitted for the limited purpose of ensuring the welfare
of the occupants in the home. The police officers at the heart of this matter
acted properly and professionally under the emergency-aid doctrine in
breaking the chain lock to enter defendant’s apartment in order to ascertain the
validity of reported allegations of domestic violence within the apartment.
Their last-resort breaking of the door’s chain lock to gain entry fell squarely
within their community-caretaker duties prompted by exigent circumstances.
IV.
Charging defendant with obstruction, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a), for
refusing to unchain the door lock, however, is a different matter. The police’s
having the right to enter Fede’s home does not lead to the conclusion that Fede’s
refusal to remove the chain from the lock on his door constituted obstruction
within the meaning of the criminal obstruction statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a). In
determining whether defendant’s actions fell within the statute’s proscriptions,
we examine the terms of the statute in relation to the facts of this case.
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A.
Questions of statutory interpretation are legal ones. State v. S.B., 230
N.J. 62, 67 (2017) (citing State v. Revie, 220 N.J. 126, 132 (2014)). Our
review of a trial court’s legal conclusions is de novo, Manalapan Realty, L.P.
v. Twp. Comm. of Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995), and “unconstrained
by deference to the decisions of the trial court or the appellate panel,” S.B.,
230 N.J. at 67 (quoting State v. Grate, 220 N.J. 317, 329 (2015)).
Principles of statutory construction guide our analysis of N.J.S.A.
2C:29-1(a). Our primary goal in interpreting a statute is to determine to the
best of our abilities “the intent of the Legislature, and to give effect to that
intent.” Ibid. (quoting State v. Robinson, 217 N.J. 594, 604 (2014)). We start
with the statute’s plain language, giving terms their ordinary meaning. Ibid. If
the plain language of a statute is clear, that ends the matter; we then are duty
bound to apply that plain meaning. Kean Fed’n of Teachers v. Morell, 233
N.J. 566, 584 (2018).
B.
A person violates N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a)
if he [or she] purposely obstructs, impairs or perverts the administration of law or other governmental function or prevents or attempts to prevent a public servant from lawfully performing an official function by means of flight, intimidation, force, violence, or physical interference or obstacle, or by means of any
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independently unlawful act. This section does not apply to failure to perform a legal duty other than an official duty, or any other means of avoiding compliance with law without affirmative interference with governmental functions.

The statute qualifies what conduct is prohibited -- including obstruction
of the administration of law -- by reference to how the activity is carried out --
including by means of “physical interference or obstacle.” By the plain and
ordinary meaning of the terms of the statute, criminal liability for obstruction
stems only from certain modes of behavior.
To violate N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a), a person must not only “purposely
obstruct[], impair[] or pervert[] the administration of law” but must do so
through one of the specifically enumerated acts in the statute, through
“physical interference or obstacle,” or through an “independently unlawful
act.” In its second sentence, the statute specifically distinguishes the above
behaviors from failures to perform non-official duties and other conduct.
The statute is unambiguous. It defines the explicit means by which one
may be criminally liable for obstruction and requires affirmative interference.
The statute’s second sentence informs interpretation of the statute’s meaning
overall, namely, that the obstruction statute in its entirety requires as a
necessary element an act of affirmative interference. Otherwise, the outer
contours of the statute would be difficult to limit. For example, a defendant
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could be convicted of obstruction for sitting on his couch and declining to
respond to the police officer’s knock.
Commentary from the Model Penal Code supports the requirement of an
affirmative act. N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1 contains similar language to section 242.1 of
the Model Penal Code, which exempts from its reach “failure to perform a
legal duty” and “any other means of avoiding compliance with law without
affirmative interference with governmental functions.” Model Penal Code §
242.1 (Am. Law Inst. 1962). As the commentary explains, “[t]he effect of this
language is to require some affirmative obstructive act.” Id. at cmt. 6.
We hold that to find criminal liability under N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1 requires
an affirmative act or some affirmative interference.
C.
We turn to whether Fede’s refusal to unchain the lock on his door to
permit police to enter his home formed a sufficient factual basis for his
conviction under N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a).
Fede’s refusal to remove the already-fastened chain lock required no
physical effort; it was not an act. It would be both counterintuitive and
contrary to the plain meaning of the term “affirmative,” which requires effort,
to find that defendant affirmatively interfered with the police by failing to
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remove an already-fastened chain lock from his door. Our case law and the
statute do not compel a different result.
The appellate panel relied heavily on Reece, but we find the conduct at
issue in that case distinguishable from Fede’s refusal to unchain his door. In
Reece, officers responded after receiving a dropped 9-1-1 call originating from
Reece’s home. 222 N.J. at 158. Officers sought warrantless entry into
Reece’s home to conduct a welfare check under the emergency-aid doctrine,
but Reece refused consent. Id. at 159. The officers explained that they
“needed to check the house, at which point [Reece] slammed the door closed”
and attempted to lock it. Id. at 159-60. “[T]he officers pushed the door open,”
at which time a violent physical struggle ensued, causing Reece and the three
officers to fall to the floor. Id. at 160.
In our analysis, we recognized that officers had announced their
intention to enter Reece’s home and that they were doing so “in order to
lawfully perform an official function under the emergency-aid doctrine.” Id. at
172. Once we established that the officers’ warrantless entry was lawful, we
concluded that the defendant’s attempt to slam and lock the door on the
officers in an attempt to prevent the officers from performing their official
function constituted obstruction. Ibid. Specifically, we found that Reece
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attempted to prevent the officers’ entry “by means of . . . physical interference
or obstacle.” Ibid. (quoting N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a)).
By the structure and the terms of the obstruction statute, the attempt to
create an obstacle is distinct from a failure to act. Here, Fede did not
undertake an affirmative act. He did not learn of the officers’ need to enter his
home and then attempt to prevent that entry. His use of the ordinary door
chain-lock was his standard practice, not a circumstantial reaction to the
officers’ knock. As the testimony revealed, Fede did not try to prevent the
officers from breaking the chain, offering no physical resistance once the
officers broke the chain and entered. Indeed, he complied with instructions to
wait outside his home while the search was conducted. Although Fede’s
refusal to remove the lock to allow the officers to perform their necessary,
lawful, and focused search is not an advisable course of action and could have
escalated the situation, it was not criminal.
The State argues that the failure to remove the lock here was analogous
to conduct that we found violative in State v. Lashinsky, 81 N.J. 1 (1979). In
that case, we addressed a defendant’s conviction for disorderly conduct for
disobeying an officer’s command to leave the scene of a fatal motor vehicle
accident. Id. at 5-6. The defendant, a photo-journalist, had pulled over to
photograph an accident on the Garden State Parkway. Id. at 6. Because a
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crowd had formed and fluids were leaking from the vehicles, a state trooper
became concerned for crowd safety. Id. at 6-7. After the trooper repeatedly
asked the defendant to move back from the scene, the defendant “engaged the
trooper in a heated argument,” lasting several minutes. Id. at 7. The trooper
arrested the defendant when “it became quite apparent that the photographer
had no intention of removing himself from the scene.” Ibid.
On appeal from his conviction, Lashinsky argued that the factual basis
for his conviction was improper “because he did not directly, physically
interfere with the officer’s movement.” Id. at 8-9. The statute at issue in
Lashinsky, N.J.S.A. 2A:170-29(2)(b), made it unlawful for a person to
“obstruct, molest or interfere with another person who is lawfully in any
place.” Id. at 9. In affirming Lashinsky’s conviction, we found that the
language of the statute “[did] not by its express terms import the notion that
the prohibited conduct must be physical in nature.” Id. at 9. We held that
Lashinsky’s refusal to leave the scene of an accident after being instructed to
do so provided a sufficient factual basis for his conviction under the disorderly
person statute. Id. at 11-12.
The wholly distinct statute at issue in Lashinsky, as well as the very
different context of that case, involving not entry into a home but rather a
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protective relocation of spectators in a public place, renders Lashinsky
inapplicable here.
In sum, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a) clearly states that any means of alleged
obstruction other than those explicitly listed must be accompanied by
“affirmative interference” to run afoul of the criminal obstruction statute.
Here, there was no such “affirmative interference,” nor did defendant’s failure
to remove the chain lock from the door fit into any of the statute’s enumerated
modes of behaviors. There was thus no factual basis for Fede’s obstruction
conviction under the circumstances of this case.

Outcome: Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and
vacate Fede’s conviction.

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