Defendant Alex Brown-Eskengren, with two accomplices, attacked minor plaintiff R.J. after a party. Defendant was charged criminally for this attack and eventually pled guilty to third-degree aggravated assault on the condition that he would be admitted to pre-trial intervention (PTI). As part of the plea, he gave a factual allocution regarding the attack, testifying that he struck plaintiff. The issue in R.J. v. Brown-Eskengren, 2025 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1620 (App. Div. Aug. 27, 2025) was whether the defendant could be compelled to answer questions in his civil suit deposition regarding his sworn statement and testimony given in the criminal case.
Plaintiff R.J. sued defendant for injuries he suffered during the attack. After plaintiff requested defendant’s deposition, the trial court ordered that it be adjourned until the resolution of defendant’s criminal charges. After his criminal plea, he was deposed. During the deposition, plaintiff’s counsel tried to impeach defendant using his guilty plea allocution. (A criminal allocution consists of statements and testimony made by defendant with respect to entering a plea for a criminal charge.)
Defendant’s counsel objected on the grounds that the plea allocution was inadmissible. However, the trial court ordered that defendant could be cross-examined regarding his plea allocution. Defense counsel then unilaterally cancelled the deposition.
Thereafter, plaintiff’s counsel filed an application to compel the defendant’s deposition. The trial court judge granted the application and ordered that defendant’s deposition be taken within forty-five days. Additionally, the trial court entered an order compelling defendant to answer questions regarding his sworn statement and testimony in the criminal case. The court found that the question of admissibility could be addressed closer to trial and that the rules covering discovery in a civil case did not prevent plaintiff from cross-examining defendant regarding his guilty plea allocution at the deposition.
Defendant appealed these orders, contending that the questions regarding his guilty plea allocution should be barred.
Initially, the Appellate Division noted that in evaluating a trial court’s evidentiary rulings, an appellate court would “generally defer to a trial court’s disposition of discovery matters unless the court has abused its discretion or its determination is based on a mistake and understanding of the applicable law.” Further, the court noted that New Jersey’s discovery rules are to be construed liberally in favor of broad pre-trial discovery.
The Appellate Division cited to R. 4:10-2(a) which stated that “parties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action, whether it relates to the claim or defense of the party seeking discovery or to the claim or defense of any other party. . .” The Court did note that the parties’ discovery rights are not unlimited and that protective orders can be entered which would protect a party or person “from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression or undue burden or expense.”
Here, defendant did not contend that his guilty plea allocution was privileged or that it would cause annoyance, embarrassment, oppression or undue burden or expense which would require a protective order. Defendant simply argued that the allocution was inadmissible at trial. The Court pointed out that the test for discoverability under the civil court rules was limited to whether the evidence was relevant, not whether it was admissible.
The Appellate Division concluded that “the trial court did not abuse its discretion in compelling defendant’s attendance at deposition and permitting cross-examination of him regarding his guilty plea allocution.” The Court agreed that the trial court correctly found that the ultimate question of admissibility was to be determined after the deposition. Therefore, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s ruling that defendant must sit for a deposition and that he must answer questions regarding his sworn statement and testimony in his criminal case.
