## Facts

- David T. Pomianek, Jr., a white employee of a municipal public works department, worked with Steven Brodie, Jr., an African-American coworker.
- Coworkers lured Brodie into a fenced storage cage at a garage and locked him inside for roughly three to five minutes while others laughed.
- While Brodie was confined, Pomianek made a remark about “throw[ing] a banana in the cage,” which Brodie understood as a racial insult and found humiliating.
- The State charged Pomianek with multiple offenses, including harassment (as predicate offenses), bias intimidation under N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a), and official misconduct predicated on the bias-intimidation conviction.
- At trial, the jury acquitted Pomianek under the bias-intimidation theories requiring proof of biased purpose or knowledge, but convicted him under subsection (a)(3), which turned on the victim’s reasonable belief; it also convicted him of harassment and, based on the bias-intimidation conviction, official misconduct.
- On appeal, the intermediate appellate court construed subsection (a)(3) to require proof of defendant’s biased intent to avoid constitutional problems, reversed the bias-intimidation and dependent official-misconduct convictions, and left the harassment convictions intact.
- The New Jersey Supreme Court granted review to decide the constitutionality of subsection (a)(3).

## Issues

1. Whether N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a)(3) violates due process as unconstitutionally vague by permitting a bias-intimidation conviction based on the victim’s reasonable belief about bias motivation rather than the defendant’s culpable mental state.
2. Whether, if subsection (a)(3) is unconstitutional, the bias-intimidation conviction and the official-misconduct conviction predicated on it must be vacated, while unrelated harassment convictions remain valid.

## Decision

- The court held N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a)(3) facially unconstitutional as void for vagueness under due process.
- The court vacated Pomianek’s bias-intimidation conviction under subsection (a)(3).
- The court vacated the official-misconduct conviction to the extent it depended on the invalid bias-intimidation conviction.
- The court left Pomianek’s harassment convictions undisturbed.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal statute is void for vagueness if it fails to give fair notice of prohibited conduct and fails to provide standards that constrain arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement.
- Enhanced criminal liability for a bias crime generally must be tied to the defendant’s culpable mental state (such as purpose or knowledge) concerning bias motivation.
- A statute that makes guilt depend on a victim’s reasonable belief about the defendant’s bias motivation, rather than on the defendant’s mens rea, can deny fair notice and invite inconsistent application.
- Courts may not cure unconstitutional vagueness by adopting a construction that effectively rewrites statutory text and structure beyond plausible interpretation.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated New Jersey’s victim-perception-based bias-intimidation provision, holding that due process forbids imposing bias-crime liability based on the victim’s reasonable belief about bias motivation when the State does not prove the defendant acted with a biased purpose or knowledge, and it vacated convictions dependent on that unconstitutional theory while preserving independent harassment convictions.


State v. Pomianek, 221 N.J. 66 (2015)