By Ben Horowitz
The Star-Ledger
October 21, 2011
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/10/in_trial_attorney_for_church_c.html
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| Jose Feliciano, a former church custodian accused of murder in the stabbing death of the Rev. Edward Hinds, a Chatham priest, enters the Morris County Courthouse in Morristown. (Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger) |
A Chatham priest remained silent after learning of church custodian Jose Feliciano’s criminal past, but made him pay such a “high price” that he angered the janitor into killing him, a defense attorney said today.
Feliciano’s public defender, Neill Hamilton, detailed his defense for the first time this afternoon in his opening statement in the former janitor’s murder trial. Feliciano is accused in the Oct. 22, 2009 stabbing death of the Rev. Edward Hinds of St. Patrick Church.
“For the price he (Hinds) made Mr. Feliciano pay, for the things he made Mr. Feliciano do, he provoked Mr. Feliciano so much that a reasonable person would fly into a homicidal rage,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton admitted in Superior Court in Morristown that Feliciano, 66, of Easton, Pa., killed Hinds, 61, and noted that he confessed to the slaying in an interview with a prosecutor’s investigator.
But Hamilton told the jury the killing was a “passion/provocation manslaughter” and not a murder. “The provocation impassioned Mr. Feliciano so much that he did not have time to cool off,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton would not specify what Hinds’ price was, or exactly what Hinds made Feliciano do.
In the interview with the investigator, Feliciano said he killed Hinds after the priest threatened to fire him for ending a four-year sexual affair.
However, Judge Thomas Manahan ruled that Hamilton could not mention the interview’s reference to a sexual affair in his opening statement, because it would be inadmissible “hearsay.” He said he may use it only if Feliciano takes the stand. Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said he does not intend to introduce the interview.
Hamilton, in his opening statement, said the chain of events began in 1988 when Feliciano was charged in Philadelphia with “a crime involving a juvenile” and he “jumped bail.” Feliciano was charged with indecent assault on a 7-year-old girl, but Manahan has not yet ruled whether that charge may be told to the jury.
In 1991, Hamilton said, Feliciano was hired as a custodian at St. Patrick Church and worked under a different priest until Hinds came on board in 2004.
Under orders from Catholic Church officials following the priest sex-abuse scandal, churches were conducting criminal background checks on employees at that time. Feliciano’s fingerprint card was filled in 2004 and went into the church office, but was “never sent to State Police,” according to Hamilton.
Then, in 2009, the Diocese of Paterson was conducting an audit to ensure that all employees and volunteers who had contact with children had been fingerprinted and undergone criminal background checks.
In August 2009, Hinds was told by a church employee that Feliciano hadn’t been fingerprinted or checked, and Hinds told the employee, “I’ll take care of it,” Hamilton pointed out.
Then, on Oct. 6, 2009, state police in Pennsylvania sent Hinds the warrant from 1988, and told him “he should be fired immediately,” Hamilton said.
“He did not fire him,” Hamilton said. “He waited and waited and waited until the auditors were right on top of him before he let him go.”
After the opening statements, the first witness, Chatham police officer Daryle Kelly, testified about finding Hinds dead on the floor of the kitchen rectory on the morning of Oct. 23, 2009.
Kelly said he at first thought it was a medical call, but realized it was a “suspicious death” after seeing the wounds on Hinds’ chest.
Feliciano was acting “overly emotional” as he tried to administer CPR to Hinds, Kelly said. “He was shouting ‘What could possibly have happened to Father Ed?’ ”
Kelly said he didn’t suspect Feliciano of being the killer at that point, but took note of the fact that his behavior was “strange” and reported it to other officers.
Bianchi detailed the case against Feliciano in his opening statement this morning, calling it a “calculated” murder.
The trial will continue on Monday morning.
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