By Ben Horowitz
The Star-Ledger
November 27, 2011
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/jose_feliciano_may_testify_in.html
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| Jose Feliciano pictured in court on Nov. 14. |
CHATHAM — Will former church custodian Jose Feliciano take the witness stand to testify in his own defense in the fatal stabbing of a Chatham priest?
That question will finally be answered this week in the murder trial which resumes tomorrow in Superior Court in Morristown after being recessed midway through the defense case on Nov. 15.
Feliciano's public defender, Neill Hamilton, has declined to say whether he will put his client on the stand. But signs are pointing in that direction.
Feliciano may be the only witness who can support the defense's contention that he stabbed the Rev. Edward Hinds of St. Patrick Church on Oct. 22, 2009 after the priest provoked him.
That made the killing a "passion/provocation manslaughter," and not a murder, according to Hamilton.
"For the price (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 told the jury in his opening argument when the trial began on Oct. 20.
Thus far, however, no witnesses have backed up that claim. And Feliciano may be the only person who can.
Four church employees — three of them brought to the stand by Hamilton — have testified that they never saw anything unusual going on between Hinds and Feliciano.
Even a personal friend of Feliciano — fellow ex-church custodian John Bongo — said he was not aware of any "romantic relationship" between Hinds and Feliciano.
Under cross-examination by Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi, Bongo acknowledged telling an investigator that if there had been an unusual relationship between Hinds and Feliciano, he would have known about it.
Feliciano detailed his version of the relationship in a video-recorded interview with Capt. Jeffrey Paul of the Morris County Prosecutor's Office on Oct. 24, 2009 — two days after Hinds was slain.
Feliciano said he stabbed Hinds after the priest threatened to fire him for ending an unwanted, four-year sexual affair.
That statement has not yet surfaced in the trial, however. The prosecution did not call Paul to testify while presenting its case and did not show the video. Judge Thomas Manahan has ruled the defense may use the video only if it brings Feliciano to the witness stand.
In its case, the prosecution presented numerous pieces of physical evidence linking Feliciano to the crime, including Hinds' DNA that was found in blood on a jacket worn by Feliciano and Hinds' cell phone, which was found discarded in a park across the street from Feliciano's home in Easton, Pa., two days after the slaying.
The prosecution contends that Feliciano stabbed Hinds in a planned attack after the priest fired him upon learning that he was a fugitive from criminal charges less than five months before Feliciano would have retired.
Feliciano, now 66, failed to show up for a 1988 court appearance in Philadelphia, where he faced three charges, including indecent assault on a 7-year-old girl and corrupting the morals of a minor.
Manahan ruled that the jury could not learn the nature of the charges and could be told only that Feliciano was accused of three charges involving a minor. Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi presented that information to the jury.
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