Title: State v. Charles Meekins

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

Document:

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. CHARLES MEEKINS, Defendant-Appellant. Argued February 18, 2004 Decided July 8, 2004 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Patricia A. Nichols, Designated Counsel, argued the cause for appellant (Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney). Adrienne B. Reim, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Peter C. Harvey, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney). JUSTICE WALLACE delivered the opinion of the Court. The original No Early Release Act (pre-amendment NERA), L. 1997, c. 117, 2, was enacted in 1997 and provided for a mandatory minimum prison term of 85% of the sentence imposed for first and second degree violent crimes. On two separate occasions, the Appellate Division limited the application of pre-amendment NERA to the maximum ordinary term portion of an extended term sentence. Effective June 29, 2001, the Legislature amended NERA to require the minimum parole ineligibility period to be calculated based upon the sentence actually imposed without regard to whether it was an ordinary or an extended sentence. N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2b, L. 2001, c. 129, 1. The question presented is whether the 85% minimum term applies to the extended portion of the sentence a defendant receives under pre-amendment NERA. Given our trial courts significant reliance on case law applying pre-amendment NERA only to the maximum ordinary term portion of a defendant s extended term sentence, we answer the question in the negative. We hold that when applying pre-amendment NERA to an extended term sentence, the trial court shall limit defendant s parole ineligibility period to 85% of the maximum ordinary term sentence. [L. 1997, c. 117, 2a.] When the trial court imposed the sentence and applied pre-amendment NERA to the entirety of the extended term sentence in this case, it did not have the benefit of an appellate court interpretation of pre-amendment NERA in the context of an extended sentence because Allen and Andino had not been decided. Subsequent to the trial court s imposition of sentence, the Appellate Division and this Court addressed several aspects of pre-amendment NERA. [Id. at 120.] The dissenting justices agreed with the Appellate Division s finding that the language of pre-amendment NERA was clear and unambiguous on its face, but the dissenters found nothing in the statute to suggest that murder was not within its coverage. Ibid. Those justices compared Manzie to pre-amendment NERA s interaction with the Graves Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6c, noting: [T]he application of [pre-amendment] NERA to murder is an analogue to its application to Graves Act offenses. The Graves Act provides parole ineligibility at, or between, one-third and one-half of [the] defendant s sentence. Yet we have imposed the 85% [pre-amendment] NERA disqualifier upon otherwise qualified Graves Act defendants. To the extent that [pre-amendment] NERA has been applied to Graves Act offenses without a statutory amendment, it follows that no amendment is required here. Like the murder statute, the Graves Act sets up a distinct sentencing scheme for firearms offenses. If there was no need to amend the Graves Act to apply [pre-amendment] NERA, there is no need to amend the murder statute. [Id. at 122 (citations omitted).] In another murder case, the Appellate Division stated that a pre-amendment NERA mandatory term with respect to an extended term sentence should be considered in a manner consistent with Manzie. Allen, supra, 337 N.J. Super. at 271-72. Therefore, in order to avoid the irrational result of a criminal getting less real time with an extended term that would not be subject to pre-amendment NERA than with an ordinary term subject to pre-amendment NERA, the court concluded that the imposition of an extended term for a first or second degree violent crime (as defined in [pre-amendment NERA]) must embody a parole ineligibility term at least equal to the [pre-amendment] NERA sentence applicable to the maximum ordinary term for the degree of crime involved. Id. at 273-74. The court also noted that if another statute expressly required or authorized a longer mandatory or discretionary parole ineligibility term on an extended term sentence, it could be longer than the NERA portion applied to the ordinary term. Id. at 274. In the wake of the Manzie and Allen decisions limiting the reach of pre-amendment NERA, the Legislature amended the statute, effective June 29, 2001, to provide in pertinent part: a. A court imposing a sentence of incarceration for a crime of the first or second degree enumerated in subsection d. of this section shall fix a minimum term of 85% of the sentence imposed, during which the defendant shall not be eligible for parole. b. The minimum term required by subsection a. of this section shall be fixed as a part of every sentence of incarceration imposed upon every conviction of a crime enumerated in subsection d. of this section, whether the sentence of incarceration is determined pursuant to N.J.S. 2C:43-6, N.J.S. 2C:43-7 [extended terms], N.J.S. 2C:11-3 [murder] or any other provision of law, and shall be calculated based upon the sentence of incarceration actually imposed. [N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2; L. 2001, c. 129, 1 (emphasis added).] This amendment only applies prospectively. State v. Parolin, 171 N.J. 223, 233 (2002). STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. CHARLES MEEKINS, Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED July 8, 2004 Chief Justice Poritz PRESIDING OPINION BY Justice Wallace CONCURRING/DISSENTING OPINIONS BY DISSENTING OPINION BY