Opinion ID: 2169441
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Relationship Between Judicial Authority Over Dropping Prosecutions and Such Authority over Pursuing Prosecutions.

Text: The more difficult question then arises as to the extent to which the Court can by rule-making regulate the prosecutor's conduct when he determines, in the course of the intervention process fixed by R. 3:28, that he will not consent to the 3-month postponement specified by R. 3:28 (b) or to either a dismissal of the charges or a further 3-month postponement, as provided for by R. 3:28 (c) (1) and (2). This question encompasses the Court's power to permit judicial review of such a refusal for abuse of discretion, Guideline 8, or on any other standard of review. At first blush, it would seem that if the prosecutor's affirmative decision to prosecute is unreviewable for discretion when there is no court rule on pre-trial intervention such a decision cannot automatically be rendered reviewable by the mere adoption of a practice rule founded on the court's acknowledged authority to oversee a prosecutor's decision not to prosecute. However, further reflection casts a different light on the matter. What would seem ordinarily to constitute absolute judicial unreviewability as a matter of principle may perhaps be more plausibly explained by the impracticability of establishing such motivations as bad faith or unconstitutional discrimination when prosecutorial decision-making as to whether or not to prosecute is carried on ad hoc without visible controlling standards or regulations. [5] And since there are 21 prosecutors, some of whom have numerous assistants who exercise the actual decision-making function in this area, it would be questionable to attempt to justify an analogy of total unreviewability with the absolute immunity from judicial oversight of a governor's exercise, for example, of his power of veto over legislation. Cf. Allan v. Durand, 137 N.J.L. 30 (Sup. Ct. 1948); Passaic County Bar Ass'n v. Hughes, 108 N.J. Super. 161 (Ch. Div. 1969). Thus, when a prosecutor, on separation-of-power grounds, questioned the power of a legislative committee to compel him to disclose names of wiretappers working for him, the Court held that the executive chain of command is not sufficiently prominent to enable the prosecutor to claim any high prerogative which might be enjoyed by the state executive with respect to withholding information from the Legislature. Morss v. Forbes, supra, 24 N.J. at 372-373. See also the concurring opinion of Justice Jacobs in the same case (at 377-378). The actual existence of court rules and guidelines with respect to pretrial intervention becomes material to the question of legitimacy of judicial review of prosecutorial insistence on prosecution in two respects. Firstly, the enunciation of standards and criteria to govern a prosecutor's assent to intervention also provides at least a partial basis upon which to determine whether a refusal to assent is arbitrary, not an honest exercise of discretion in good faith, or discriminatorily motivated contrary to principles of equal protection, whichever of these may be determined to be appropriate criteria for judicial review of the exercise of discretion. Secondly, the formal existence of such rules per se creates a species of new right on the part of the defendant  a right he did not have before  to make application for and have formal consideration of an application for pretrial intervention. The existence of such a procedure should engender, in a system of criminal justice committed to the notion of fundamental fairness, an assurance to applicants for relief of at least a degree of relative fairness and impartiality in the treatment of applications. Cf. Monks v. N.J. State Parole Board, 58 N.J. 238, 246-248 (1971); State v. Kunz, 55 N.J. 128, 144-145 (1969); Avant v. Clifford, 67 N.J. 496, 520-521 (1975). [6] I thus conclude that the constitutional authority for judicial review of prosecutorial refusal to consent to pretrial intervention can survive the principle of separation of powers against the background of formal PTI rules, but that the criteria for overruling such a decision of the prosecutor must be extremely narrow. I proceed to the consideration of those criteria.