Opinion ID: 1540460
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Propriety of Custodial Sentence

Text: Because he found that it merged with defendant's capital murder conviction, the trial court dismissed the felony murder conviction at the sentencing hearing. On the remaining counts, the court imposed a custodial sentence of 224 years with 87 1/2 years of parole ineligibility. Defendant does not challenge the validity of those convictions but claims only that the sentence is excessive and manifestly illegal. We disagree. In sentencing defendant, the trial court identified and weighed the aggravating and mitigating factors as required by N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1a & b. The court found four aggravating factors: (1) the heinous, cruel, or depraved nature of the crimes; (2) the gravity and seriousness of harm inflicted; (3) the risk that defendant will commit another offense; and (4) the need to deter. The court found only one mitigating factor, namely, that defendant had no history of prior criminal activity. Based on its finding that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating, the court concluded that consecutive sentences and sentences with parole stipulations were warranted. The court recognized that it had imposed a substantial sentence calling for consecutive sentences and periods of parole eligibility because the Court finds that they are warranted by the horror of the case and the damage done to the victims who suffered over substantial periods of time. Defendant suggests that in the event we were to reverse her murder conviction, she would have to be resentenced in accordance with the guidelines contained in State v. Yarbough, 100 N.J. 627, 643-44 (1985), particularly those guidelines governing the overall outer limit on the cumulation of consecutive sentences. Although we reverse defendant's murder conviction, we refuse to order adjustment of her custodial sentences on remand, so as to have them comply with Yarbough 's consecutive sentencing guideline. As we recognized in Yarbough, even within the general parameters that we have announced there are cases so extreme and so extraordinary that deviation from the guidelines may be called for. 100 N.J. at 647 (emphasis added). No one can doubt that defendant's brutal pattern of conduct involving the various victims fits the exception we envisioned in Yarbough. Nonetheless, we have serious reservations about the length of the custodial term imposed and believe that a more realistic sentence would be one that ensured that Moore would be ineligible for parole for the remainder of her life. We thus defer to the trial court with respect to the custodial sentences it imposed and leave to its discretion any reconsideration following disposition of the murder count. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment entered on the murder conviction and imposition of the death sentence, and remand the matter for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.