Opinion ID: 1902104
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Conflict between ISP and N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d and 1f(2)

Text: We have thus far assumed that ISP conflicts with N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d and N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1f(2). The Public Defender says it does not. In determining whether there is such a conflict, we shall deal with N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d as if there were no exception. We do so for two reasons: first, given our construction of that exception in prior cases, e.g. State v. Jarbath, 114 N.J. 394, 555 A. 2d 559 (1989), only the rare case will fit the exception; second, given the standards applied to the Program, admission does not depend in the least on a finding of serious injustice; conformance with that standard in admission to ISP, if it ever occurs, would be strictly coincidental. ISP looks to rehabilitation compatible with the safety of the community, not to whether imprisonment constitutes serious injustice. We note further that any case falling within the exception should not have resulted in imprisonment in the first place, a requisite for ISP eligibility, and further that this defendant does not fit within the exception. Finally, if any case out of the approximately 2900 admissions into the Program happened to fit the serious injustice standard, all that it would prove is that the conflict between ISP and the statute is not absolute or inevitable. As a practical matter, as ISP operates, practically every person admitted into the Program guilty of first- or second-degree crimes falls within the mandate of N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d; as a practical matter, the number of admittees, if any, who fit within the exception, are so few that we shall treat the matter as if there are none. Put differently, the State attacks the Program as applied to first- and second-degree offenders on the premise that the Program totally rejects the serious injustice standard in determining admissions; the Public Defender makes no claim to the contrary. The Public Defender and amicus the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, argue that there is no conflict, that ISP falls somewhere between imprisonment and probation, that it is more akin to the former and therefore not in conflict with the statute. Furthermore, they argue, since ISP did not exist when the Code, including N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d, was enacted, the Legislature could not have intended to prohibit the Program, and more than that, subsequent action in the form of supporting appropriations amounts to legislative approval. The latter point amounts to an argument, assuming a conflict when ISP was initially adopted by this Court, that subsequent appropriation action of the Executive and Legislative branches amounts to an amendment of N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d by implication, carving out a further exception to this section. The legislative mandate requires a sentence of imprisonment for all first- and second-degree offenders, and certainly ISP does not conform to that. Although it is true that every ISP applicant must be imprisoned in order to be eligible for the Program, it seems clear that by imprisonment the Legislature meant not simply the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment but service of the statutory sentence, conforming to the statutory mandate. See, e.g., State v. Roth, 95 N.J. 334, 357-58, 471 A. 2d 370 (1984) (interpreting presumption of imprisonment under N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d); see also State v. Johnson, 118 N.J. 10, 15, 570 A. 2d 395 (1990); State v. Jabbour, 118 N.J. 1, 7, 570 A. 2d 391 (1990); State v. Hodge, 95 N.J. 369, 471 A. 2d 389 (1984). The Legislature did not mean, for example, that to comply with the N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d statutory mandate a court could sentence a defendant to twenty years imprisonment and release him the next day into the community under ISP. [10] The fact that on the average ISP admittees spend six months in prison does not render the Program in conformance with N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d; six months on the average is not what the Legislature meant, it meant serving a term, in accordance with the statutes, either between ten and twenty years or between five and ten years, for everyone, not on the average. The Public Defender notes the fact that many defendants are released, without ISP, long before their full term is up, by virtue of the parole statutes. Such release, however, is precisely what the Legislature intended. See N.J.S.A. 30:4-123.51. The N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d mandate of sentence of imprisonment was undoubtedly intended by the Legislature to include the potential of release under parole provisions. That intent is a far cry from attributing to the Legislature, at the time of the adoption of the Code, an alleged similar intent to allow other, nonstatutory, forms of release. If the argument is that because the Legislature contemplated parole, it therefore sanctioned ISP as the equivalent of imprisonment since it somehow resembles parole, the answer is that the resemblance falls far short of suggesting such legislative intent. The minimum imprisonment for a first-degree offense is ten years, with real time likely to be over two years; the average ISP prison time is but six months. And if real time for all first- and second-degree offenders were averaged, we assume it would exceed the ISP average even more. The Legislature need not explicitly amend a statute like N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d every time some other branch of government takes action inconsistent with it in order to avoid the implication that the Legislature concurs. Defendant's argument relies more on N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1f(2), the appeal provision, than on N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d itself. The former section allows the prosecutor to appeal from any sentence of first- or second-degree offenders that is noncustodial or probationary, the language varying somewhat from the N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d mandate of imposing a term of imprisonment. Defendant, noting our language in a different context in State v. Abbati, supra, 99 N.J. at 433, 493 A. 2d 513, argues that ISP is not probation, but, as we there said, lies somewhere between incarceration and probation. The argument fails. Literally, if ISP is not incarceration, then it is, as the statute says, noncustodial even if it is not probation. See State v. Clay, supra, 230 N.J. Super. at 509-27, 553 A. 2d 1356 (penal consequences of ISP under the escape-law statute considered to be noncustodial). [11] Furthermore, while there is no legislative history on the issue, it seems apparent that in using the language of N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1f(2), the Legislature simply wanted to make it clear that when it said imprisonment, it meant imprisonment in fact, that its mandate could not be effected by any means short of incarceration, that suspended sentences, or probation of any kind would not conform to the mandate, and in that respect N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1f(2) was simply aimed at tightening the requirements of N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d. In terms of N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1d and N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1f(2), ISP is probation, albeit a very different form of probation. The provisions allowing prosecutorial appeal, therefore, do nothing to diminish the conflict; indeed, they emphasize it.