Opinion ID: 2071519
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Supplemental Directive

Text: Subsequent to Brimage's plea, the Attorney General issued additional guidelines in its 1997 Supplemental Directive; however, the Supplemental Directive fails to limit the discretion authorized by Section II.4 and thus maintains the resulting intercounty disparity. The Supplemental Directive was developed in response to Governor Christine Todd Whitman's Drug Enforcement, Education and Awareness Program, which required the Attorney General to issue new, revised guidelines concerning prosecutorial charging, case disposition, and plea bargaining policies to ensure that the CDRA is aggressively and uniformly enforced in court. Governor's Drug Enforcement, Education and Awareness Program, at iv (Oct. 8, 1996). The Supplemental Directive mandates, among other requirements, that each county reduce its plea policies to writing and review the policies at least once a year; that downward departures shall not be permitted except as provided in the Attorney General's Guidelines; that both downward and upward departures and all cooperation agreements shall be memorialized in writing; that the prosecutor shall seek imposition of the appropriate Drug Enforcement and Demand Reduction penalties and driver's license suspensions pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:35-15 to -16; and that offenders may be sentenced to treatment in lieu of imprisonment only if they meet a long list of explicit conditions. Supplemental Directive, supra, § III.1-4, 6(a)-(b), 9(a). However, the Supplemental Directive declares that the previous Guidelines, except as expressly provided, are hereby reaffirmed, and shall remain in full force and effect. Id. § II. Thus, while the Directive states that the Guidelines are intended and shall hereinafter be interpreted to establish drug prosecution policies that must be followed by every county prosecutor's office, the Directive nevertheless permits each county to adopt its own standards pursuant to Section II.4. Id. § II. Just as occurred under the 1992 Guidelines, the discretion allowed by the Supplemental Directive also led to actual disparity in the plea offer policies adopted by various counties. As of May 1997, for school zone cases where the offense did not occurr on school property, some counties provided a list of standard plea offers based on the nature of defendants criminal history and the amount or nature of drugs involved in the crime (Mercer and Middlesex Counties); another established two standard plea offers, one for all cases involving less than one ounce of marijuana and one for all other cases (Morris County); and still others adopted policies reiterating the language in Section II.3 of the Attorney General's 1992 Guidelines, which states that the minimum term of imprisonment shall be probation conditioned on 364 days in county jail (Ocean and Atlantic Counties).