Court Opinion

ID: 9749564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:50:59.923775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:51.997153
License: Public Domain

Weintraub, C. J.
(concurring). I join in the opinion of Mr. Justice Erancis but add some comments.
*326A misconception seems to float vaguely in this area that a “fine” is a debt and that to imprison an offender because he lacks funds to pay a fine is akin to imprisonment for debt. A fine, no less than a jail term, is punishment, and is imposed in the hope that it will correct the offender and deter him and others from transgressing. If the offender, because of indigency, cannot be thus stung through his pocketbook, the only alternative may be imprisonment. If that is so, he is jailed, not because he is indigent, but because he committed an offense and there is no other way to reach and reshape him. I see no constitutional obstacle to that result unless it can be maintained that an indigent is constitutionally entitled to-commit with impunity any and every offense for which a man of means would be merely fined.
Indeed, a man of wealth may well be jailed for a wrong for which a stiff fine would suffice in the case of a man of moderate means, if the sentencing judge concludes the offender, because of his wealth, would be unimpressed by a dollar penalty; and an offender jailed on that account would be imprisoned, not because he has worldly goods, but because he committed an offense and there is no other way to achieve the aims of punishment. Cf. State v. Ivan, 33 N. J. 197, 202-203 (1960).
Nor is it accurate to say that a man might be held beyond the authorized maximum jail term if he remains in jail because a fine has not been paid. The authorized maximum is the authorized maximum jail term plus the period of time for which, by statute, an offender may be held if the authorized fine is not paid.
Nor is it correct to say that the purpose of imprisonment for nonpayment of a fine is to “compel” its payment. Obviously that is not so. The offender is not held in custody until the fine is fully paid. On the contrary, the fine is liquidated by the imprisonment, and far from yielding payment, such imprisonment results in the loss to the State of both the fine and the cost of the additional confinement. The point to be remembered is that the in-lieu-of imprisonment is substituted punishment to achieve a punitive aim that could not be at-*327tamed by way of a fine. The statute provides for the liquidation of a fine by time in jail precisely because the fine is intended to punish. Indeed, it would be intolerable to jail an indigent offender until the fine is paid without reduction for the period of detention, for that would smack of imprisonment for nonpayment of a debt rather than of punishment for the penal misdeed.
Again upon the erroneous thesis that the offender is being imprisoned for nonpayment of a debt, it could be argued that he ought never be jailed unless his failure to pay is found to be “wilful.” But the concept of a “wilful” failure, applicable when a defendant in a civil matter is jailed for noncompliance wtih a court order, does not fit into the scene before us. The difficulty of defining and applying a concept of wilfulness to a prison population must be evident. Further, if the failure to pay is not wilful, then what? Should the offender remain free even though the effort to correct him by a fine has failed because he is economically immune?
When a sentencing judge imposes a fine, with or without a jail term, he thereby determines that the pain of the fine must be experienced to achieve the purpose of the prmishment of the prisoner. So too when a parole board concludes the time served plus the payment of the fine will suffice. It is wrong to assume, as I think the dissenting opinion does, that the board here found the aims of punishment had been realized and became a mere collection agency pursuing an unpaid debt. Rather we should assume the board understood the values involved and expected the prisoner to experience the economic hurt, or its jail-time equivalent, as a necessary precondition for a release compatible with the welfare of society.
This is not to say that installment payments should not be permitted. If the goals of punishment can be reached in that way, of course they should. But it would be wrong for this Court to say the statute or the Constitution grants to all prisoners an automatic right to be released, to be returned only if they “wilfully” fail to pay. This would be *328an unrealistic approach to the problem. It makes more sense to leave the subject with the parole board for its evaluation of the likelihood of successful punishment by installment payments. I would not assume that a failure to release a man upon an installment program must be arbitrary.1. And, of course, a decision not to do so in a particular case hardly raises a “constitutional” issue.
A fine being intended as punishment, the Legislature understandably provided for a jail-time equivalent. I agree with Mr. Justice Prancis that the Legislature could well review periodically the daily dollar-rate of substituted jail time. And it should be remembered that any statutory dollar equation can be no more than a rough approximation of the relative punitive stings, and hence it would be flitting to permit both the sentencing judge and the parole board to decide in any given case that the statutory formula is inappropriate and that a lesser substituted jail time would suffice.

 So, too, I will not assume that the board’s new rule, apparently providing for release and installment payments in all cases, constitutes an improper exercise of the board’s discretion. I do not know enough about the proposed implementation of that rule to judge it.