Court Opinion

ID: 9862614
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:34:23.305646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:15.963205
License: Public Domain

Justice PATTERSON,
dissenting.
As the majority notes, the statute construed in this case, N.J.S.A. 2C:44-5(b), provides that “[wjhen a defendant who has previously been sentenced to imprisonment is subsequently sentenced to another term for an offense committed prior to the former sentence ... (1) [t]he multiple sentences imposed shall so far as possible conform to subsection a. of this section.” N.J.S.A 2C:44-5(b) to -5(b)(1). N.J.S.A 2C:44^5(a)(2) provides that “[n]ot more than one sentence for an extended term shall be imposed.” For the reasons expressed in my dissenting opinion in the companion case State v. Hudson, 209 N.J. 513, 39 A.3d 150 (2012), I would construe the language “so far as possible” in N.J.S.A 2C:44—5(b)(1) to permit sentencing courts limited discretion in sentencing pursuant to this provision. Accordingly, I would affirm the determination of the Appellate Division.
This case illustrates the importance of the limited discretion that, in my view, was intended by the Legislature when it enacted N.J.S.A 2C:44-5. When she was sentenced for the offense now before the Court, defendant had three prior Municipal Court convictions and nine prior Superior Court convictions, each relating to bad checks or theft, and each involving a different victim. At the time of her September 7, 2007, sentencing for offenses committed in Monmouth County between May and July 2006, defendant had not yet been convicted of the second-degree offense that is the subject of this appeal. Accordingly, the trial court imposed an extended term of eight years on the highest-degree offenses before it, the third-degree bad-checks offenses. Pursuant *557to N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7(a)(4), the trial court was permitted to impose an extended term sentence “for a term which shall be fixed by the court between five and 10 years.” Because her extended term sentence was for a third-degree crime, her maximum exposure for that offense was ten years.
When defendant was sentenced on August 8, 2008, the trial court similarly chose the highest-degree crime before it for the imposition of an extended term sentence. That offense was second-degree theft by deception involving more than one million dollars. Because defendant’s most serious crime was a second-degree offense, the imposition of an extended term increased defendant’s maximum sentencing exposure from ten to twenty years.1 Yet by virtue of the trial court’s careful tailoring of defendant’s sentence, her extended term sentence for her second-degree crime was twelve years, with a six-year period of parole ineligibility. Her combined sentence for all of her offenses was a term of twenty years, a sentence that was within the statutory range for a single extended term sentence for a second-degree offense. N.J.S.A 2C:43-7(a)(3).
Had defendant been sentenced for all of her offenses at the same time before the same court, that court would have had the option of sentencing defendant to an extended term for her most serious offense. Because the sentences were imposed by different judges, however, the majority holds that the second sentencing court lacked the discretion to impose any extended term for the later-sentenced offenses—no matter how such a term would affect defendant’s overall sentence. Under the majority’s ruling, the sentencing court on remand will not have the discretion to sentence defendant to an extended term for the most serious of her many offenses. Accordingly, defendant’s overall sentence will be determined by the sequence of her sentencing proceedings.
*558Today’s decision thus gives defendant a significant advantage over comparable defendants whose crimes are sentenced together, by virtue of nothing more than an accident of timing. As this Court held in Richardson v. Nickolopoulos, 110 N.J. 241, 540 A.2d 1246 (1988), N.J.S.A 2C:44r-5(b) was enacted so that “to the extent possible, sentencing for multiple offenses should not produce disparate results because of the incidental chronology of sentencing.” Richardson, supra, 110 N.J. at 255, 540 A.2d 1246. This ease represents, in my view, precisely such a disparate result.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
For reversal and remandment—Chief Justice RABNER and Justices LONG, LaVECCHIA and ALBIN—4.
For affirmance—Justices HOENS, PATTERSON and Judge WEFING (temporarily assigned)—3.

 While the ordinary term range for a second-degree offense is five to ten years, NJ.S.A. 2C:43-6(a)(2), the extended term range for a second-degree crime is five to twenty years. N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7(a)(3); State v. Pierce, 188 N.J. 155, 168, 902 A.2d 1195 (2006).