Court Opinion

ID: 9734603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:38:58.240252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:49.356725
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Defendant, a gainfully employed twenty-five-year-old with no prior convictions, was indicted for third-degree possession of *46marijuana with intent to distribute within 1000 feet of school property. The indictment’s reference to distribution was based on defendant’s admission that, he would share the 1.5 ounces of marijuana with some friends, not on the basis of an intent to sell the drugs. After Caliguiri applied for admission to the Middlesex County Pretrial Intervention (PTI) program, the prosecutor acknowledged that, apart from the nature of the offense, Caliguiri satisfied all the criteria for admission to that program. He had an unblemished record, good family support, a job, and appeared to be amenable to rehabilitation. In addition, Caliguiri had cooperated with the police by volunteering the name of the seller and the location of the sale. Nonetheless, the State opposed defendant’s admission to PTI on the ground that third-degree school-zone drug offenders were categorically ineligible for PTI.
The Court’s disposition offers defendant some hope of admission to PTI because the Court properly rejects the State’s contention that third-degree school-zone drug offenders are categorically ineligible for PTI. But the faint promise of PTI the Court extends with one hand it retracts substantially with the other by its holding that third-degree school-zone offenders, just like second-degree offenders, must be considered presumptively ineligible for PTI, a presumption so strong that it can be overcome only by “compelling reasons” consisting of evidence of “something extraordinary or unusual, something ‘idiosyncratic,’ in [the defendant’s] background.” State v. Nwobu, 139 N.J. 236, 252, 652 A.2d 1209 (1995) (quoting State v. Jabbour, 118 N.J. 1, 7, 570 A.2d 391 (1990)). I join the Court’s disposition to the extent that it rejects the State’s position that third-degree school-zone offenders are categorically ineligible for PTI. But I cannot join in its holding that third-degree offenders are presumptively ineligible for PTI.
I
I concur with the majority’s conclusion that defendants charged with third-degree school-zone offenses are not categorically ineligi*47ble for PTI. As the majority correctly notes, “[djespite the overall intent to impose severe punishment, the CDRA preserves programs that apply prior to conviction.” Supra at 41, 726 A.2d at 919. Thus, the possibility of PTI admission as an alternative to formal prosecution remains “unaffected by the CDRA’s rejection of post-conviction sentencing alternatives,” ibid., even where, as here, an offender is subject to a mandatory term of imprisonment upon conviction.
As the majority’s decision makes clear, whether a specific offense carries a presumption against PTI admission is unrelated to the severity of the post-conviction sentencing alternatives. Presumptive ineligibility arises only “when the Guidelines express a presumption against PTI” for that particular offense. Supra at 36-37, 726 A.2d at 916-917 (noting that PTI Guideline 3(i) states that PTI applications “should generally be rejected” when underlying offense involves continuing criminal enterprise, organized criminal activity, breach of public trust, violence or threat of violence, or first- or second-degree offense). “The enumerated circumstances ” for which PTI is presumptively unavailable “represent a legislative decision to prevent serious offenders from avoiding prosecution in ordinary circumstances.” Supra at 42, 726 A.2d at 919 (emphasis added). Third-degree school-zone offenses, as the majority concedes, are not among the crimes singled out by the Guidelines for presumptive PTI ineligibility.
Despite its recognition that neither the severity of post-conviction sentencing alternatives nor the PTI Guidelines create a presumption against PTI admission for third-degree offenders, the majority concludes that third-degree school-zone offenders are presumptively ineligible for PTI. Supra at 43, 726 A.2d at 920. In the absence of any legislative support for its conclusion, the majority relies on “[t]he policy underlying the CDRA [which] demonstrates that violating N.J.S.A. 2C:35-7 is a serious offense.” Supra at 42, 726 A.2d at 919. However, the only evidence cited by the Court in illustration of that policy is the “especially stern *48punishments” that adhere upon conviction. Supra at 43, 726 A.2d at 920. The Court reasons that because “[t]he penalty structure for this type of offense is similar' to that for second-degree offenses for which admission to PTI is presumptively unavailable,” ibid, (quoting State v. Baynes, 148 N.J. 434, 449, 690 A.2d 594 (1997)), third-degree school-zone offenders, like all second-degree offenders, must also be presumptively ineligible for PTI admission.
I disagree with that reasoning. First, there is little practical distinction between the majority’s holding that school-zone offenders are presumptively ineligible for PTI and the State’s contention that they are categorically ineligible for that program. Both the majority and the State rely unpersuasively on the sentencing alternatives after trial and conviction to support a presumptive or categorical ineligibility for pre-trial diversion into PTI.
Moreover, to the extent that PTI ineligibility is a function of the “seriousness” of the crime, the Legislature’s very designation of school-zone offenses as crimes of the third degree demonstrates a legislative determination that such offenses are not the equivalent of second-degree crimes in terms of the “seriousness” of the underlying conduct. See supra at 38, 726 A.2d at 917; see also W. Cary Edwards, An Overview of the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act of 1987, 13 Seton Hall Legis. J. 5, 12 (1989) (noting that Legislature designated every drug offense as “crime of a certain specified degree ... to reflect the realities of current distribution and use patterns, as well as modern notions of the relative seriousness of each offense”).
Even the Court’s underlying premise that the “penalty structures” for third-degree school-zone and second-degree offenses are “similar” fails to withstand close scrutiny. As we noted in State v. Brimage, 153 N.J. 1, 8-9, 706 A.2d 1096 (1998), the “nondiscretionary” parole bar of N.J.S.A. 2C:35-7 (Section 7) is in reality subject to waiver in the broad discretion of the prosecutor as part of a plea or post-conviction agreement. See N.J.S.A. 2C:35-12 (Section 12). Because mandatory sentences, by definition, foreclose *49judicial or prosecutorial discretion, we have observed that the sentencing scheme under Sections 7 and 12 is not truly mandatory but must be characterized as “a hybrid, combining mandatory and discretionary features and delegating sentencing authority to both the courts and the prosecutors.” Brimage, supra, 153 N.J. at 8-9, 706 A.2d 1096 (quoting State v. Vasquez, 129 N.J. 189, 199, 609 A.2d 29 (1992)). In contrast, the CDRA permits virtually no discretion to waive the presumption of incarceration for convicted second-degree offenders, see N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(d), and allows such offenders to avoid incarceration' “only in ‘truly extraordinary and unanticipated circumstances.’ ” State v. Soricelli, 156 N.J. 525, 533, 722 A.2d 95 (1999) (quoting State v. Roth, 95 N.J. 334, 358, 471 A.2d 370 (1984)).
That the Legislature deliberately chose to afford prosecutors broad discretion to waive the mandatory term in the case of convicted third-degree offenders, while almost entirely foreclosing that discretion in the case of second-degree offenders, demonstrates that the penalty structures for the two classes of offenses are in fact very different. Accordingly, any superficial “similarities” between the two sentencing schemes, I believe, do not justify the majority’s upgrading of third-degree school-zone offenses for the sole purpose of withholding the possibility of PTI from an entire class of lower-level offenders.
The harshness of the majority’s treating these third-degree offenses as crimes of the second degree for PTI purposes is not at all tempered by its holding that on remand Caliguiri need “only” show compelling reasons for admission. The Court is technically correct in that the “serious injustice” standard applies to second-degree offenders seeking to overcome the presumption of incarceration, while the “compelling reasons” standard is applicable when overcoming a presumption against PTI admission. However, as we held in Nwobu, supra, in order to show sufficient “compelling reasons” to overcome a presumption against PTI admission, “a defendant must demonstrate something extraordinary or unusual, something ‘idiosyncratic,’ in his or her back*50ground” in order to overcome a presumption against admission into PTI. Nwobu, supra, 139 N.J. at 252, 652 A.2d 1209 (quoting Jabbour, supra, 118 N.J. at 7, 570 A.2d 391). That is the identical showing required of a second-degree offender attempting to overcome a presumption of incarceration, a standard recently recognized by this Court in Soricelli, supra, 156 N.J. at 532-34, 722 A.2d 95, as being for all practical purposes insurmountable in the vast majority of cases. The Court’s vague concession that “the weight of the evidence to rebut the presumption against PTI need not be as great as if the defendant had been charged with a second-degree offense,” supra at 44, 726 A.2d at 920, is likely to provide small comfort to Caliguiri and similarly situated defendants.
The Court’s establishment of a new class of lower-level offenders for whom PTI is presumptively unavailable will inevitably lead to the unwarranted incarceration of many defendants who would otherwise appear to be the most suitable for diversion into PTI. The majority’s decision thus undermines the dual underlying purposes of PTI to afford rehabilitative services to appropriate candidates and to relieve the already overburdened criminal justice system by avoiding the prosecution of “victimless” offenses, freeing the courts and prosecutors to pursue more serious criminal matters. See Nwobu, supra, 139 N.J. at 247, 652 A.2d 1209. Because I believe that nothing in the current statutes or PTI Guidelines requires such a result, I respectfully dissent.
Concurring in part; dissenting in part — Justice STEIN — 1.
For affirmance and modification — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices POLLOCK, O’HERN, GARIBALDI, and COLEMAN— 5.