Court Opinion

ID: 9757531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:44:54.907277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:40.617740
License: Public Domain

Jacobs, J.
(concurring) : In view of his offense and his background the defendant Poteet’s sentence was entirely appropriate without regard to whether he admitted his guilt at sentencing; I therefore join in the affirmance. However, the record of the proceeding during which he and his co-defendant Borowski were sentenced evidenced such a disturbing approach that I hasten to disavow it. At the trial the defendants persisted in their claims of innocence but *500the jury disbelieved them and returned verdicts of guilty. When they appeared for sentencing each was entitled to judicious disposition in the particular light of his presentenee report (cf. State v. Kunz, 55 N. J. 128 (1969)) without additional penalty or jeopardy to his right of appeal because of his denial of guilt. See Miler v. United States, 255 A. 2d 497 (D. C. App. 1969); Scott v. United States, 135 U. S. App. D. C. 377, 419 F. 2d 264 (1969); Thomas v. United States, 368 F. 2d 941 (5 Cir. 1966). As the court put it in Miler:
A trial judge may not penalize a defendant for not admitting guilt and expressing remorse once the jury has found him guilty. Such an admission might jeopardize his right of appeal or a motion for a new trial. Nor is it proper for the trial judge to impose a heavier sentence because he believes the defendant perjured himself in maintaining his innocence on the stand, or because he exercised his right of a jury trial. 255 A. 2d at 498.
When asked by the trial judge whether he had anything to say, the defendant Borowski acknowledged that he had been found guilty of a very serious offense; but he stated that he could still be a useful citizen, that he regretted that he had to stand there, and that he would probably regret it for the rest of his life. Thereupon the trial judge told Borowski that he did not believe that he regretted anything since he had not admitted his guilt. The trial judge followed this with six or seven rapid-fire inquiries to Borowski as to whether he admitted participation in the robbery and he received negative replies. Finally the trial judge enticingly told Borowski, “Poteet can’t keep you out of jail, I can, if you tell me the truth”; only then was Borowski willing to say that he was guilty. There were further questions by the trial judge who, after receiving Borowski’s answers, said: “That saved you ten years.”
It is true that Borowski is not before us and that the trial judge did not press Poteet in similar fashion for an admission of guilt though he did say to him after he was sentenced: “Until you learn to come clean with me I don’t have to give you any consideration and I’ve given you some, *501sir.” The approach evidenced by the sentencing record before us was so wide of the mark (Miler, supra, 255 A. 2d 497; Scott, supra, 419 F. 2d 264; Thomas, supra, 368 F. 2d 941) that special pains should be taken administratively to see that it is not repeated elsewhere in our State. Indeed it would appear that the time is well ripe not only for the establishment of more suitable sentencing guidelines at the trial level but also for the establishment of more effective sentencing review.
As early as 1935 the Judicial Council of New Jersey recommended the establishment of a special “Court of Sentence Adjustment” and, during the past decades, committees of this Court have repeatedly recommended that a special sentencing review part of the Appellate Division be created with a view towards the establishment of proper sentencing guidelines, the elimination of irrational sentencing disparities, and the imposition of more justly enlightened individual sentences. Varying recommendations with the same high goals have been made elsewhere and a studied choice of most any one of them would probably represent an advance over our present system. See Coburn, “Disparity in Sentences and Appellate Review of Sentencing,” 25 Rutgers L. Rev. 207 (1971); N. Y. Times, Oct. 8, 1972, § 4 (News of the Week in Review), at 6, col. 4; Time, Oct. 9, 1972 at 55; cf. ABA Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice — Standards Relating to Appellate Review of Sentences (1968); ABA Standards Relating to Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures (1968).
In State v. Johnson, 67 N. J. Super. 414 (App. Div. 1961) it was held that our appellate courts could review sentences and since then they have exercised a measure of control over their length. See State v. Bess, 53 N. J. 10, 18 (1968). But they have confined their review to individual trial abuses of sentencing discretion (State v. Tyson, 43 N. J. 411, 417 (1964), cert. denied, 380 U. S. 987, 85 S. Ct. 1359, 14 L. Ed. 2d 279 (1965)) and have not taken steps towards the more comprehensive goals envisioned by the various recommenda*502tions for specialized sentencing bodies or controls. While Johnson and its progeny have been all to the good they should not be permitted to retard selective implementation of the recommendations; the subject should again be dealt with either at Judicial Conference or otherwise with a view towards suitably expeditious action.
Justice Hall joins this concurrence.
Jacobs and Hall, JJ., concur in result.
For affirmance — Chief Justice Weintraub, Justices Jacobs, Proctor, Hall and Mountain and Judges Conford and Sullivan — 7.
For reversal — None.