Court Opinion

ID: 9754359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:57:10.155247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:52.533536
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
dissenting.
If society is to win the war on drugs, it must wage that war effectively. Society will not win the war so long as it imprisons only street-level offenders. Profits are the key to the drug trade. Profiteers must be eliminated. Who are the profiteers or kingpins in this trade?
*180Under the majority’s analysis, any three people who agree to sell drugs may be sentenced as kingpins. To test the principle, consider the case of three young people caught up on drugs. Two of them decide to go to New York to buy several hundred dollars worth of drugs. They invite a third with a car to join them. To afford their habit, they decide to sell some of the drugs to others in their neighborhood. One of them arranges the trip to New York and tells the others where to go in the City to get the drugs. Another, on return, decides how to get rid of the extra drugs. Which of these would the Legislature view as a “drug kingpin”? At least two of them fit the majority’s definition. Is that all there is to the drug-kingpin law?
I am certain that the Legislature intended more than this. In its own words, the Legislature intended that our laws “must target for expedited prosecution and enhanced, punishment those repeat drug offenders and upper echelon members of organized narcotics trafficking networks who pose the greatest danger to society.” N.J.S.A. 2C:35-1.1c (emphasis added). It is those upper-echelon members and kingpins that the Legislature intends to hunt down and punish, not those covered by the dictionary definitions used by the Court.
The majority correctly concludes that the “drug-kingpin” statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3, is not, on its face, unconstitutionally vague. Ante at 170, 631 A.2d at 950. The words of the statute, such as “organizer,” “supervisor,” “financier,” or “manager,” are indeed familiar and easily understandable. Although such terms are not vague in themselves, the trial court’s failure to relate the terms of the statute to the statutory purposes leaves the jury without the guidance necessary to assess whether the defendant is in fact an “upper-echelon” member of a drug-trafficking network, as was intended by the Legislature for enhanced punishment. Absent instructions relating the general terms of the Act to its purposes, a defendant does not receive a fair trial. It is for that reason that I dissent.
*181I
To place the issues of this case in context, we need restate some of the salient history of the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act of 1986 (Drug Act or Comprehensive Act), L.1987, c. 106; N.J.S.A. 2C:35-1 to -23. For that purpose we draw on the article by then Attorney General W. Cary Edwards in the Seton Hall Legislative Journal.
Prior to the 1986 Drug Act, New Jersey had ineffective laws for prosecution of drug offenses.
The most notable defect in the system was the failure to provide the courts any meaningful [gradation] scheme by which to distinguish or rank the seriousness of a given drug offense.
* * * *
The single most important feature of the Comprehensive Act is to transfer the criminal offenses previously defined in the Controlled Act to the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice. As a result every drug offense will be designated as a crime of a certain specified degree, thereby invoking all of the sentencing provisions found in the penal code. The New Jersey Supreme Court recently predicted that as a direct result of the passage of the Comprehensive Act, the sentencing process of drug offenders “will be made more rational.”
* * * *
In addition to transferring all major drug offenses into the penal code, the Comprehensive Act creates several new offenses designed to address specific problem areas, such as the profits reaped by drug kingpins, and the need to provide special protection for children against the activities of predatory drug distributors. It should be noted, however, that the stem new sentencing provisions envisioned by the Comprehensive Act necessarily address every level and every actor along the distribution chain. While the Act focuses special attention on the activities of the upper echelon drug distributors and profiteers who are the most culpable offenders and who pose the greatest danger to society, the Act does not ignore the need to impose appropriate punishment upon the far more numerous low level dealers and even users. In this way, the Act recognizes that drug kingpins could not operate profitably absent a steady demand for controlled dangerous substances.
[W. Cary Edwards, An Overview of the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act of 1987, 13 Seton Hall Legis.J. 5, 9, 12, 13 (1989) (footnote omitted).]
The section of the Drug Act before the Court today, aimed at “profiteers” and “drug kingpins,” N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3, was patterned after the State’s racketeering laws. The Drug Act provides that a *182mandatory penalty of life imprisonment with a twenty-five-year period of parole ineligibility be imposed on a person convicted as “a leader of a narcotics trafficking network.” Under another section of the Act, the Legislature targets repeat offenders, subjecting them to mandatory extended terms of imprisonment. N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6f. Moreover, in other sections of the Act, school-zone violators and those who employ juveniles in drug-distribution schemes are subjected to mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment with parole bars. N.J.S.A. 2C:35-6 and -7.
Specifically, N.J.S.A. 20:35-3 provides:
A person is a leader of a narcotics trafficking network if he conspires with others as an organizer, supervisor, financier or manager, to engage for profit in a scheme or course of conduct to unlawfully manufacture, distribute, dispense, bring into or transport in this State methamphetamine, lysergic acid diethylamide, phencyclidine or any controlled dangerous substance classified in Schedule I or II, or any controlled substance analog thereof.
The Official Commentary to that section states:
The express purpose of this section is to target for enhanced punishment the upper echelon members, the so-called kingpins, of an organized drug distribution scheme.
Because of the nature of the complex and well-organized hierarchies that may exist in drug trafficking operations, the persons who profit most from these illegal enterprises frequently are able to insulate themselves within the network. This section is specifically aimed at these individuals.
[Official Commentary to the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act (L.1987, c. 106), reprinted in 9 Cnm.JusLQ. 149, 152 (1987).]
Is the majority’s construction of the section “aimed at these individuals”?
II
In a long series of cases, we have held that an essential ingredient to a fair trial is that adequate and understandable instructions be given to the jury. The “charge is a road map to guide the jury, and without an appropriate charge a jury can take a wrong turn in its deliberations.” State v. Martin, 119 N.J. 2,15, 573 A.2d 1359 (1990). “[E]rroneous instructions on material issues are presumed to be reversible error, excusable only if they are harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Crisantos, 102 *183N.J. 265, 273, 508 A.2d 167 (1986). Correct jury charges are necessary for a fair trial. State v. Green, 86 N.J. 281, 287, 430 A.2d 914 (1981).
We have insisted regularly that courts give content to statutory language in their charges to juries. When “an instruction solely in the terms of the language of the statute will not give sufficient guidance to the jury,” we have required the definition and construction of pertinent terms for the jury. State v. Olivio, 123 N.J. 550, 567, 589 A.2d 597 (1991). In Olivio, we dealt with the need to formulate a standard to define the term “mentally defective” in order to apply N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2c(2), sexual assault of a mentally-defective person. We looked to the legislative history of the statute to incorporate within the jury charge the Legislature’s concern that the statutory definition be sufficiently narrow so as not to impinge on the consensual sexual activity of only mildly-retarded persons. Olivio, 123 N.J. at 556, 589 A.2d 597.
Earlier, in State v. Concepcion, 111 N.J. 373, 545 A.2d 119 (1988), we explained that “it is not always enough simply to read [to a jury] the applicable provision of the Criminal Code * * Id. at 379, 545 A.2d 119. We held that the charge in Concepcion concerning the statutory definition of reckless manslaughter did not adequately guide the jury in determining the defendant’s guilt or innocence. The jury requested a clarification of the definition of recklessness. We determined that the jury should have been provided with more than an abstract repetition of the statutory definition. The jury’s understanding of the statute should have been clarified by the court providing comparisons or illustrative examples. Id. at 381, 545 A.2d 119.
In Town Tobacconist v. Kimmelman, 94 N.J. 85, 462 A.2d 573 (1983), on the basis of legislative history, we eliminated statutory language about drug paraphernalia to relieve juries of any confusion with regard to the meaning of the terms in the statute. See also State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 211, 524 A.2d 188 (1987) (eliminating the words “outrageously wanton and vile” is a better way to explain to juries the meaning of the c(4)e aggravating *184factor of “torture/battery” in a capital case). No reason exists why courts should not add language to relate the terms of a statute to the legislative intent.
Ill
In this case, the trial court gave the jury no real guidance about the individuals at whom the Mngpin “section is specifically aimed * * Official Commentary to the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act, supra, 9 Crim.Just.Q. at 152. The jury was not instructed that in order to find the defendant guilty under N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3, his behavior should have been that of an upper-echelon member of a drug network. As charged, the jury could have applied this statute to any street-level seller as long as there were two others involved in the deal.
In a recent decision, the Appellate Division provided direction as to how the “drug-kingpin” law should be explained to juries. State v. Alexander, 264 N.J.Super. 102, 624 A.2d 48 (App.Div. 1993) (certification pending). The court stated:
A jury called upon to determine whether a defendant is a “leader of a narcotics trafficking network” within the meaning of N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3 should be instructed, in substance, that to justify conviction, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that during the period alleged in the indictment the defendant functioned as an “upper echelon member” of an organized “drug trafficking network” and, in that capacity, conspired “with others as an organizer, supervisor, financier or manager to engage for profit in a scheme or course of conduct to unlawfully manufacture, distribute, dispense, bring into or transport in this State” any of the controlled dangerous substances enumerated in the statute. “Organized ‘drug trafficking network’” should be defined as a group of individuals who, by reason of their number and interrelationships, constitute a structured organization or system engaged in the manufacture or distribution of illegal drugs. “Upper echelon member” should be defined as someone who stands on an upper level of the chain of command of a drug trafficking network, exercising command authority over members of that organization whose status is subordinate to his. An “upper” level is a level which is superior to street-level distributors and to their immediate supervisors or suppliers.
[Id. at 110-11, 624 A.2d 48 (footnote omitted).]
Because an instruction of that sort had not been given to the jury, the court held that the jury “did not determine whether defendant’s status and activities warranted the punishment which the Legislature has reserved for a ‘leader of a narcotics trafficking *185network.’ ” Id. at 111, 624 A.2d 48. While we might wish to qualify the last sentence of the Appellate Division’s formulation of a charge, I believe that jury instructions closely following the Alexander proposed charge must be given.
Although the defendant in this case has not posed his arguments in this same way and our grant of certification was limited to the “issue of whether N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3, the Drug Kingpin statute, is unconstitutional, facially or as applied,” the issue of the jury charge is inescapable. In effect, the statute was applied unconstitutionally because it was applied too vaguely to guide the jury’s function. Besides, the issue must be resolved in this case or in Alexander, supra. I would resolve it now as the Appellate Division panel did in Alexander. 264 NJ.Super. at 110-11, 624 A.2d 48. I believe that construction best advances the goals of the 1986 Comprehensive Drug Reform Act.
Other jurisdictions have similarly approached drug-kingpin laws. In Williams v. State, 329 Md. 1, 616 A.2d 1275, 1284 (1992), the court analyzed the state’s “drug-kingpin” statute in light of legislative intent and found that it “must read the words ‘organizer,’ ‘supervisor,’ ‘financier,’ and ‘manager’ in light of the independent connotations of the word ‘kingpin.’ ” The court believed that to do otherwise would “impermissibly render surplusage the crucial words ‘Drug Kingpin,’ by which the statute is entitled.” Ibid.; see also State v. Moeller, 105 Or.App. 434, 806 P.2d 130, 133 (holding that Oregon’s enhanced sentencing statute for drug kingpins violates its state constitution because the Act contained the phrase “part of a drug cultivation, manufacture or delivery scheme or network” that was “susceptible to an abundance of possible meanings and applications, all or none of which may be the intended ones”), rev. allowed, 311 Or. 349, 811 \P.2d 144, rev. dismissed, 312 Or. 76, 815 P.2d 701 (1991) (before| review by the Oregon Supreme Court, the Legislature amended the law). Although the words “drug kingpin” or “upper-echelon member” do not appear in the title of N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3, it is overwhelmingly clear that these are the individuals that the Legislature means to punish.
*186The jury charge in this case did not make any reference to the legislative purpose to convict “upper-echelon member” or “drug kingpin” and therefore provided insufficient guidance for the jury to determine whether defendant was in fact a leader of a narcotics-trafficking network. The consequences of the jury’s finding of guilt — that is, life imprisonment — are too high to permit speculation about what the jury might have thought the statute meant. State .v. Grunow, 102 N.J. 133, 148, 506 A.2d 708 (1986). One juror, when polled, qualified a vote of guilt on the “kingpin” count as “[a]ssuming * * * the key word which was listed in the charge was or * * The juror was referring to the court’s charge that the statute was to be read in the disjunctive in defining the leader of the drug-trafficking network “as an organizer, supervisor, financier or manager.” (Emphasis added). We can expect that such a juror, carefully parsing the words of the statute, would apply with equal care the Legislature’s intention to target for conviction the “upper-echelon member” and not just one who organizes a trip for two street-level offenders. Paradoxically, the transcript recites that immediately after the jury was polled a “spectator” was heard to say, “[t]hat’s unfair about the kingpin charge.”
I would resolve now the question of how the drug-kingpin law should be charged to a jury. I believe that we will conclude that a correct jury charge must relate the terms of the statute, such as “organizer, supervisor, financier or manager,” to the legislative purpose to target profiteers and kingpins in the upper echelons of the drug trade. The absence of such a charge requires that we reverse the conviction under N.J.S.A. 2C:35-3 and remand for retrial of that charge.
Justices HANDLER and STEIN join in this opinion.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK and GARIBALDI — 4.
For reversal and remandment — Justices HANDLER, O’HERN and STEIN — 3.