Court Opinion

ID: 9650428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:36:43.964292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:21.442824
License: Public Domain

Justice LONG,
concurring.
I am in agreement with the majority that this matter should be remanded to the trial judge for a statement of the reasons he refused to permit defendant’s stepfather to speak at sentencing. I write separately to express my concern over a thread that runs through the Court’s opinion with which I disagree and which I believe sends the wrong message.
In my view, the lights extended to crime victims by statute, N.J.S.A. 52:4B-34 to -38 and N.J.S.A. 2C:44-6, and later by the Constitution, N.J. Const, art. 1 § 22, are not pertinent to the question of whether and under what circumstances a defendant’s family member with relevant information should be permitted to speak at sentencing. Certainly, the presentation of a victim impact statement is a legal entitlement. But that entitlement does not suggest, even obliquely, a concomitant disentitlement on the part of defendant to produce a family witness where that witness has evidence bearing on a sentencing factor.
The majority insists on viewing a victim’s right to an impact statement as somehow diminishing a defendant’s application to present a relevant sentencing witness. That perspective bears with it a stigma of disapproval that I deem legally unwarranted and an incursion on the principle that our courts are open to all witnesses who have proper information to present.
Accordingly, if upon a proffer it appears that a defendant’s family member has evidence that bears on an aggravating or mitigating factor, the defendant must be permitted to present it. Indeed, if an aggravating or mitigating factor is rooted in the record, the judge has no discretion to refuse to consider it. State v. Dalziel, 182 N.J. 494, 504-05, 867 A.2d 1167 (2005). That is not, *309as the majority suggests, some rump process that has developed in our courts, but is at the very heart of a sentencing proceeding at which the judge is required to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors in order to craft an appropriate disposition. Obviously, if a person has evidence that will affect the aggravating-mitigating calculus, he should be heard.
To be sure, the judge is not without discretion in that realm. For example, upon a proffer, he may act to avert the cumulation of evidence. But that discretion does not extend to the barring of relevant evidence. Obviously, in ruling either way, the judge must explain his reasons, thus paving the way for appellate review. However, it goes without saying that a courtroom “practice” never to permit any defendant’s family member to speak would be arbitrary and unreasonable.
Chief Justice RABNER
joins in this opinion.