Court Opinion

ID: 9649606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:03:22.898929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:12.700412
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
concurring.
I join in the Court’s disposition of the “three strikes” issue. I disagree with the Court’s conclusion that its holding reflects the *226intent of the Legislature. Ante at 224. I have little doubt that the Legislature will be surprised to learn that a defendant convicted on the same day on two indictments for robberies committed on separate occasions is ineligible' for sentencing under the “Three Strikes” law on the occasion of his third conviction, but that he would have been eligible for such sentencing if his first two convictions had occurred on successive days.
Nevertheless, I concur in the Court’s holding because the statutory language is clear and unambiguous in requiring that the two prior convictions occurred on “two or more prior and separate occasions.” N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7(a) (emphasis added). Although I seriously doubt that the Legislature contemplated the result we reach, our precedents clearly require that we strictly construe criminal statutes. See State v. Galloway, 133 N.J. 631, 658-59, 628 A.2d 735 (1993); State v. Valentin, 105 N.J. 14, 17, 519 A.2d 322 (1987).
Despite my belief that the Court’s application of the statute is inconsistent with the legislative will, the Court’s conclusion is plausible not only because of the literal language of the “Three Strikes” law, but also because the uniform construction of the former Habitual Offender Act supports the Court’s result. As the Court explains, the analogous provision of former Title 2A, the “Habitual Offender” Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:85-12, repealed September 1,1979, was amended in 1951 to provide:
Conviction of two or more of such crimes or high misdemeanors charged in one indictment or accusation, or in two or more indictments or accusations consolidated for trial, shall be deemed to be only one conviction.
[L. 1951, c. 344.]
Decisions construing the 1951 amendment to the Habitual Offender Act, see State v. McCall, 14 N.J. 538, 548, 103 A.2d 376 (1954); State v. Williams, 167 N.J.Super. 57, 63, 400 A.2d 513 (App.Div.1979); State v. Rowe, 140 N.J.Super. 5, 8-9, 354 A.2d 701 (App.Div.1976), as well as decisions construing the 1940 amendment, L. 1940, c. 219, that referred simply to “[a]ny person who on three separate occasions has been convicted ...,” see State v. Culver, 30 N.J.Super. 561, 567, 105 A.2d 429 (App.Div.1954), *227treated convictions entered on the same date as only one conviction for purposes of eligibility for habitual offender status.
It should be noted that defendant’s two prior 1985 robbery convictions in Union County were authorized by Rule 3:25A-1, pursuant to which indictments pending against one defendant in tv?o counties may be consolidated “for purposes of entering a plea or for sentencing.” That form of consolidation differs from the requirement in the 1951 amendment to the Habitual Offender Act providing that “convictions of two or more ... crimes ... charged in two or more indictments ... consolidated for trial shall be deemed to be only one conviction.” (emphasis added). Nevertheless, in McCall, supra, the Court observed that the phrase “consolidated for trial” should not be given a “literal technical meaning” but rather should be “liberally construed to serve the general legislative policy.” 14 N.J. at 548, 103 A.2d 376. Because in McCall defendant on two occasions entered guilty (or non vult) pleas to multiple allegations in separate indictments, the Court’s observation suggests that, at least for purposes of the Habitual Offender Act, charges in multiple indictments consolidated for purposes of a guilty plea on the same day constituted only one conviction.
The Court’s construction of the statute produces the inexplicable result that pleas on successive days to two charges subject to the Three Strikes law result in eligibility for Three Strikes sentencing but pleas on the same day to such charges do not. In my view, although anomalous, that construction is consistent with both the statutory language and with the longstanding interpretation of the comparable provision in the Habitual Offender Act. If the Legislature prefers a different result, it should amend the statute.