Court Opinion

ID: 9749887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:02:08.14574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:59.277008
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, J.,
dissenting.
For the reasons expressed by me in State v. Roach, 146 N.J. 208, 234-38, 680 A.2d 634 (Coleman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1021, 117 S.Ct. 540, 136 L.Ed.2d 424 (1996), I disagree with the Court’s determination that defendant’s consecutive sentences for two felony murders should be modified on the grounds of disparity and non-uniformity. I would affirm the consecutive sentences substantially for the reasons expressed by the trial court and the Appellate Division. It is an abuse of the standard controlling appellate review of sentences articulated in State v. Ghertler, 114 N.J. 383, 388, 555 A.2d 553 (1989), for the Court to reduce a sentence, in the name of disparity, when the sentence complies with all appropriate sentencing guidelines. The guidelines do not mandate that the Court reduce defendant’s sentence to make it consistent with a co-defendant’s lesser sentence that admittedly was erroneously imposed. The Court’s judgment changing the consecutive terms to concurrent terms gives defendant a free murder.
Chief Justice PORITZ and Justice VERNIERO join in this opinion.
For reversal — Justices STEIN, LONG, LaVECCHIA and ZAZZALI — 4.
For affirmance — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices COLEMAN and VERNIERO — 3.