Court Opinion

ID: 9728422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:07:25.025203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:48.522127
License: Public Domain

LONG and LaVECCHIA, JJ.,
concurring and dissenting.
We would reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division substantially for the reasons expressed in the persuasive opinion of Judge D’ltalia. The trial court granted judgment to plaintiff, Gerald McCann directing the City Clerk to process in accordance with applicable law McCann’s petition to be a candidate for Mayor of Jersey City in the May 8, 2001 nonpartisan election. The court concluded that although McCann’s earlier conviction, while serving as mayor of Jersey City in 1991, warranted his removal from office, it did not work a permanent disqualification under the Forfeiture Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2. According to the trial court that disability is reserved for those whose criminal conviction is for “an offense involving or touching on his public office, position or employment.” N.J.S.A 2C:5-2d. The court found that because the acts that formed the basis of the crime were committed before McCann became mayor, his crime did not “touch” or “involve” his office.
*334The trial court also considered the alternative grounds urged as a bar to McCann’s holding public office: the forfeiture provision of the Faulkner Act, N.J.S.A. 40:69A-166. That section provides:
Any person convicted of a crime or offense involving moral turpitude shall be ineligible to assume any municipal office, position or employment in a municipality governed pursuant to this act, and upon conviction thereof while in office shall forfeit his office....
The trial court concluded that the Faulkner Act’s forfeiture provision is applicable on its face because Jersey City is a Faulkner Act municipality and McCann’s crimes certainly involved moral turpitude. However, relying on Matthews v. City of Atlantic City, 84 N.J. 153, 417 A.2d 1011 (1980), and Gangemi v. Rosengard, 44 N.J. 166, 207 A.2d 665 (1965), the court concluded that N.J.S.A 40:69A-166 is unconstitutional as applied to McCann. The statute was found to violate equal protection because it subjects candidates for mayor in Faulkner Act municipalities to stricter eligibility requirements than are applicable in other municipalities with no discernible and persuasive justification for the disparate treatment.
On appeal by Louis Manzo, a rival candidate for mayor, the Appellate Division reversed on both grounds. Notwithstanding that McCann’s criminal conduct took place before he became mayor, the court concluded that his conviction nonetheless “touched on his public office” because the conviction occurred while McCann held public office and because his offenses were of such character as to “demonstrate his untrustworthiness and disrespect for government agencies,” thereby rendering “suspect any future service by McCann to the State or its subdivisions in any capacity.” 338 N.J.Super. 509 at 523, 770 A.2d 723 (App.Div. 2001). The Appellate Division also concluded that the Faulkner Act bars McCann from again holding public office in Jersey City.
The matter comes before the Court on an emergent appeal by McCann. The Court has rejected his appeal by the slimmest of margins, three to two. Two members of the three person majority have rejected the argument that McCann is ineligible to be a candidate for the office of mayor of Jersey City by dint of the *335Forfeiture Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2d. We concur in their disposition of that issue. We dissent, however, from the holding of the majority that the Faulkner Act’s forfeiture provision disqualifies McCann, for all time, from holding public office or employment in--and only in-Faulkner Act municipalities because his criminal activities constituted crimes of moral turpitude. We write to add the following.
I.
The contention is that a criminal act must be considered to “touch” an office if the conviction of criminality occurs during the occupancy of public office by the felon, and if the underlying crime is such as to reflect so adversely on the character and integrity of the actor that no reasonable person would be confident in his ever again wielding government power. That argument is flawed in several respects.
First, the argument does not fit the language, design, and legislative intent underlying N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2d. N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2 requires the forfeiture of office when the holder is convicted” of a crime of dishonesty, whether or not the criminal act takes place during the period of office holding. N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2a(l). By its own terms, the person convicted must be in office at the time of conviction. Otherwise, there is nothing to forfeit. That is the extent of the congruity of office holding and conviction in N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2. There is nothing in the language of the statute to indicate that the Legislature intended that the coincidence of office holding and conviction should have consequence beyond forfeiture of present office, namely the future ineligibility to hold office under subsection d. That is not what the Legislature intended by its use of the phrase “involving or touching on his public office.”
The legislative intent in using that phrase was obviously to differentiate between those convicted of crimes of dishonesty during office, N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2a(1), who forfeit that office upon conviction, and those “convicted of an offense involving or touching such office, position or employment,” who not only forfeit that *336office upon conviction, N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2a(2), but are thereafter precluded from again holding public office, N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2d. The Appellate Division’s expansive reading of the phrase “touching on his public office” renders N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2a(2) mere surplusage because it would not matter whether a crime of dishonesty actually employed the trappings of office in its execution if the same result obtained: permanent preclusion from future office holding under N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2d. The Legislature obviously intended to distinguish between two classes of felons, those who commit dishonest acts, and those who use their office to do so. We must respect that legislative classification because the distinction it makes seems both sensible and real. Taxpayers Ass’n of Weymouth Township v. Weymouth Township, 80 N.J. 6, 43, 364 A.2d 1016 (1976), cert. denied sub nom., Feldman v. Weymouth Township, 430 U.S. 977, 97 S. Ct. 1672, 52 L. Ed. 2d 373 (1977) (concluding that “New Jersey has always required a real and substantial relationship between the classification and the governmental purpose which it purportedly serves”).
We decline to blur, indeed obliterate, the distinction. Yet, that is the result of the Appellate Division’s holding, which, we note, resorts to our prior decision in Moore v. Youth Correctional Institute, 119 N.J. 256, 269, 574 A.2d 983 (1990), as support for its view, although a fair reading of that case reveals that it, like State v. Botti, 189 N.J.Super. 127, 458 A.2d 1333 (Law Div.1983), is indeed entirely distinguishable on its facts. Instead, we read the statute sensibly, and give effect to its plain meaning. Merin v. Maglaki, 126 N.J. 430, 435, 599 A.2d 1256 (1992) (stating that “primary task for the Court is to ‘effectuate the legislative intent in light of the language used and the objects sought to be achieved’ ”) (quoting State v. Maguire, 84 N.J. 508, 514, 423 A.2d 294 (1980)); Watt v. Mayor and Council of Borough of Franklin, 21 N.J. 274, 277, 121 A.2d 499 (1956) (declaring that “it is the function of the court to ascertain the intention of the legislature from the plain meaning of the statute and to apply it to the facts as it finds them”). We therefore concur with Justices Stein and Zazzali concerning the application of the Forfeiture Act.
*337II.
The disqualification provision of the Faulkner Act provides:
Any person convicted of a crime or offense involving moral turpitude shall be ineligible to assume any municipal office, position or employment in a municipality governed pursuant to this act, and upon conviction thereof while in office shall forfeit his office; provided, however any person convicted of such an offense who has achieved a degree of rehabilitation which in the opinion of the appointing authority and the Civil Service Commission, as to employment subject to the Civil Service law, indicates his employment would not be incompatible with the welfare of society and the aims and objectives of the governmental agency, may be considered eligible to apply for employment or be continued in employment. Any person who shall violate any of the provisions of sections 17-14, 17-15, or 17-16 of this article shall upon conviction thereof in a court of competent jurisdiction forfeit his office.
[N.J.S.A. 40:69A-166 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted).]
The Faulkner Act, which was enacted in 1950, applies to only 127 of the State’s 566 municipalities. Given the inapplicability of the Forfeiture Act’s prohibition on future office holding, McCann could be a candidate in the other 439 municipalities, assuming he satisfied other requirements. The State is thus called upon to explain the reasons and justification for the differing treatment between municipalities.
Under our Constitution, because a heightened bar to eligibility for office holding impacts indirectly on the right to vote, the proffered justification must be supported by something more than “mere rationality.” Matthews v. City of Atlantic City, supra, 84 N.J. at 168, 417 A.2d 1011. Rather, a “requirement or restriction for candidates for elective office must be reasonably and suitably tailored to further legitimate governmental objectives.” Id. at 169, 417 A.2d 1011; see also Gangemi v. Rosengard, supra, 44 N.J. at 175, 207 A.2d 665 (striking as unconstitutional under the equal protection clause, Faulkner Act requirement that elected officers in cities of the first class be registered voters for at least two years, whereas elected officers in other Faulkner Act municipalities were not subject to such a durational requirement). That is the equal protection test we employ under our State Constitution. Greenberg v. Kimmelman, 99 N.J. 552, 567, 494 A.2d 294 (1985) (stating that “[i]n striking the balance, we have considered the *338nature of the affected right, the extent to which the governmental restriction intrudes upon it, and the public need for the restriction”); State in the Interest of L.M., 229 N.J.Super. 88, 97, 550 A.2d 1252 (App.Div.1988) (stating that “focus is on whether an appropriate governmental interest is suitably furthered by the disparate treatment embodied in the action complained of’) (citing Barone v. Department of Human Servs., 107 N.J. 355, 368, 526 A.2d 1055 (1987)), certif. denied, 114 N.J. 485, 555 A.2d 609 (1989).
Obviously, applying the proper standard is critical and the enhanced standard enunciated in Matthews could make a difference in a specific case. However, because the proffered justification for the Faulkner Act’s standard for eligibility for office does not even meet the less stringent rational basis test employed under the United States Constitution, we will analyze the case from the perspective of both standards.
III.
The focus of our inquiry thus is whether there is a rational basis to be advanced for precluding persons convicted of crimes of moral turpitude from holding office in Faulkner Act municipalities while permitting such persons to serve in other forms of government. The Faulkner Act essentially adopted the disqualification provision that had been prevalent in our law for many years. Indeed, at the time of Faulkner’s adoption, the State Civil Service Law broadly authorized the Chief Examiner to disqualify for testing or to refuse to certify any person “guilty of a crime” or “infamous or notoriously disgraceful conduct” or “who has been dismissed from the public service for delinquency.” N.J.S. 11:9-6 (L. 1930, c. 176, § 19). Likewise, specific disqualification provisions barred persons convicted of a crime of moral turpitude from becoming a member of a police or fire department. N.J.S. 40:47-3 (1945). (L. 1917, c. 152, Art. XVI, § 3). Thus, Faulkner was not an enactment that broke with the past and “began” to address a problem incrementally. It merely incorporated long-standing notions of who should be disqualified from public office.
*339On the contrary, it was the Forfeiture Act, enacted eighteen years after Faulkner, as part of a full scale revision of the criminal code, that first broke with the past. The Forfeiture Act provides:
A person holding any public office, position, or employment, elective or appointive, under the government of this State or any agency or political subdivision thereof, who is convicted of an offense shall forfeit such office or position if:
(1) He is convicted under the laws of this State of an offense involving dishonesty or of a crime of the third degree or above or under the laws of another state or of the United States of an offense or a crime which, if committed in this State, would be such an offense or crime;
(2) He is convicted of an offense involving or touching such office, position or employment; or
(3) The Constitution or a statute other than the code so provides.
[N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2.]
More importantly, subdivision 2(d) provides for perpetual disqualification from holding public office:
In addition to the punishment prescribed for the offense, and the forfeiture set forth in subsection a. of N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2, any person convicted of an offense involving or touching on his public office, position or employment shall be forever disqualified from holding any office or position of honor, trust or profit under this State or any of its administrative or political subdivisions.
[N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2d (emphasis added).]
The Forfeiture Act is a careful legislative judgment that modulated prior law by distinguishing what justifies forfeiture from what justifies disqualification. That it was intended to have broad effect is revealed by the fact that it is part and parcel of Title 2C and obviously is meant to govern all persons convicted of all criminal offenses. Indeed, upon its enactment, with the exception of the Faulkner Act, all other disqualification laws were repealed. What occurred here seems obvious to us. The Legislature simply overlooked Faulkner when it enacted the Forfeiture Act~no more and no less.
IV.
In attempting to justify Faulkner’s disqualification provision, the majority at bottom points to only one purported justification: the great power of mayors in Faulkner Act municipalities. Although it may well be that in some Faulkner Act municipalities, *340the power of the mayor exceeds that in some other forms of government, the argument is wide of the mark. All “New Jersey municipalities enjoy the same basic powers and have the same basic responsibilities.” 34 New Jersey Practice, Local Government Law, § 1.8, at 14 (Michael A. Pane) (rev. 3d ed. 1999). Although the various forms of government, within and without Faulkner Act municipalities, allocate legislative and executive power differently, the reservoir of power collectively remains the same.
Moreover, greater mayoral powers are not unique to Faulkner Act forms, that is, some Faulkner Act forms have a strong mayor and weak council. N.J.S.A 40:69A-31 to -67 (mayor-council plan); N.J.S.A 40:69A-115 to -132 (small municipality plan); N.J.S.A 40:69A-149.1 to -149.16 (mayor-council-administrator plan). Some Faulkner Act forms have a strong council and weak mayor. N.J.S.A. 40:69A-81 to -98 (council-manager plan). Likewise, some non-Faulkner Act forms have a strong mayor and weak council. N.J.S.A. 40A.-62-1 to -7 (towns); N.J.S.A 40A:61-2 to -7 (cities); N.J.S.A. 40A:60-1 to -7 (boroughs). Some non-Faulkner Act forms have a strong council and a weak mayor. N.J.S.A. 40:79-1 to -6 (municipal manager); N.J.S.A. 40:70-1 to -3 (commission form of government); N.J.S.A. 40A:63-8 (villages); N.J.S.A. 40A:63-1 to -7 (townships). In short, no specific power feature distinguishes all Faulkner Act forms of government from all non-Faulkner Act forms.
Further, even if a specific Faulkner Act form of government is one of “strong” mayor, it correspondingly has a “weak” council, yet the eligibility requirements for office holding remain the same for both offices. What possible rationale can be advanced to justify the legislative judgment that heightened eligibility requirements are necessary for those seeking to occupy a “weak” council office in a Faulkner Act municipality but not those seeking to occupy a “strong” council position in other Faulkner and non-Faulkner forms of municipal government? The answer is none.
In our view there is no discernible legislative objective to be advanced by precluding persons convicted of crimes of moral *341turpitude from holding office only in Faulkner Act municipalities. The differing treatment does not suitably, and in an appropriately tailored fashion, advance a rational legislative purpose, as it must for its impact, albeit indirect, affects the right to vote. Matthews, supra. Nor does it meet even the lesser rational basis standard. The Faulkner Act’s heightened eligibility standard is unconstitutional as applied to plaintiff in our view.
V.
For those reasons and for the reasons expressed by Judge DTtalia, we respectfully dissent.
For affirmance as modified — Justices STEIN, COLEMAN and ZAZZALI — 3.
For reversal — Justices LONG and LaVECCHIA — 2.