Court Opinion

ID: 9766859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:00:42.22799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:26.745464
License: Public Domain

Wachbnbeld, J.
(dissenting). I have no aversion to changing a law when it has become outmoded or contrary to our fundamental concept of justice.
Here the defendant was guilty, without question and by his own admission, of one of the most brutal murders ever recorded. His victim, a small, weak, old man, was unmercifully beaten to death by a horrible onslaught with the butt end of a gun. He was battered into eternity with a savage brutality and frenzied viciousness difficult of description.
The excuse for the heinous crime was simple. The murderer wanted money to buy narcotics. Eor him we have changed the law as it has stood on our books for many years, and I wonder why.
When changing society in altered times indicates a law has become useless or too restricted or too broad, I have added my voice to a change so that the quality of justice might be preserved, but to change the law to further protect the worst of our criminal element, to increase their privilege and their right to prey upon others with immunity, is not my concept of how justice should be improved.
Our laws and our Constitution were meant for the good as well as the bad, but all interpretations of late seem to constantly benefit the criminal element and thus continue to diminish the protection the responsible citizens were to receive. Fundamental fairness is a commodity the public should occasionally have the privilege of enjoying.
The law has two essential objects: the protection of society and the preservation of individual rights. Lately *190society seems almost forgotten in what the judiciary seems to think is a march of progress. Instinctively my conscience blocks my agreement.
Many critics have appeared of late condemning the courts because the major trend has evinced considerable emphasis on the increased protection of the accused and on establishing additional procedural requirements which must be met before convictions can be obtained. Public criticism, of course, should not control, but it is abundant enough and of a sufficiently intelligent quality to suggest to the judiciary at least a pause for reflection. When a judicial system destroys public confidence, in effect it destroys itself. Justice is a cornerstone which must never be out of balance.
The Director of the EBI has issued public statements showing the terrific increase of crime and asking for greater aid from the courts so that some inroads may be made.
At the Judicial Conference, Governor Meyner urged the courts to cooperate in attacking the “alarming upsurge of crimes of violence” and asked for a “firm and realistic attitude in dealing with convicted offenders in cases of personal violence.”
The sentencing judges are attempting to assist by stiffening the penalties at the trial level, while we at the top open more loopholes, making successful prosecution more difficult; this time for the gentleman who cold-bloodedly murdered so he could get money to buy narcotics. His victim has been buried, but he wants more than a fair trial on the law as it has already been determined. He wants the law changed so that he can derive greater consideration than those who preceded him.
The right of the court to inform the jury, in the manner employed in the instant case, that a life sentence is, in fact, a misnomer and that the Parole Board or another agency might considerably shorten the term has stood with unequivocal approval on our books for well nigh 50 years. It has been affirmed by dozens of decisions and was reaffirmed by an unanimous court in an opinion written by Chief Justice Vanderbilt as late as Fovember 1954, in which he said of *191almost the identical language used by the trial court in this case: “Such instruction was proper.” State v. Roscus, 16 N. J. 415, 429.
To say the court has been wrong over these many years and that that which has become deeply imbedded in our criminal law should now be extirpated is quite a bold venture in which I cannot join.
The majority opinion reverses the conviction because the charge to the jury was too limited on the power of the Parole Board to shorten the so-called life sentence. It then inconsistently holds that the court should have directed the jury “to exclude the subject from consideration.” Why there was reversible error for failure to completely inform the jury in view of the majority’s subsequent determination that the jury could not take the matter into consideration is beyond my understanding.
Those in authority know that a life sentence in the average case is actually a term of approximately 14 to 15 years, and why the jury, which pronounces the punishment, should not be so informed and take it into consideration is beyond my comprehension. Life imprisonment is a false designation and the jury is entitled to know its true meaning. The public is’ already painfully aware of it.
I would affirm the judgment of conviction below.
For reversal—Chief Justice Weintraub, and Justices Heher, Jacobs, Eranois and Proctor—-5.
For affirmance—Justices Wacheneeld and Burling—2.