Court Opinion

ID: 9532931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:26:22.729175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:52.412548
License: Public Domain

LONG, J.,
dissenting.
The tragic events of December 27, 1995 occurred because twenty-two year old Joseph Carey drove his automobile while under the influence of alcohol on an icy road. As a result of that act, two lives were lost and two other serious injuries occurred. Society’s interest in Joseph Carey’s punishment is concomitantly great. I have no quarrel with the need for punishment. My difference with the majority stems from what I view as the mistaken rule of law it constructed in an effort to justify consecutive sentences on facts that would not otherwise have warranted them.
*432I
In State v. Yarbough, 100 N.J. 627, 643-44, 498 A.2d 1239 (1985), in an effort to bring rationality and uniformity to the difficult task of distinguishing between concurrent and consecutive sentences, this Court detailed the following factors to guide the trial court in exercising its discretion:
[S]ome reasons to be considered by the sentencing court should include facts relating to the crimes, including whether or not:
(a) the crimes and their objectives were predominantly independent of each other;
(b) the crimes involved separate acts of violence or threats of violence;
(c) the crimes were committed at different times or separate places, rather than being committed so closely in time and place as to indicate a single period of aberrant behavior;
(d) any of the crimes involved multiple victims; [and]
(e) the convictions for which the sentences are to be imposed are numerous.
[Id. at 644, 498 A.2d 1289.]
In so doing, Yarbough neither established the preeminence of one factor, nor did it create a presumption of consecutive sentencing based on the presence of one or more of the enumerated types of interdicted conduct. The reason it did not do so is clear: the Legislature did not see fit to declare a presumptive link between any one factor and consecutive sentencing, instead subjecting the analysis to the discretionary weighing process that is a leitmotif throughout the sentencing provisions of our Code of Criminal Justice. In giving primacy to the multiple-victims factor, the majority breaks with the Code and with Yarbough.
II
Even if there were some justification for giving preeminent status to one of the Yarbough factors, it would not be the one chosen by the majority. To be sure, as the cases cited by the Court reveal, consecutive sentences have been upheld in eases involving multiple victims. However, to cite those eases for that rule of law says too little. Indeed, it is separate acts of violence that is the common thread running through the eases cited by the majority as support for the multiple-victims presumption. State v. *433J.G., 261 N.J.Super. 409, 426-27, 619 A.2d 232 (App.Div.) (upholding imposition of consecutive sentences based on finding of factor 3(b) (“separate acts of violence”), factor 3(c)(“erimes were committed at different times”), and factor 3(d) (“crimes involved multiple victims”)), certif. denied, 133 N.J. 436, 627 A.2d 1142 (1993); State v. Russo, 243 N.J.Super. 383, 413, 579 A.2d 834 (App.Div.1990) (affirming imposition of consecutive sentences where offenses involved not only multiple victims (factor 3(d)), but also separate acts of violence (factor 3(b))), certif. denied, 126 N.J. 322, 598 A.2d 882 (1991); State v. Brown, 138 N.J. 481, 559-60, 651 A.2d 19 (1994) (finding “no bar to the imposition of consecutive sentences” under circumstances where defendant deliberately murdered two victims to facilitate robbery in their home), overruled on other grounds, State v. Cooper, 151 N.J. 326, 377, 700 A.2d 306 (1997); State v. Serrone, 95 N.J. 23, 27-28, 468 A.2d 1050 (1983) (affirming consecutive sentences where defendant deliberately stabbed father and daughter to facilitate robbery in their home).1
Likewise, the majority’s reliance on the California decision of People v. Leung, 5 Cal.App.4th 482, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 290, 303-04 (1992), as authority for the proposition that the happenstance of multiple victims renders a defendant’s single act more culpable is misplaced. The complete quote from Leung is as follows:
Our task is to determine whether the fact that there were multiple victims of defendant’s offenses is an aggravating circumstance which can be utilized as a justification for imposing consecutive terms. “The essence of ‘aggravation’ relates to the effect of a particular fact in making the offense distinctively worse than the ordinary.” (People v. Moreno (1982) 128 Cal.App.3d 103, 110, 179 Cal.Rptr. 879; accord People v. Young (1983) 146 Cal.App.3d 729, 734, 194 Cal.Rptr. 338.) In choosing between consecutive and concurrent terms, the court must decide whether the particular circumstance at issue renders the collective group of offenses *434distinctively worse than the group of offenses would be were that circumstance not present.
The choice between. concurrent and consecutive terms arises only where the defendant had been convicted of multiple offenses. To determine whether the existence of multiple victims merits the imposition of consecutive terms, the court must compare between the gravity of (1) multiple offenses being committed against a single individual and (2) multiple offenses being committed against multiple individuals. If multiple offenses against multiple individuals is “distinctively worse” than multiple offenses against a single individual, the existence of multiple victims is a circumstance which justifies the imposition of consecutive terms.
We believe that multiple offenses committed against multiple individuals is distinctively worse than multiple offenses committed against a single individual. Offenses against persons, such as robberies or rapes, are crimes which, by then-nature, are significantly more serious when they are committed against more than one person. The total impact of singular offenses against different victims will generally exceed the total impact on a single individual who is victimized multiple times. Furthermore, the culpability of the defendant who victimizes multiple individuals is greater than the culpability of a defendant who victimizes a single individual.
[Ibid.]
Like our prior caselaw, Leung’s focus is the confluence of multiple acts and multiple victims as the lynchpin of a consecutive sentencing analysis. In short, there is no authority to support the majority’s determination that, standing alone, multiple victims warrant consecutive sentences.
The reason that there is no authority for what is effectively the Court’s presumption in favor of consecutive sentencing in a case like this is that it flies in the face of our common understanding of the culpability scale in human affairs. The Yarbough factors themselves underscore that the greatest emphasis in deciding whether a sentence is to be served concurrently or consecutively is on the separateness of the wrongful acts. Put another way, our jurisprudence reveals that as a society we generally place separate wrongful acts higher on the culpability scale than a single act with multiple consequences. Any ordinary citizen would recognize the former as plainly worse than the latter. Yet the majority leaves the issue of consecutive sentences for the perpetrator of separate acts of violence to the discretion of the trial court, as contemplated by Yarbough, but virtually compels consecutive sentences in multiple-victims cases regardless of the nature of the wrongful act. By *435this opinion, I do not suggest that consecutive sentences should be interdicted where a defendant commits a single act resulting in multiple consequences, only that such an outcome should not be compelled.
III
Even granting the plausibility of the majority’s general approach (which I do only for the purpose of this argument), its invocation of the numerous-convictions Yarbough factor as a makeweight for its conclusion is unsupportable. In these circumstances, that invocation effectively creates two Yarbough factors out of one. Plainly, the numerous convictions here have no independent vitality but are wholly derivative of multiple victims.
Moreover, the majority’s assessment of the mitigating factors that Yarbough allows to be considered as a counterweight in determining whether sentences are to be consecutive or concurrent is belied by the record. As the Appellate Division properly observed, Carey’s substance abuse evaluation underscores that he does not have an alcohol problem requiring acknowledgment or remediation and is thus not likely to reoffend. Further, his prior law-abiding life and productivity were not taken into account at all. That is one of the most troublesome aspects of the majority opinion. If Carey is an appropriate candidate for consecutive sentences, despite the majority’s disavowal of a per se rule, I see little possibility for the imposition of a concurrent term on any other defendant who commits an act that harms more than one person.
It is understandable that the majority chose this case to announce the presumption of consecutive terms in a multiple-victims case. Without that presumption, the record, fairly reviewed, would not likely have justified such an outcome.
IV
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the decision of the Appellate Division.
*436Justice ZAZZALI joins in this opinion.
For reversal and reinstatement — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices STEIN, COLEMAN, VERNIERO, and LaVECCHIA— 5.
For affirmance — Justices LONG and ZAZZALI — 2.

 In State v. Kromphold, No. A-0423-97T2, slip op. at 12 (App.Div. November 16, 1998), the Appellate Division affirmed consecutive sentences for aggravated assaults arising out of a DWI incident without any supporting analysis except for the assertion that there “should be no free crimes,” a plainly inadequate rationale. We granted certification and later decided Kromphold on other grounds. State v. Kromphold, 162 N.J. 345, 744 A.2d 640 (2000). The issue of consecutive sentences was not before us in that case.