Court Opinion

ID: 9651435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:19:30.924957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.984428
License: Public Domain

Sullivan, J.
(dissenting). I feel that the trial court’s charge was adequate and correct in the circumstances of this case and that the judgment of conviction should be affirmed.
Defendant was the municipal building inspector charged with enforcing the local building code. As the majority opinion notes, his duties included on-site inspection of buildings under construction for code compliance, and issuance of certificates of occupancy. At the time, U. S. Home and Development Corporation was in the process of constructing a large housing development in the township. Defendant made numerous on-site inspections of the work in the development as it progressed and also made final inspections prior to issuing certificates of occupancy. He estimated that 65 to 70 percent of his time as building inspector was devoted to servicing this particular development. In December 1970, while defendant was on the development site, he was handed an envelope containing a substantial sum of money by an officer of the development corporation who wished defendant a Merry Christmas or words to that effect. On the basis of the foregoing, defendant was charged with and convicted of violating N. J. S. A. 2A:105—1 which makes it a misdemeanor *465for a public officer, by color of Ms office, to receive or take any fee or reward not allowed by law for performing Ms duties.
The majority opinion reverses this conviction on the ground that if the giving and taking of the money was a “pure gift” and not understood as compensation for the performance by the officer of his duties, there was no culpability under the statute, and the jury should have been so charged. I find this distinction to be unrealistic. Indeed, defendant testified he believed the money had been given to him “because of the good service [he had] rendered to U. S. Homes.”
A public official should not accept a gift of substance from anyone he must deal with in his official capacity. Calling it a Christmas gift does not make it right. Whether the official realizes it or not, the acceptance of such a gift has a subtle corrupting effect on him and the manner in which he carries out the duties of his office insofar as the donor’s interests are involved. The image of governmental integrity becomes badly tarnished when this kind of practice is condoned.
The majority opinion recognizes that its construction of the statute may enable some public officials who have violated the statute to escape conviction thereunder. Unfortunately it is more than that. The majority opinion holds that, insofar as this statute is concerned, it is lawful for a public officer to receive or take a fee or reward from one who must deal with him in his official capacity so long as the fee or reward is a “pure gift.” To me this construction does violence to the plain meaning of the statute and seems to give sanction to the odious practice of a public officer accepting “gifts” (here a substantial sum of money) from persons who stand to benefit or lose from the way in which the public officer performs his duties. I would affirm.
Hughes, C. J. concurring in the result.
*466For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice Hughes, Justices Mountain, Pashman, Clieeokd and Schkeibee and Judge Coneoed — 6.
For affirmance■ — Justice Sullivan — 1.