Sponsored by:
Assemblyman NICHOLAS CHIARAVALLOTI
District 31 (Hudson)
SYNOPSIS
Eliminates mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment determined by Legislature to be of non-violent nature.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning the elimination of mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for crimes determined to be of a non-violent nature, supplementing chapter 1 of Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes, and amending various parts of the statutory law.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. (New section) The Legislature finds and declares:
a. New Jersey s criminal justice system will benefit from sentencing reforms aimed at reviewing and eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for crimes of a non-violent nature as determined by the Legislature.
b. The Legislature has an excellent blueprint in the first report of the New Jersey Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission which was passed unanimously by its members in November 2019.
c. That Commission had the benefit of a broad membership that included judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, law enforcement, corrections officials and victim advocates, among others, which encouraged a view of the State s criminal justice system from varied vantage points.
d. The Commission s report included recommendations for eliminating mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for non-violent drug and property crimes, as these types of sentences, noted in the introduction to the report, contributed to exponentially increasing the State s prison population and substantially curtailed judicial discretion in the issue of determining the appropriate level of punishment to match offender accountability.
e. This act, applying the same reasoning of the Commission, broadly addresses a bigger array of non-violent criminal activity to return decision making to the courts for matching an individual s punishment to account for the nature and circumstances of the crime committed, and to strive for reductions in the State s prison population of non-violent offenders who do not pose a danger to their surrounding communities on the basis of the crimes they committed.
f. The Legislature understands that eliminating certain mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment does not mean eliminating imprisonment as a punishment in all those cases but does mean eliminating rigid terms of parole ineligibility for a crime considered to be non-violent, for which the ordinary sentencing options appear sufficient when coupled with judicial discretion.
g. The Legislature values the recommendations of the Commission on eliminating mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment, which are incorporated in this act, and seeks to expand upon that foundation to help realize that justice for non-violent crimes is better served when an individual s punishment is tailored to the specific circumstances of the crime committed, as determined by the sentencing court, which will also foster broader public confidence in the criminal justice system for not being overly punitive in its treatment of non-violent criminal offenders.
2. Section 4 of P.L.2013, c.53 (C.2C:20-2.4) is amended to read as follows:
4. a. A person is a leader of a cargo theft network if he conspires with others as an organizer, supervisor, financier or manager to engage for profit in a scheme or course of conduct to unlawfully take, dispose of, distribute, bring into, transport, or store in this State property stolen from a cargo carrier, where the amount is at least $5,000.
(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this subsection, leader of a cargo theft network is a crime of the second degree. Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection a. of N.J.S.2C:43-3, the court may impose a fine not to exceed $250,000 or five times the retail value of the property seized at the time of the arrest, whichever is greater.
(2) Leader of a cargo theft network is a crime of the first degree if the scheme or course of conduct to unlawfully take, dispose of, distribute, bring into, transport, or store in this State property stolen from a cargo carrier included the use or threatened use of any deadly weapon, as defined in N.J.S.2C:39-1 in the commission of the theft. Nothing in this subsection shall be deemed to limit the authority or discretion of the State to charge or prosecute any person for robbery under N.J.S.2C:15-1 or for any other offense, nor shall a conviction for robbery merge with any conviction under this section. Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection a. of N.J.S.2C:43-3, the court may impose a fine not to exceed $500,000 or five times the retail value of the property seized at the time of the arrest, whichever is greater.
b. Notwithstanding the provisions of N.J.S.2C:1-8, a conviction of leader of a cargo theft network shall not merge with the conviction for any offense which is the object of the conspiracy. Nothing contained in this act shall prohibit the court from imposing an extended term pursuant to N.J.S.2C:43-7; nor shall this act be construed in any way to preclude or limit the prosecution or conviction of any person for conspiracy under N.J.S.2C:5-2, or any prosecution or conviction for any other offense.
c. It shall not be necessary in any prosecution under this section for the State to prove that any intended profit was actually realized. The trier of fact may infer that a particular scheme or course of conduct was undertaken for profit from all of the attending circumstances, including but not limited to the number of persons involved in the scheme or course of conduct, the actor's net worth and his expenditures in relation to his legitimate sources of income, the amount of property or number of incidents of theft, or the amount of cash or currency involved.
d. It shall not be a defense to a prosecution under this section that the stolen property was brought into, transported or stored in this State solely for ultimate distribution in another jurisdiction; nor shall it be a defense that any profit was intended to be made in another jurisdiction.
e. A person convicted of a second or subsequent offense under this section shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment [that shall include a mandatory minimum term of one-third to one-half of the sentence imposed, during which time the defendant shall not be eligible for parole], and may be sentenced to an extended term of imprisonment as set forth in subsection a. of N.J.S.2C:43-7, notwithstanding the provisions of N.J.S.2C:44-3. The court may not suspend or make any other non-custodial disposition of any person sentenced as a second or subsequent offender pursuant to this section. For the purposes of this section an offense is considered a second or subsequent offense if the actor has at any time been convicted pursuant to this section, or under any similar statute of the United States, this State or any other state for an offense that is substantially equivalent to this section.
(cf: P.L.2013, c.58, s.4)
3. Section 6 of P.L.2013, c.53 (C.2C:20-2.6) is amended to read as foll