On August 19, 2024, a three-judge appellate panel decided the Somerset County case of State v. Arthur Wildgoose. The principal issue under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2 concerned the constitutionality of the prosecution’s refusal to extend a pre-indictment offer in light of its escalating plea offer policy under the Lunsford Act.
Judge Susswein wrote for the Appellate Division in relevant part: This appeal presents a question of first impression under the Jessica Lunsford Act (JLA). The JLA prescribes a mandatory twenty-five-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of thirteen. The mandatory minimum sentence can be reduced by up to ten years, but only by the prosecutor through a plea agreement. A judge, moreover, may not impose a prison term less than the one agreed to by the prosecutor.
We apply the rationale of A.T.C. to require that when the initial JLA plea offer is made after indictment, thereby invoking the plea offer restriction codified in Section 3 of the Guidelines, the prosecutor’s statement of reasons should explain the rationale for the timing of the plea offer or else demonstrate that the graduated plea provision had no impact on the sentence reduction authorized by the plea offer. We deem an explanation for why the prosecutor chose to automatically preclude a fifteen-year sentence to be an integral part of the statement of reasons required by A.T.C. for the decision to offer a prison term “between fifteen and twenty-five years.” Unless the statement establishes that the graduated plea provision had no impact on the sentence reduction, it should also include a representation on whether the timing of the plea offer was determined pursuant to a county policy, standard, or procedure.
For example, where applicable, a statement of reasons may include an explanation that, applying the relevant factors specified in the Guidelines, a fifteen-year sentence would be inappropriate in consideration of the interests of the victim, in which event the graduated plea provision would not have resulted in a less generous plea offer than the one determined in accordance with the other provisions of the Guidelines that were upheld in A.T.C. In that situation, the critical fact-sensitive question is whether the prosecutor determined the sentence reduction solely by considering the relevant factors and circumstances spelled out in Section 1 of the Guidelines, or whether that decision was influenced by the graduated plea provision. If the latter, the prosecutor must explain the reasons for the timing of the plea.
We can anticipate the prosecutors will parrot this suggested language about the interests of the victim. Doing so will almost certainly insulate the decision from being reversed on appeal.
