State v. Dalglish

• Decision Date: 07 July 1981
• Citation: 432 A.2d 74,86 N.J. 503
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lawrence DALGLISH, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 503

86 N.J. 503

432 A.2d 74

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lawrence DALGLISH, Defendant-Respondent.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued May 5, 1981.

Decided July 7, 1981.

John S. Redden, Asst. Essex County Prosecutor, for plaintiff-appellant (James R. Zazzali, Atty. Gen., Attorney; George L. Schneider, Essex County Prosecutor, of counsel).

Stanley J. Hausman, Newark, for defendant-respondent.

James B. Daniels, Asst. Deputy Public Defender, for amicus curiae Office of the Public Defender (Stanley C. Van Ness, Public Defender, attorney).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

PASHMAN, J.

In State v. Leonardis, 73 N.J. 360, 375 A.2d 607 (1977) (Leonardis II ), this Court enunciated the standard of review of prosecutorial decisions denying admission into pretrial intervention (PTI) programs created under R. 3:28. We held that a defendant must "clearly and convincingly establish that the prosecutor's refusal to sanction admission into the program was based on a patent and gross abuse of his discretion" before a court may order his enrollment in a PTI program without prosecutorial consent. Id. at 382, 375 A.2d 607. Subsequently the Legislature enacted a statewide program of pretrial intervention as part of the Code of Criminal Justice. See. N.J.S.A. 2C:43-12 to -22. The Code essentially adopted the guidelines and procedures previously followed under R. 3:28, but is silent as to the standard of review of prosecutorial decisions. In this case, we must decide whether the standard of review set forth in Leonardis II governs review of prosecutorial decisions under the statutory program of pretrial intervention. We hold that it does, at least when a defendant seeks enrollment in PTI without the consent of the prosecutor.

I

Defendant is a licensed medical doctor who has practiced in this State for over 20 years. Prior to the events in this case, he had never been accused of a crime or otherwise involved in criminal matters.

The indictment against defendant grew out of a marital dispute. Defendant suspected his wife of adultery. To verify his suspicions, defendant allegedly placed an illegal wiretap on the telephone of their marital home sometime in the late spring of 1979. After he confronted his wife with the fact that he had tapped their telephone and heard her conversations with her alleged lover, marital relations worsened. Finally, in July 1979 defendant's wife locked him out of their home and filed a complaint seeking divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty. Defendant counterclaimed for divorce on the ground of adultery.

Defendant admits that he continued to record his wife's conversations until the judge in the matrimonial action ordered him to cease and desist in late 1979. He contends that he never intended to use the information for a criminal purpose such as to coerce his wife to accept a favorable divorce settlement or to engage in sexual acts as the State claims. Instead, he wanted only to end his wife's adulterous relationship and to be able to refute the lies he claims his wife was going to present in the divorce action.

In February 1980 defendant's wife went to the police and complained about the wiretap. On March 25, 1980, the day after the parties were granted a divorce in accordance with a settlement, the Essex County grand jury handed down a six-count indictment charging defendant with unlawful interception, use, and disclosure of a wire or oral communication, N.J.S.A. 2A:156A-3(a), (b), (c), possession of an interception device, N.J.S.A. 2A:156A-5(a), and criminal coercion, N.J.S.A. 2C:13-5. Defendant then applied for enrollment in the Essex County Pretrial Intervention program. The program director rejected the application, offering the following explanation in his letter to defendant:

The alleged offense you are charged with continued for an extended period of time and contains many complicated issues. The value of Pretrial Intervention is outweighed by the public need for the judicial process to continue.

After defendant filed a motion seeking review of this decision, the county prosecutor also informed him that his application was being rejected for the following reasons:

This offense, which continued for an extended period of time, was a blatant violation of (your ex-wife's) basic Constitutional rights, and the value of Pretrial Intervention is outweighed by the public need for prosecution.

In light of the above circumstances, your acceptance into the Pretrial Intervention Program would deprecate the seriousness of this offense. Accordingly, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office has determined that your admission to the program would not facilitate the goals of Pretrial Intervention.

After hearing testimony on the motion, the trial court found that the prosecutor had abused his discretion in denying consent for defendant's participation in the PTI program. In its unreported written opinion, the court held that the strict standard of review of prosecutorial decisions adopted in Leonardis II no longer applied after enactment of PTI in the Code of Criminal Justice. Instead, the court applied an ordinary "abuse of discretion" standard of review to the prosecutor's denial of defendant's PTI application. Finding that defendant's alleged crimes arose out of the "extenuating circumstances" of the marital dispute and that defendant is amenable to correction and rehabilitation, the judge held that the prosecutor's decision was arbitrary and capricious because it was not based on all the relevant factors. Consequently, he ordered that defendant must be admitted to the PTI program.

While the State's appeal was pending before the Appellate Division, we certified the case directly on our own motion --- N.J. ---, --- A.2d ---- (1981). We now reverse and remand for reconsideration in light of the proper standard of review.

II

We have previously described the history and underlying goals of PTI in New Jersey. See, e. g., State v. Leonardis, 71 N.J. 85, 92-107, 363 A.2d 321 (1976) (Leonardis I ). The sole question presented in this case is whether the standard set forth in Leonardis II for reviewing a prosecutor's refusal to consent to a defendant's admission into a PTI program is still appropriate in light of the statutory recognition of PTI in the Code of Criminal Justice, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-12. Resolution of this issue requires a brief summary of the standards enunciated in Leonardis II and refined in later cases, see State v. Sutton, 80 N.J. 110, 402 A.2d 230 (1979); State v. Maddocks, 80 N.J. 98, 402 A.2d 224 (1979); State v. Bender, 80 N.J. 84, 402 A.2d 217 (1979).

We held in Leonardis II that a defendant must "clearly and convincingly establish that the prosecutor's refusal to sanction admission into (a PTI) program was based on a patent and gross abuse of his discretion" before a court could suspend criminal proceedings under R. 3:28 without prosecutorial consent. 73 N.J. at 382, 375 A.2d 607 (emphasis added). We subsequently defined what constitutes a patent and gross abuse of discretion in State v. Bender, supra:

Ordinarily, an abuse of discretion will be manifest if defendant can show that a prosecutorial veto (a) was not premised upon a consideration of all relevant factors, (b) was based upon a consideration of irrelevant or inappropriate factors, or (c) amounted to a clear error in judgment.... In order for such an abuse of discretion to rise to the level of "patent and gross," it must further be shown that the prosecutorial error complained of will clearly subvert the goals underlying Pretrial Intervention. (80 N.J. at 93, 402 A.2d 217 (citations omitted) (emphasis added))

In reviewing a prosecutor's denial of consent, a court's scrutiny normally is limited to the reasons given by the prosecutor for his action. Id. at 94, 402 A.2d 217. Absent evidence to the contrary, it is presumed that the prosecutor considered all relevant factors before rendering a decision. Id.

The need to preserve prosecutorial discretion in deciding whether to divert a particular defendant from the ordinary criminal process motivated our choice of the applicable standard of review. We emphasized prosecutorial discretion in Leonardis II both out of deference to the fundamental responsibility of prosecutors for deciding whom to prosecute, and because a primary purpose of PTI is to augment, not to diminish, a prosecutor's options. 73 N.J. at 381, 375 A.2d 607.

Although a court may not order the enrollment of a defendant in PTI unless he has demonstrated a patent and gross abuse of discretion by the prosecutor, we have recognized that a remand to the prosecutor may be appropriate without such a showing in certain cases. See State v. Bender, supra, 80 N.J. at 94, 402 A.2d 217. These are cases where a court finds that the prosecutor's decision was arbitrary, irrational, or otherwise an abuse of discretion, but not a patent and gross abuse, and also determines that a remand will serve a useful purpose. A remand might be proper, for example, where "the prosecutorial decision was based upon a consideration of inappropriate factors or not premised upon a consideration of all relevant factors," id.; where the denial resulted from an incorrect evaluation of relevant factors, id. at 97, 402 A.2d 217; where the prosecutor's belief that a particular factor is or is not present was unfounded or based upon unreliable information, see State v. Maddocks, supra, 80 N.J. at 108, 402 A.2d 224; or where the prosecutor's statement of reasons is inadequate, see State v. Sutton, supra, 80 N.J. at 116-17, 402 A.2d 230, either because it lacks the necessary specificity or because it fails to give a rational explanation of the result. These instances raise issues akin to questions of law, concerning which courts should exercise independent judgment in fulfilling their responsibility to maintain the integrity and proper functioning of PTI as a whole. See State v. Maddocks, supra, 80 N.J. at 104-05, 402 A.2d...