(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the
convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that the
Court did not write a full opinion in this matter. The background of the case has been taken from the opinion of the
Appellate Division).
Argued March 13, 2001 -- Decided June 13, 2001
PER CURIAM
The issue before the Court is whether the No Early Release Act (NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2, applies to
convictions for murder.
On September 27, 1997, Samuel Manzie murdered Edward Werner in Jackson Township. At that time,
Werner was eleven and Manzie fifteen. The Family Part of Superior Court waived jurisdiction over Manzie as a
juvenile. He was thereafter indicted as an adult. On March 19, 1999, Manzie, then seventeen years of age, pled
guilty to the charge of murder of Edward Werner. As a part of the plea agreement, nine other counts were
dismissed. The State indicated that it would seek a term of imprisonment up to “life,” as well as application of
NERA, which requires service of 85% of a sentence without parole for convictions of a first- or second-degree
“violent crime.”
The trial court sentenced Manzie to 70 years' imprisonment and applied NERA. In addition, the court
imposed the thirty-year parole ineligibility term required in the murder statute, but concluded that NERA governed
the actual ineligibility term.
On appeal, the Appellate Division noted that NERA does not mention “murder” as a covered crime.
Murder as an offense has its own statute and sentencing structure. These factors result in an ambiguity over
NERA's application to murder convictions. The Appellate Division looked to the legislative history of the statute
and concluded that NERA does not apply to murder.
The Court granted the State's petition for certification.
HELD: The members of the Court being equally divided, the judgment of the Appellate Division, which held that
NERA does not apply to murder convictions, is AFFIRMED..
STEIN, COLEMAN, and ZAZZALI, JJ, concurring, agree with the Appellate Division that applying
NERA, as currently written, to murder convictions would create untenable ambiguity and uncertainty over the
sentence to be imposed. They find it inconceivable that mindful of the constitutional concerns set forth in a series
of prior cases, the Legislature would intend that the meaning of critical provision of the Code of Criminal Justice
relating to the crime of murder could be made ambiguous by the application of NERA to that section of the Code
and that the ambiguity could be overcome by supplementing the Code's murder provisions with an Attorney
General's directive. To allow that construction would create the potential for any defendant in a murder prosecution
to contend that the statutory ambiguity created an uncertainty about the penal consequences to which that defendant
was exposed.
PORITZ, C.J., and LONG and LaVECCHIA, JJ., dissenting, are of the view that although NERA does
not include a specific reference to “murder,” that Act and the murder statute are not in conflict. The application of
NERA to a murder conviction has an analogue in its application to Graves Act offenses. To the extent that NERA
has been applied to Graves Act offenses without a statutory amendment, it follows that no amendment is required
here. The dissenters also disagree that looking to other sources for an indication of the Legislature's will does not
provide guidance for a definition of a “life” term of imprisonment. Under N.J.S.A. 30:4-123.51a, a statute in the
parole context, the Legislature has effectively defined a “life” term as seventy-five years by stating that twenty-five
years is the one-third parole ineligibility term for a life sentence. The dissenters also state that there is no authority
for resorting to extrinsic evidence in the circumstances presented by this case. They conclude by noting that they
find it inconceivable that the Legislature intended NERA to apply to the most serious crimes, but not to the ultimate
crime.
JUSTICES STEIN, COLEMAN, and ZAZZALI concur in the judgment of the Court. CHIEF
JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES LONG and LaVECCHIA have filed a separate dissenting opinion.
JUSTICE VERNIERO did not participate.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
A-
61 September Term 2000
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SAMUEL A. MANZIE,
Defendant-Respondent.
Argued March 13, 2001 -- Decided June 13, 2001
On certification to the Superior Court,
Appellate Division, whose opinion is
reported at
335 N.J. Super. 267 (2000).
Lisa Sarnoff Gochman, Deputy Attorney
General, argued the cause for appellant
(John J. Farmer, Jr., Attorney General of
New Jersey, attorney).
John Michael Vazquez argued the cause for
respondent (Michael Critchley & Associates,
attorneys; Mr. Critchley, of counsel).
PER CURIAM
The members of the Court being equally divided, the judgment
of the Appellate Division, reported at
335 N.J. Super. 267
(2000), is affirmed.
JUSTICES STEIN, COLEMAN, and ZAZZALI concur in the judgment
of the Court. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES LONG and
LaVECCHIA have filed a separate dissenting opinion. JUSTICE
VERNIERO did not participate.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
A-
61 September Term 2000
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SAMUEL A. MANZIE,
Defendant-Respondent.
STEIN, COLEMAN, and ZAZZALI, JJ., concurring
We would affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division based
on our concurrence with that court's conclusion that the No Early
Release Act (NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2, does not apply to murder.
State v. Manzie,
335 N.J. Super. 267, 278 (2000). We add these
additional observations to amplify our agreement with the
Appellate Division's determination that “if the Legislature had
intended NERA to apply to murder, it would have done so expressly
and by amending the murder statute.” Id. at 276.
In pertinent part the murder statute provides as follows:
Murder is a crime of the first degree but a
person convicted of murder shall be
sentenced, except as provided in subsection
c. of this section, by the court to a term of
30 years, during which the person shall not
be eligible for parole, or be sentenced to a
specific term of years which shall be between
30 years and life imprisonment of which the
person shall serve 30 years before being
eligible for parole.
[N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3b(1).]
The Appellate Division carefully explained the primary
inconsistency between NERA and the murder statute:
Murder is the only crime for which life
imprisonment is an available ordinary
sentence. See [State v.] Serrone, supra, 95
N.J. [23,] 25 [(1983)]. But, NERA does not
define what would constitute 85% of life for
the purpose of applying NERA's parole
ineligibility period. . . . The absence of
such a definition suggests that the
Legislature did not intend that NERA would
apply to murder.
[Manzie, supra, 335 N.J. Super. at
275-76.]
The Attorney General addressed that inconsistency in his
Appellate Division brief. Although acknowledging that neither
NERA nor the murder statute informs defendants of the penal
consequences of applying NERA to a life sentence for murder, the
Attorney General referred to paragraph L of the “Attorney General
Directive for Enforcing the 'No Early Release' Act,” which
provides as follows:
L. Effect of Life Sentence
Where a defendant subject to the No
Early Release Act is sentenced to a life
term, other than one that provides for life
imprisonment without possibility of parole,
see e.g., N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3b(2) and 2C:43-7.1,
the prosecutor in the course of plea
negotiations and litigation shall proceed as
if the defendant were to be sentenced to a
custodial term of 75 years and must thus
remain ineligible for parole for a term of
63.75 years (85% of 75 years).
[Attorney General Directive for
Enforcing the “No Early Release”
Act 12 (April 24, 1998).]
The Attorney General supports his assertion that a life sentence
for murder that was subject to NERA equates to 63.75 years
without parole by noting:
This calculation is derived from The Parole
Book, A Handbook on Parole Procedures for
Adult and Young Adult Inmates (Third Ed.
1996) [Parole Book], published by the New
Jersey State Parole Board, which explains
that parole ineligibility terms (other than
mandatory minimum terms) are equal to one-
third of the maximum sentence imposed under
the Code of Criminal Justice. In the case of
a life sentence with no mandatory minimum
term, parole eligibility is 25 years. Since
25 is one-third of 75, a life sentence in
terms of parole eligibility is equal to 75
years.
The Attorney General's determination, based on the Parole
Book, that a life sentence is equal to seventy-five years for
purposes of parole eligibility is consistent with those
provisions of the parole statutes that provide that prisoners
sentenced to State Prison without a mandatory parole
ineligibility term become primarily eligible for parole after
serving one-third of the sentence imposed, less credits, N.J.S.A.
30:4-123.51(a), and that prisoners serving a life sentence
without parole ineligibility terms become primarily eligible for
parole after serving twenty-five years, less credits, N.J.S.A.
30:4-123.51(b). In our view, however, neither the Parole Book
nor the cited provisions of the parole statutes satisfactorily
address the gaping ambiguity that would encumber the murder
statute if we were to hold that NERA applied to murder.
A strong constitutional underpinning supports the Appellate
Division's conclusion that NERA could not apply to murder unless
the murder statute were amended to indicate clearly and
specifically a murder defendant's penal exposure under NERA. “We
begin with the general principle that every person is entitled to
know, with reasonable exactitude, the penal consequences of any
criminal charge he or she is called upon to defend against.”
State v. Thomsen,
316 N.J. Super. 207, 214 (1998) (citing State
v. Howard,
110 N.J. 113, 124-25 (1988)).
The due process principle that protects criminal defendants
against the imprecision of vague penal statutes most often is
applied in cases challenging whether a statute adequately defines
the crime with which defendant is charged. In Lanzetta v. New
Jersey,
306 U.S. 451,
59 S. Ct. 618,
83 L. Ed. 888 (1939), a New
Jersey statute making it a crime to be a gangster was invalidated
on due process grounds for vagueness, but the breadth of the
Supreme Court's articulation of the controlling constitutional
principles is highly pertinent to the issue before us:
If on its face the challenged provision
is repugnant to the due process clause,
specification of details of the offense
intended to be charged would not serve to
validate it. It is the statute, not the
accusation under it, that prescribes the rule
to govern conduct and warns against
transgression. No one may be required at
peril of life, liberty or property to
speculate as to the meaning of penal
statutes. All are entitled to be informed as
to what the State commands or forbids. The
applicable rule is stated in Connally v.
General Const. Co.,
269 U.S. 385, 391,
46 S.
Ct. 126, 127,
70 L. Ed. 322: “That the terms
of a penal statute creating a new offense
must be sufficiently explicit to inform those
who are subject to it what conduct on their
part will render them liable to its
penalties, is a well-recognized requirement,
consonant alike with ordinary notions of fair
play and the settled rules of law. And a
statute which either forbids or requires the
doing of an act in terms so vague that men of
common intelligence must necessarily guess at
its meaning and differ as to its application,
violates the first essential of due process
of law.”
[Id. at 453, 59 S. Ct. at 619, 83
L. Ed. at 890 (emphasis added)
(citations omitted)].
That principle of due process applies with equal force to
ambiguous sentencing provisions. See United States v.
Batchelder,
442 U.S. 114, 123,
99 S. Ct. 2198, 2204,
60 L. Ed 2d
755, 764 (1979) (“So too, vague sentencing provisions may pose
constitutional questions if they do not state with sufficient
clarity the consequences of violating a given criminal
statute.”). The Supreme Court most recently applied those same
due process principles in a sentencing context in Lankford v.
Idaho,
500 U.S. 110,
111 S. Ct. 1723,
114 L. Ed.2d 173 (1991).
There, the defendant was prosecuted and convicted for first-
degree murder under an Idaho statute that authorized imposition
of the death penalty for that crime. After the defendant's
conviction the prosecutor informed the trial court that the State
would not seek the death penalty at sentencing. At the
sentencing proceeding neither the prosecutor nor defense counsel
addressed the possibility that a death sentence could be imposed.
After the sentencing hearing, the trial court, acting pursuant to
Idaho law, imposed the death sentence on defendant. The Supreme
Court, on due process grounds, reversed the defendant's death
sentence. The Court stated:
Although the trial judge in this case
did not rely on secret information, his
silence following the State's response to the
presentencing order had the practical effect
of concealing from the parties the principal
issue to be decided at the hearing. Notice
of issues to be resolved by the adversary
process is a fundamental characteristic of
fair procedure.
Without such notice, the Court is denied
the benefit of the adversary process.
. . . .
Petitioner's lack of adequate notice that the
judge was contemplating the imposition of the
death sentence created an impermissible risk
that the adversary process may have
malfunctioned in this case.
[Id. at 126-27, 111 S. Ct. at 1732-
33, 114 L. Ed.
2d at 187-89. ]
Our state's jurisprudence reflects the same concerns about
fair notice that were at the root of the Court's decision in
Lankford. See, e.g., State v. Thomsen, supra, 316 N.J. Super. at
216 (holding that defendant who was charged and convicted by jury
of fourth-degree eluding of police by motor vehicle, an offense
that when committed had been reclassified by legislature as a
second-degree offense, could not be sentenced as second-degree
offender because lack of notice of penal consequences deprived
defendant of fair trial); State v. Koch,
161 N.J. Super. 63, 66-
67 (App. Div. 1978) (reversing on due process grounds defendant's
disorderly persons conviction where County Court, on de novo
appeal from conviction of violation of the Motor Vehicle Act, sua
sponte amended complaint to charge defendant with disorderly
persons offense; and stating that “defendant was deprived of the
opportunity to prepare and defend against the new charge . . . a
charge relating to an offense of an entirely different character
and magnitude . . . [and] that such an amendment deprived
defendant of the due process or fundamental fairness inherent in
any penal proceeding”).
Those same due process considerations have informed our
caselaw concerning whether defendants who plead guilty to one or
more criminal charges are informed about the penal consequences
of the plea. Rule 3:9-2 of the Rules Governing Criminal Practice
mandates that a court not accept a guilty plea without first
determining that “the plea is made . . . with an understanding of
the nature of the charge and the consequences of the plea.” R.
3:9-2. Our cases emphasize that a guilty plea will not be
enforced unless the defendant clearly understood the penal
consequences of that plea. See State v. Burford,
163 N.J. 16,
21-22 (2000) (noting that defendant who pled guilty could not be
subject to sentencing under NERA unless defendant was informed of
exposure to parole ineligibility term mandated by NERA); State v.
Kiett,
121 N.J. 483, 492 (1990) (holding that juvenile was
entitled to withdraw guilty plea to murder to which he had agreed
to avoid death penalty for which he mistakenly thought himself
eligible); State v. Howard,
110 N.J. 113, 125 (1988) (holding
that defendant who pled guilty to charge of second-degree sexual
assault without being informed of parole implications of Avenel
sentence should be permitted to withdraw his plea); State v.
Kovack,
91 N.J. 476, 484 (1982) (vacating defendant's sentence
and remanding for resentencing on ground that defendant, who pled
guilty to aggravated sexual assault charge, was not informed
concerning his exposure to period of parole ineligibility as part
of his sentence); State v. Brown,
71 N.J. 578, 582 (1976)
(permitting defendant to withdraw plea of non vult to murder
because of misunderstanding between prosecutor and defense
counsel about meaning of prosecutor's agreement to make “no
recommendation” concerning sentence); State v. Nichols,
71 N.J. 358, 360-61 (1976) (permitting defendant who pled guilty to armed
robbery and non vult to murder to withdraw plea because defense
counsel incorrectly informed defendant that if tried and
convicted he faced consecutive sentences for murder, armed
robbery and robbery).
That consistent recognition throughout our criminal
jurisprudence of the due process concerns that are implicated
when a defendant is inadequately informed about the penal
consequences of the charged offense demonstrates the flaw in the
State's legal position. We simply find it inconceivable that,
mindful of the constitutional concerns to which we have adverted,
the Legislature would intend that the meaning of critical
provisions of the Code of Criminal Justice relating to the crime
of murder could be made ambiguous by the application of NERA to
that section of the Code, the ambiguity to be overcome by
supplementing the Code provisions relating to murder with the
terms of the “Attorney General Directive for Enforcing the 'No
Early Release' Act.” That contention simply cannot be sustained.
To do so would create the potential that in any murder
prosecution a defendant might contend that the statutory
ambiguity created an uncertainty about the penal consequences to
which that defendant was exposed.
Basic principles of due process, as well as clarity in
statutory draftsmanship, mandate that if the Legislature intends
NERA to apply to murder, the section of the Code relating to
murder must be amended to clearly reflect that intention and
eliminate the ambiguity and uncertainty that the application of
NERA to the present Code provision would create.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
A-
61 September Term 2000
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SAMUEL A. MANZIE,
Defendant-Respondent.
PORITZ, C.J., LONG, J., and LAVECCHIA, J., dissenting.
The preeminent principle guiding a court's search for
legislative intent is the plain language of a statute. State v.
Butler,
89 N.J. 220, 226 (1982). In interpreting a statute, the
words are to be given their ordinary and well understood meaning.
A court should not presume that the Legislature intended
something other than what it expressed by way of its plain
language. State v. Wright,
107 N.J. 488, 495 (1997). If a
statute “is clear and unambiguous on its face and admits of only
one interpretation,” this Court “need delve no deeper than the
act's literal terms to divine the Legislature's intent.” State
v. Butler, supra 89 N.J. at 226. That is the backdrop on which
the “No Early Release Act” (NERA) should be interpreted.
NERA provides that:
a. A court imposing a sentence of
incarceration for a crime of the first or
second degree shall fix a minimum term of 85%
of the sentence during which the defendant
shall not be eligible for parole if the crime
is a violent crime as defined in subsection
d. of this section.
. . . .
d. For the purposes of this section,
“violent crime” means any crime in which the
actor causes death, causes serious bodily
injury as defined in subsection b. of N.J.S.
2C:11-1, or uses or threatens the immediate
use of a deadly weapon. “Violent crime” also
includes any aggravated sexual assault or
sexual assault in which the actor uses, or
threatens the immediate use of, physical
force.
[N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2a, -d.]
Like the Appellate Division, we agree that the language of NERA
is clear and unambiguous on its face. Nothing in that statute
suggests overtly or even obliquely that murder, which meets both
the grading section of the statute and its definitional section,
falls outside the scope of its coverage.
Where we part company from the Appellate Division, and from
our colleagues, is in connection with their conclusion that there
is a conflict between NERA and the murder statute.
The murder statute provides in relevant part that:
Murder is a crime of the first degree but a
person convicted of murder shall be
sentenced, except as provided in subsection
c. of this section, by the court to a term of
30 years, during which the person shall not
be eligible for parole, or be sentenced to a
specific term of years which shall be between
30 years and life imprisonment of which the
person shall serve 30 years before being
eligible for parole.
The Appellate Division determined that that statutory language cannot exist side by side with NERA and that the failure of the Legislature to amend the murder statute to resolve the conflict with NERA reveals its intent that NERA not be imported into the murder scheme.
We do not read the statutes as in conflict. On its face, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3b(1) requires that every defendant convicted of murder must serve thirty years in jail on a sentence of between thirty years and life. Effectively, where a thirty-year sentence is imposed, the parole disqualifier is 100%. NERA does not thwart that scheme but merely superimposes on all statutes to which it applies the requirement that all persons convicted of violent crimes serve 85% of the sentence imposed. The murder statute is thus entirely effective under NERA. Although it has been argued that because 85% of thirty years is twenty-five and one-half years, NERA renders the 30/30 murder sentence invalid, NERA specifically states: “The provisions of subsection a. of this section shall not be construed or applied to reduce the time that must be served before eligibility for parole by an inmate sentenced to a mandatory minimum period of incarceration.” N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2b (emphasis added). Thus, murder defendants continue to be subject to the exact sentencing scheme provided in the murder statute: thirty years to life. The fact that a defendant sentenced to thirty years with a thirty-year parole disqualifier, a frequently-imposed sentence under the murder statute, is effectively serving a 100% parole disqualifier does not conflict with NERA, whose statutory purpose is satisfied if a defendant serves only 85% of his or her base term.
Moreover, the application of NERA to murder is an analogue to its application to Graves Act offenses. N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6c. The Graves Act provides parole ineligibility at, or between, one- third and one-half of defendant's sentence. Ibid. Yet we have imposed the 85% NERA disqualifier upon otherwise qualified Graves Act defendants. State v. Rumblin, 166 N.J. 550, 557 (2001). To the extent that NERA has been applied to Graves Act offenses without a statutory amendment, it follows that no amendment is required here. Like the murder statute, the Graves Act sets up a distinct sentencing scheme for firearms' offenses. If there was no need to amend the Graves Act to apply NERA, there is no need to amend the murder statute.
We also disagree that because “life” is not defined in the murder statute itself, it can be concluded that the Legislature did not intend NERA to apply. To debunk that conclusion, one need only look to the fundamental argument the Appellate Division advanced in declaring the statute ambiguous: that we should resort to other expressions of the legislative will to determine NERA's meaning. The Appellate Division was willing to resort to other statutes to conclude that NERA does not apply to murder. The same can be done to save it. N.J.S.A. 30:4-123.51, a legislative enactment in the cognate parole context, provides that where no mandatory minimum sentence is imposed, a defendant must serve one-third of his or her sentence before becoming eligible for parole. N.J.S.A. 30:4-123.51a. Where a life sentence is imposed, twenty-five years is declared by that statute as the period of disqualification. By imposing that disqualifier, the Legislature expressed the reasoned judgment that seventy-five years is equivalent to “life.” That seventy- five year figure, in turn, has been adopted by the Attorney General in a directive that specifically calculates the 85% NERA disqualifier on a life sentence for murder. Attorney General Directive for Enforcing the “No Early Release” Act 12 (April 24,1998).
In sum, NERA is neither facially ambiguous nor is it rendered ambiguous by resort to other conflicting statutes. That said, nothing in our jurisprudence suggests that it is acceptable to invoke extrinsic evidence to defeat the very words of an unambiguous enactment. Separate and apart from the fact that we view the extrinsic evidence in the case as less persuasive and more equivocal than did the Appellate Division, there is simply no authority for resorting to such evidence in these circumstances.
Finally, we disagree with our colleagues that any due process violation is implicated here. Unlike the defendant in State v. Burford, 163 N.J. 16, 21-22 (2000), this defendant entered a plea of guilty pursuant to a plea bargain that specifically incorporated NERA and was fully informed of the penal consequences that lay before him.
For the foregoing reasons, and because it is inconceivable to us that the Legislature intended what it viewed as the salutary effects of NERA to apply to the most serious crimes, but not to the ultimate crime, we respectfully dissent.
NO. A-61 SEPTEMBER TERM 2000
ON APPEAL FROM
ON CERTIFICATION TO Appellate Division, Superior Court
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SAMUEL A. MANZIE,
Defendant-Respondent.
DECIDED June 13, 2001
Chief Justice Poritz PRESIDING
OPINION BY Per Curiam
CONCURRING OPINION BY Justices Stein, Coleman and
Zazzali
DISSENTING OPINION BY Chief Justice Poritz and Justices Long and
LaVecchia