Bill > S3060

Introduced Session

This bill provides that the State's "three strikes law" applies only when each of the predicate offenses occurred when the defendant was over the age of 18 years. N.J.S.A.2C:43-7.1, the "Persistent Offenders Accountability Act," also known as the "three strikes law," requires a court to sentence a person convicted of certain serious crimes to a term of life imprisonment without eligibility for parole if the person has had two or more prior convictions for these crimes, committed on prior and separate occasions, regardless of the dates of the convictions. The serious crimes enumerated in the law are murder, aggravated manslaughter, kidnapping in the first degree, sexual assault, carjacking, and robbery in the first degree. This bill reverses the New Jersey Supreme Court's recent decision in State v. Ryan, 249 N.J. 581 (2022). In that case, the court held that juvenile convictions for enumerated crimes are considered predicate offenses (or "strikes") for determining whether the person is sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole. By amending the "three strikes law" to exclude juvenile convictions judges are accorded discretion to appropriately sentence a person after being able to assess the age of the defendant and all of the underlying circumstances relating to each of the conditions and the defendant's individual circumstances, rather than a strict application resulting in a life sentence without eligibility for parole. Justice Albin in his dissent in State v. Ryan states that "under the Eighth Amendment and Article I, Paragraph 12 of the State Constitution, judges cannot be denied discretion in determining whether a juvenile conviction can be the basis for a predicate offense under the Three Strikes law for the purpose of sentencing a 23 year old to a lifetime of imprisonment."

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Sandra Cunningham (D)*, 

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Judiciary Committee (on 09/29/2022)

Official Document