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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 1:50 am
Time: 1:50 am
Results for pretrial release (new jersey)
1 results foundAuthor: New Jersey. Joint Committee on Criminal Justice Title: Report of the Joint Committee on Criminal Justice Summary: The Supreme Court today released the report of the Joint Committee on Criminal Justice. The report calls for significant changes in the way bail is administered and for the enactment of a speedy trial law. The committee, established in June 2013 by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, includes judges, prosecutors, public defenders, private counsel, court administrators, and staff from the Legislature and the governor's office. The committee was chaired by the chief justice and developed 27 recommendations to improve New Jersey's criminal justice system. The committee confronted some very difficult problems relating to the current bail system and delays in bringing criminal cases to trial,- said Chief Justice Rabner. It is telling that nearly all of the committee's recommendations - which include far-reaching proposals-have the unanimous support of judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel. The report's Executive Summary (pages 1 to 7) highlights the key issues and reasoning behind the committee's recommendations. A complete Table of Recommendations follows the summary (pages 8 to 10). Supervised pretrial release - New Jersey's current system of pretrial release is largely dependent upon a defendant's financial resources. Defendants who are unable to post bail are incarcerated before trial, which can have significant consequences. Poor and minority defendants are more likely to be affected. - The New Jersey Constitution guarantees all defendants the right to bail. Judges have no authority to detain even the most violent and dangerous defendants if they can afford to post the amount of bail set. - The current resource-based system presents problems at both ends of the system: some people are held on less serious crimes, with little risk of flight, only because they cannot pay relatively minor amounts of bail; others who pose a significant threat to the community and a substantial risk of flight must be released if they can afford to post bail. - The committee recommends a statutory change from the present "resource-based" system to a "risk-based" system. Under a risk-based approach, judges rely on objective factors to assess the level of risk an individual defendant poses and then impose appropriate conditions of pretrial release. - Pretrial service officers are needed to monitor compliance with nonmonetary conditions of release and supervise defendants who are released pretrial. Preventive Detention - For certain defendants, no combination of release conditions can reasonably ensure either the safety of the community or their appearance in court. A system of preventive detention would permit judges to consider those questions and decide whether to detain or release a defendant pretrial. - The recommendations for a risk-based system of bail and pretrial detention, Recommendations 1 through 9, are interdependent and should not be considered individually. The recommendations call for both constitutional and statutory amendments. Speedy Trial - The New Jersey and the U.S. Constitutions provide the right to a speedy trial. Under New Jersey law, there are no specific timeframes to determine when that right has been violated. - Defendants sometimes wait years between arrest and trial. Particularly for defendants who are incarcerated pretrial, those delays can cause serious, practical problems and affect how their cases proceed. - Incarcerated defendants are more likely to receive less attractive plea offers, to plead guilty if they have already served a significant amount of time in jail, and to receive longer sentences. - The committee recommends that the Legislature adopt a speedy trial act that sets forth specific timeframes in which defendants must be indicted and brought to trial. Recommendations 10 through 15 provide detailed proposals for incarcerated defendants and defendants who are released. Details: Trenton, NJ: Joint Committee on Criminal Justice, 2014. 120p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 11, 2014 at: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/pressrel/2014/FinalReport_3_20_2014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/pressrel/2014/FinalReport_3_20_2014.pdf Shelf Number: 132975 Keywords: Bail ReformCriminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice SystemPretrial Release (New Jersey)Risk AssessmentSpeedy Trial |