Letter: Local Prosecutors And Municipal Courts Are To Blamed For Lack Of Victim's Crime Compensation Fund

The expressed opinions or views of this letter does not necessarily represent the opinion of the MiddletownMike blog:

Dear Editor,


In the State of New Jersey, local municipal courts frequently permit defendants to plea down most state disorderly persons charges, like shoplifting and assault, to local municipal ordinance violations.

Defendants like the practice because it allows them to avoid a criminal conviction, while still remaining eligible for first-time offender diversion in the future, on the same initial charge.

Prosecutors and Municipal Courts like it because they will frequently collect the same fine, but all the money goes into the municipality instead of being shared with the state and there is no trial.

In a November 1998 memo by then–Attorney General Peter Venerio entitled “Plea Agreements in Municipal Courts”, local prosecutors were told to stop this practice, because it is illegal.

Yet aside from Somerset County - where the Country Prosecutor was honest and cracked down a couple of years ago, it is still corrupt business as usual in other counties of the Garden State.

The state Victim's Crime Compensation Fund, is funded through surcharges on state disorderly persons and criminal convictions. If charges weren't being improperly downgraded to municipal offenses, this fund would be able to give a lot more to victims.


Eric Hafner
Toms River