STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. TEVIN M. FIGARO STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. ANTHONY J. GREEN STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. ABE HAROLD (17-05-0465, 17-10-0945, 17-10-0961, 19-03-0275, 19-04-0318, AND 16-09-0824, CUMBERLAND COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) (CONSOLIDATED) - Published

The court granted defendants leave to appeal from orders that denied their request to declare they were not statutorily ineligible for Drug Court and to process their applications. The judge accepted that recent revisions to the Drug Court Manual (the 2019 Manual ) preserved two "tracks" for entry into the program: one, pursuant to special probation, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14; and a second, as a general condition of probation, N.J.S.A. 2C:45-1. See, e.g., State v. Meyer, 192 N.J. 421 (2007).

Defendants were not eligible for special probation, because they faced current charges that were not "subject to a presumption of incarceration or a mandatory minimum period of parole ineligibility[.]" N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14(a). Additionally, defendants were previously convicted of crimes that made them ineligible pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14(a)(6), (7). The judge accepted the State's argument that although there were two tracks for entry into Drug Court, the 2019 Manual created one uniform standard for eligibility under both tracks, specifically, that an applicant was legally ineligible if he failed to meet the criteria in N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14.

The Court reversed, concluding that the full text of the 2019 Manual did not support the State's interpretation, which was contrary to the clear intention, both legislatively and administratively, to broaden eligibility for Drug Court.