TRENTON — Prosecutors looking to lock up criminal defendants before trial under the state’s new bail system have to provide more evidence to their defense attorneys, a state appeals court found this week.
In a ruling addressing some of the details of the state’s new bail system for the first time, the three-judge panel sided with public defenders who argued their clients are entitled to the evidence the state has against them up front.
The decision comes as New Jersey’s court system adjusts to a significant shift brought on by a constitutional amendment and a package of criminal justice reform measures that took effect at the beginning of the year.
The changes, which virtually eliminated the cash bail system and replaced it with a risk-assessment formula, were meant to allow judges to order violent offenders held before trial and keep low-level defendants from languishing in jail simply because they were too poor to post bail.
New Jersey is one of the first states to make such a change, modeled in part on the federal system. Top state officials have praised the new scheme, but its implementation in recent weeks has drawn criticism over some controversial cases.
The appeals decision, published on Wednesday, concerned the case of an Essex County man, Habeeb Robinson, who was arrested on murder charges on January 4.
Prosecutors said in court documents that two eyewitnesses saw Robinson shoot the victim, later identifying Robinson from a photo array. They also claimed they had surveillance footage from the scene.
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Under the new bail system, a judge decides at a pre-trial detention hearing whether a defendant presents enough of a danger to be thrown in jail or should be released under a monitoring program until trial.
Prior to the hearing, public defenders requested the evidence prosecutors cited in court documents. The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office refused, and the hearing “devolved into a dispute over discovery,” according to the judges’ decision.
The office contended it was providing enough information by releasing the court documents describing the evidence, echoing the arguments of prosecutors across the state who have warned that requiring so much evidence up front would turn the detention hearings into “mini-trials.”
Judge Ronald Wigler, who presided over the hearing, rejected that argument and ordered prosecutors to release eyewitness statements, the photo array, surveillance video and police reports described in the documents.
The appeals panel found the judge’s ruling was consistent with the bail reform law and the court rules created to implement it. Robinson remains detained until he receives his full hearing.
Elizabeth Jarit, the public defender who argued the appellate case, told NJ Advance Media the ruling was significant because under the new system, authorities have the power to order a defendant held indefinitely before trial.
With bail off the table, Jarit said, the only recourse a defendant has is to show they aren’t enough of a threat to warrant detention, so both the defendant and the judge need to have access to the evidence prosecutors are using to argue against their release.
Kathy Carter, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, referred a request for comment on the ruling to the state Attorney General’s Office. A spokesman for that office, Peter Aseltine, said state prosecutors were seeking to bring the case before the New Jersey Supreme Court.
The decision is the first of many expected to sort out novel, thorny legal issues stemming from the rollout of the new system, which has faced criticism in its first five weeks.
In a joint statement last week, acting court administrator Judge Glenn Grant, Attorney General Christopher Porrino and Public Defender Joseph Krakora all hailed the first month as a success.
In January, prosecutors successfully argued for defendants in 283 of 506 cases to be locked up while awaiting trial based on their risk of reoffending, according to data released by the state judiciary. The rest were released under a new pretrial supervision program.
But individual prosecutors and some police chiefs have expressed concern with the switch, highlighting cases they claim resulted in questionable pre-trial release decisions, including those involving a convicted sex offender and several people facing serious weapons charges.
A study ordered by Gov. Chris Christie into the costs associated with the overhaul also found there was no way to tell how much the reforms will cost taxpayers.
And the state’s bail bondsmen, effectively put out of business by the changes, have been waging a public relations campaign advocating a rollback of the reforms.
Grant said the new scheme “does not eliminate the risk that defendants will fail to appear in court or commit new crimes while out on release.
“For the first time in our history, however, there is an opportunity to detain defendants until trial without regard to bail and, for the first time, we’ve created a system that provides for the monitoring of defendants released until trial,” he said.
S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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