STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. DONNELL W. ANCRUM
A-0932-16T2
The court granted the State's leave to appeal from an
illegal sentence. Defendant was charged with second-degree
robbery, second-degree burglary, second-degree aggravated
assault (serious bodily injury) and third-degree aggravated
assault (significant bodily injury). After indicating the
assault charges would merge into the robbery under the facts of
the case and the effect of the mergers would be defendant's
eligibility for special probation, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14 (the
Statute), the judge accepted defendant's guilty pleas to all
four counts of the indictment. At sentencing, over the State's
continued objection, the judge sentenced defendant to special
probation, conditioned on his entry into, and completion of,
Drug Court.
The court reversed, concluding that although the 2012 amendment to the Statute made defendants convicted of second- degree robbery and burglary eligible for special probation, the Legislature intended to continue to bar a defendant convicted of
aggravated assault from receiving such a sentence. Similar to
those cases in which the Legislature clearly intended certain
mandatory sentences survive merger, a conviction for one of the
Statute's disqualifying offenses survives merger and bars
defendant's sentence to special probation.
