STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. WILLIAM T. LIEPE
A-4431-14T4
Defendant was sentenced to consecutive prison terms of
twenty, seven, and five years, for first-degree aggravated
manslaughter and two counts of second-degree aggravated assault,
resulting from his having caused, while intoxicated, an auto
accident that killed a nine-year old and seriously injured two
others.
In State v. Carey, 168 N.J. 413, 429 (2001), a divided Court determined that in multiple-victim vehicular-homicide matters, sentencing judges should "ordinarily" impose "at least two consecutive terms." The Court, however, also emphasized that it had not "adopt[ed] a per se rule" and the decision to impose
consecutive terms remained in the discretion of sentencing judges.
Id. at 419. In considering Carey's influence here, the court
remanded for resentencing because, among other things, the
sentencing judge appeared to have viewed Carey as imposing a
presumption in favor of consecutive terms and because the judge
did not fairly consider the real-time consequence of the aggregate
thirty-two year sentence, all subject to an eighty-five percent
period of parole ineligibility, imposed on an offender who was
fifty-eight at the time of the incident and sixty-two at the time
of sentencing.
