STATE OF NEW JERSEY IN THE INTEREST OF T.D., A JUVENILE. (FJ-15-0476-18/FJ-15-0569-18)
Following juvenile T.D.’s admission to committing the offense of shoplifting, under N.J.S.A. 2C:20-11, the court placed T.D. on a twelve-month deferred disposition and imposed a condition that T.D. complete thirty hours of community service. In light of the plain language of N.J.S.A. 2C:20-11(c) indicating that “any person convicted of a shoplifting offense shall be sentenced to perform community service[,]” the parties expressly contemplated that the community service hours imposed in this case were mandatory.
The matter was returned to court post-disposition on probation’s recommendation, due to T.D.’s failure to complete the community service hours. The court concluded that the community service hours were not mandatory, notwithstanding the language within subsection (c) of the shoplifting statute. The court reasoned that the Legislature did not explicitly apply the mandatory penalty provisions of the shoplifting statute to juveniles, as it has done with other statutory schemes. The court further found that the imposition of mandatory community service hours for shoplifting offenses was incompatible with the imposition of a deferred disposition resulting in the dismissal of the complaint, in the absence of any specific requirement to impose such a penalty on juveniles. Upon consideration of T.D.’s representations that she and her mother were experiencing homelessness, and mindful of the rehabilitative goals of the Juvenile Code, the court vacated the imposition of the community service hours as a condition of T.D.’s deferred disposition.
