This case probes the boundaries of the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), which held that under the Sixth Amendment, "[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 490. In this case, defendant's original sentence to special probation was revoked for a series of violations. He was resentenced on his second-degree robbery conviction to the statutory maximum ten-year sentence after already serving roughly four years of special probation. He was given credit towards his prison sentence for the time spent in county jail and in residential treatment but not for the time he participated in outpatient treatment.
Defendant claims his prison sentence violates Apprendi because the combination of the ten-year prison term and time previously spent on special probation exceeds the ten-year maximum sentence for a second-degree conviction. In State v. Hawkins, __ N.J. Super. __ (App. Div.), certif. denied, __ N.J. __ (2019), the court rejected the argument that under Apprendi, a year on special probation undergoing outpatient treatment counts as a year in prison. However, the court in Hawkins affirmed the defendant's eight-year prison sentence on his second-degree conviction “without ruling directly on . . . whether imposition of the maximum custodial sentence plus special probation would be constitutionally defective.” __ N.J. Super. at __ (slip op. at 12).
The court in the present case addresses that issue and holds that such a sentence, which was actually imposed in this instance, does not violate the Sixth Amendment. The court embraces the reasoning in Hawkins and concludes that time on special probation outside a residential treatment facility cannot be combined with a prison term when determining whether a sentence exceeds the "prescribed statutory maximum." The court finds further support for that conclusion in the Supreme Court's most recent pronouncement in the line of Apprendi cases, United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. __, 139 S. Ct. 2369 (2019). Based on an analysis of Haymond and other precedents, the court holds that the Sixth Amendment issues raised in Apprendi and its progeny apply only to minimum and maximum terms of imprisonment; Apprendi principles simply do not apply to non-custodial forms of punishment such as special probation.
