ASSEMBLY, No. 1601

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

INTRODUCED FEBRUARY 29, 1996

By Assemblymen GEIST, CARROLL, Bucco, Assemblywoman Myers, Assemblymen O’Toole, Cottrell, Wolfe and Holzapfel

An Act concerning appeals in death penalty cases and supplementing chapter 11 of Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes.

    Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

    1. Except as provided in subsection e. of N.J.S.2C:11-3, where a defendant who is adjudicated to be mentally competent refuses any further appeal of a sentence of death imposed on him and requests that the sentence be carried out, the Office of the Public Defender shall take no further appeal in the case on his behalf.

    2. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

    This bill would prohibit the Office of the Public Defender from taking further appeals in any death penalty case over the objection of the defendant. The bill provides that where the defendant himself refuses further appeals and requests that the death sentence be carried out, the Public Defender's Office could not take further appeals on his behalf.

Prohibits Office of the Public Defender from appealing imposition of death penalty in any case where a mentally competent defendant refuses appeals and requests that the death sentence be carried out.