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New Jersey grades crimes as follows:
First Degree crimes include murder,
kidnapping, sexual assault with penetration, armed robbery, and
a few other very serious crimes. The penalties for first degree
offenses range from ten to twenty years in state prison.
Second Degree
crimes include robbery (without a gun), aggravated assault with
serious injury, kidnapping, sexual assault, endangering the welfare
of a child, computer pornography charges, many , eluding police, and several other crimes. The
penalties for second degree offenses range from five to ten years
in state prison.
First and Second degree crimes carry a "presumption of imprisonment",
which means that if you are convicted of such a crime, you must
go to prison.
Third and Fourth degree crimes, below, do not contain such a presumption,
as long as you do not have a prior criminal record. If you do have
prior offenses, the court will consider those in determining the
sentence you will receive.
Third Degree
crimes include most , most theft offenses, property damage offenses,
burglary, most assault offenses, and many other crimes. The range
of penalties for third degree crimes is "non-custodial"
probation to five years in state prison. Non-custodial probation
is probation without going to jail. Some probationary sentences
can include jail time up to 364 days.
Fourth Degree
crimes include some , theft crimes, some sexual offenses, assault
crimes, and many other crimes, as well. If convicted of a fourth
degree crime, you will be sentenced in a range of non-custodial
probation to 18 months in state prison.
If you are charged with a first through fourth degree
crime, your matter will be sent from the local police department
to the county prosecutor's office. That office will "screen"
your case to determine whether it wants to retain the case and send
the case on to the Grand Jury for Indictment, or return the case
to the local municipality for resolution at the local level.
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