HB 23 Forensic Mental Health Amendments authorizes the Forensic Mental Health Coordinating Council to determine and collect data from the Department of Corrections regarding mental health services.

HB 43 Domestic Violence Modifications creates the Domestic Violence Data Task Force under the Department of Public Safety, a member of which will be appointed by UACDL.

HB 57 Law Enforcement Investigation Amendments addresses the use of reverse-location or geofence warrants. Specifically, it creates a three-step process for law enforcement to generate geofence-retrieved information, each step of which must be approved by a magistrate. It also establishes law enforcement reporting requirements for reverse-location warrants. While we do not support the implicit legitimization of geofence warrants, we do think that this is an improvement from current practice.

One of our top priority bills for our juvenile attorney this session was HB 60 Juvenile Justice Modifications, which amends statutes related to juvenile records. Specifically, it prohibits public employers from excluding applicants from initial interviews due to a juvenile delinquency adjudication; requires the State Board of Education to include information about dangerous weapons in an annual report on school discipline and law enforcement action; provides that a juvenile may petition the juvenile court for vacatur of the adjudication if the adjudication was for a violation of prostitution, aiding prostitution, sexual solicitation, or human trafficking for labor if the petitioner engaged in the human trafficking for labor while subject to force, fraud, or coercion; clarifies the court can expunge records of arrest, investigation, detention, delinquency petitions, and non judicial adjustments; allows for expungement of a petition found not true 30 days after the judicial decision; requires the court to consider certain factors before expunging if the person is a restricted person creates automatic expungement for records consisting solely of successful non judicial adjustments completed on or after October 1, 2023. The court received $566,100 in funding for implementation.

HB 297 Victim Services Amendments requires CCJJ and law enforcement agencies to compile data on sexual assaults. It restricts the time period in which a victim of rape or incest can get an abortion to 18 weeks and makes performing an abortion on a victim of rape or incest after 18 weeks a second degree felony.

HB 304 Juvenile Justice Revisions was one of our high priority issues. This bill designates existing funds for a juvenile gang and other violent crime prevention and intervention program; requires courts to notify schools and SROs about students that have committed violent felonies, weapons offenses, or are placed on probation; requires schools to create a reintegration plan for every student they receive a notification from court for; expands when a school can refer a case directly to law enforcement or court; allows for detention to be used for class C offenses and contempt of court for the substantive offense happening on school property; makes it a class B misdemeanor for a juvenile to possess a machine gun attachment; emphasizes reporting requirements on weapons brought to school; and modifies non judicial eligibility requirements, including adding to the list of offenses not eligible of NJ through probation. The original bill allowed detention to be used for status offenses (truancy) and the valid court order exception, allowed tobacco and truancy to be referred directly to law enforcement and court, and restricted NJA eligibility.

HB 352 Law Enforcement Data Amendments requires CCJJ, Department of Corrections, and the Board of Pardons and Parole to report on statewide recidivism and the recidivism standard metric. Recidivism in this bill is defined as a return to criminal activity after a previous criminal conviction and ‘recidivism standard metric’ is defined as the number of individuals who are returned to prison for a new conviction within the three years after the day on which the individuals were released from prison. This bill requires CCJJ to reevaluate the recidivism standard metric in 2024 to determine if it needs to be more broad. It also requires the information to include the defendant's BCI state identification number, the citation number associated with the case, and the offense tracking number associated with the case.

HB 362 Criminal Justice Data Management Task Force Sunset Extension extends the Criminal Justice Data Management Task Force sunset date to 2025. Defense attorneys are not members of this task force.

SB 87 Criminal Prosecution Modifications became a data tracking bill, which requires the Administrative Office of the Courts to collect the following data on cases involving individuals charged with class A misdemeanors and felonies: the number of cases in which a preliminary hearing is set and placed on the court calendar; the median and range of the number of times that a preliminary hearing is continued in cases in which a preliminary hearing is set and placed on the court calendar; the number of cases, and the average time to disposition for those cases, in which only 1102 statements are submitted as probable cause at the preliminary hearing; the number of cases, and the average time to disposition for those cases, in which 1102 statements and witness testimony are submitted as probable cause at the preliminary hearing; the number of cases, and the average time to disposition for those cases, in which only witness testimony is submitted as probable cause at the preliminary hearing; and the number of cases in which a preliminary hearing is held and the defendant is bound over for trial.