State v. Schubert

Judge WEFING

(temporarily assigned) delivered the opinion of the court.

This appeal presents the question of whether a trial court may amend a judgment of conviction after a defendant has finished serving the sentence imposed upon him to include a provision erroneously omitted at the time of sentencing that increases the punitive consequences of that sentence. We conclude that it may not and thus affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division. The question arises in the following factual context.

I

In 1996, a grand jury returned a four-count indictment against defendant Joseph Schubert, Jr.,…