State v. Goodman

The defendant contends that he cannot be sentenced for crimes of which he has been convicted because procedural changes in the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice apply retroactively to cases pending on September 1, 1979. N.J.S.A. 2C:l-l(c). This contention assumes that the applicable modification in the New Jersey Code is procedural — a contention with which the majority agrees. Analysis of the modification and its application to this case demonstrates that the change in the Code is substantive, not procedural.

The Code altered the established rule that a conviction or acquittal of a federal…