State v. Burford

The central question in this appeal is whether defendant’s second-degree eluding conviction qualifies as a “violent crime” subjecting defendant’s sentence to the eighty-five percent minimum term of the “No Early Release Act” (NERA or the Act), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2. Not before us are any constitutional challenges to the Act. The specific question is whether defendant’s use of a stolen automobile to elude police and his reckless striking of another vehicle during the chase made the stolen automobile a “deadly weapon” under NERA.

N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2 provides:

*18a. A court imposing a sentence of…