In 2015, a sex offender subject to parole for life applied to move back to Poland. The Parole Board didn't have a procedure for this, leading to a marvelous legal quagmire. Eventually, the case landed on the lap of the New Jersey Supreme Court because the State was insisting that sex offenders don't get to relocate internationally.
But it turned out that the Parole Board had promulgated regulations to deal with the situation in 2020. (Yes, it only took 5 years.)
But the State didn't bother to tell the New Jersey Supreme Court about the new regulations. Alas, that task fell to our long-suffering sex offender. As the New Jersey Supreme Court stated:
We learned of the existence of that Policy only through the happenstance of petitioner’s unearthing of it during the pendency of this appeal.
This happened "[i]mmediately prior to oral argument". The State, keeping it classy, immediately changed its argument to say that the Parole Board's regulations were beyond the scope of the Parole Board's authority.
The New Jersey Supreme Court's response was, "Ha, ha, guys, but you are wasting our time. Seriously." Though, naturally, because they have to use the vernacular of judicial opinions, it was couched in phrases like:
The argument that the Attorney General advances at this stage of this appeal--on behalf of an agency that determined to adopt the Policy--is unusual.
No comments:
Post a Comment