HARASSMENT—N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4
Harassment NJ
CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR
You’ve got a neighbor with whom you have not been getting along with for a very long time yet you must interact with him or her because you live next door to each other. Perhaps your neighbor has a dog which has a habit of digging up your garden and defocating on your front porch. Perhaps your neighbor has teen aged offspring that make all kinds of unreasonably loud noise each night and address you with foul language, to boot. Perhaps your neighbor’s garbage keeps blowing over to your front lawn. You may have had prior verbal altercations. At any rate, you have some kind of unresolved grudge that is eating at you and is building towards a full fledged confrontation. One night, you’ve just had it with the whole situation. In a rage, you stomp over to your neighbor’s front door, knock on the door, and proceed to give him or her a piece of your mind. You call him a nincompoop, or worse, you call his kids a bunch of bastards, or worse, and you tell him to knock it off “or else you’ll kick his ass”. Have you just committed a criminal offense?
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT LIABILITY FOR
You and your spouse or cohabitating lover have not been getting along lately. You learn from a colleague that he or she has a listing on an internet dating website. You come home after work one evening and you confront him or her. You catch him or her in a lie and you lose control of your actions. You tell him or her that he or she is a disgusting whore who deserves to be treated like one. You monitor his or her telephone calls, internet dealings and you tell all your friends and relatives that he or she is a no good sex addict cheater in efforts to make him or her feel ashamed for the conduct they committed. Have you just committed the quazi-criminal offense of violating the dictates of the Domestic Violence Act, e.g., N.J.S.A. 2C:25-1, et seq.?
HARASSMENT
N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4 provides that there are three (3) basic types of proscribed conduct which can result in conviction of the petty disorderly offense of harassment.
“Except as provided by section e., a person commits a petty disorderly offense if, with purpose to harass another, he:
a. Makes, or causes to be made, a communication or communications anonymously or at extremely inconvenient hours, or in offensively course language, or any other manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm;
b. Subjects another to striking, kicking, shoving, or other offensive touching, or threatens to do so;
c. Engages in any other course of alarming conduct or of repeatedly committed acts with purpose to alarm or seriously annoy such other person;
A communication under subsection a. may be deemed to have been made either at the place where it originated or at the place it was received.
d. (deleted by amendment)
e. A person commits a crime of the fourth (4th) degree if, in committing an offense under this section, he was serving a term of imprisonment or was on parole or probation as the result of a conviction of any indictable offense under the laws of this State, any other state, or the United States.”
So the answer with regard to criminal liability is YES. If convicted, your exposure would be the imposition on sentencing of a fine of up to five hundred dollars ($500.00), plus possible jail time of up to thirty (30) days, plus a criminal record. Additionally, you should know that the courts view these cases as a nuisance and an interference with their preferred activity (e.g., convicting drivers of traffic tickets and collecting monetary fines). Typically these cases involve two (2) or more adults who cannot act civilly to one another and the municipal courts have become the forum for resolving these type of “powder keg” disputes between neighbors, acquaintances, relatives, in efforts to avert the high potential for physical altercations. Judges frequently scold the parties, impose signifigant fines, and on occasion impose jail time on one of the parties. They are typically fond of telling the parties that if they come into his or her court again on a similar dispute, jail time will be imposed—and they mean it. If you are facing harassment charges, the best practice is to hire a skilled attorney to get you through it—rather than get bogged down in the minutia of who is less culpable than the other.
The answer with regard to the domestic violence liability is YES. Under the Domestic Violence Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:25-8, the municipal court judge in the township in which you reside has authority to issue temporary restraining orders (TRO) when the Superior Court, Family Part, is not open, e.g., on weekends, holidays, etc… Your significant other could avail himself or herself of the remedy of obtaining a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). This is a remedy that is designed to prevent the defendant from having any verbal or physical contact whatsoever with the victim(s) or victim(s) immediate family members. In other words, you could be ordered not to go to the marital residence (home) and not to have any form of contact with your significant other at all. The sitting municipal court judge in the location where you reside will also set bail that you must post in order to avoid immediate jail. A search of the marital residence will be done and confiscation of any guns, weapons will be imposed. Willful violation of the TRO would be a fourth (4th) degree crime with possible jail time up to eighteen (18) months. Your first court appearance would an arraignment in the municipal court who issued the TRO. Approximately two (2) weeks after entry of the TRO you would be entitled to a Plenary Hearing as to whether the TRO should ripen into a Final Restraining Order (FRO) in the Superior Court, Family Part, or dismissed. If the matter is converted to a FRO you could be ordered to continue paying the roofing costs, e.g., mortgage, property taxes, utilities, etc…until the relationship is legally dissolved without the possibility of ever being able to set foot on the property again or communicate with your significant other ever again. Finally, the municipal court will hear the underlying charges and have jurisdiction over disposition of the underlying domestic violence offense, e.g., to convict for the harassment. Additionally, of course, you can be ordered to undergo expensive and time consuming anger management or psychological counseling as a prerequisite to any reconciliation and normalization of relations and/or property rights. There is the stigma of having been found to have harassed your significant other. If you find yourself in this kind of trouble the best practice is to hire a skilled and experienced attorney to get you through it.
Contact me for help at…………………
STEPHEN A. GRAVATT, ESQ.
(732)-337-7922
HARASSMENT—N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4
CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR
You’ve got a neighbor with whom you have not been getting along with for a very long time yet you must interact with him or her because you live next door to each other. Perhaps your neighbor has a dog which has a habit of digging up your garden and defocating on your front porch. Perhaps your neighbor has teen aged offspring that make all kinds of unreasonably loud noise each night and address you with foul language, to boot. Perhaps your neighbor’s garbage keeps blowing over to your front lawn. You may have had prior verbal altercations. At any rate, you have some kind of unresolved grudge that is eating at you and is building towards a full fledged confrontation. One night, you’ve just had it with the whole situation. In a rage, you stomp over to your neighbor’s front door, knock on the door, and proceed to give him or her a piece of your mind. You call him a nincompoop, or worse, you call his kids a bunch of bastards, or worse, and you tell him to knock it off “or else you’ll kick his ass”. Have you just committed a criminal offense?
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT LIABILITY FOR
You and your spouse or cohabitating lover have not been getting along lately. You learn from a colleague that he or she has a listing on an internet dating website. You come home after work one evening and you confront him or her. You catch him or her in a lie and you lose control of your actions. You tell him or her that he or she is a disgusting whore who deserves to be treated like one. You monitor his or her telephone calls, internet dealings and you tell all your friends and relatives that he or she is a no good sex addict cheater in efforts to make him or her feel ashamed for the conduct they committed. Have you just committed the quazi-criminal offense of violating the dictates of the Domestic Violence Act, e.g., N.J.S.A. 2C:25-1, et seq.?
HARASSMENT
N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4 provides that there are three (3) basic types of proscribed conduct which can result in conviction of the petty disorderly offense of harassment.
“Except as provided by section e., a person commits a petty disorderly offense if, with purpose to harass another, he:
a. Makes, or causes to be made, a communication or communications anonymously or at extremely inconvenient hours, or in offensively course language, or any other manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm;
b. Subjects another to striking, kicking, shoving, or other offensive touching, or threatens to do so;
c. Engages in any other course of alarming conduct or of repeatedly committed acts with purpose to alarm or seriously annoy such other person;
A communication under subsection a. may be deemed to have been made either at the place where it originated or at the place it was received.
d. (deleted by amendment)
e. A person commits a crime of the fourth (4th) degree if, in committing an offense under this section, he was serving a term of imprisonment or was on parole or probation as the result of a conviction of any indictable offense under the laws of this State, any other state, or the United States.”
So the answer with regard to criminal liability is YES. If convicted, your exposure would be the imposition on sentencing of a fine of up to five hundred dollars ($500.00), plus possible jail time of up to thirty (30) days, plus a criminal record. Additionally, you should know that the courts view these cases as a nuisance and an interference with their preferred activity (e.g., convicting drivers of traffic tickets and collecting monetary fines). Typically these cases involve two (2) or more adults who cannot act civilly to one another and the municipal courts have become the forum for resolving these type of “powder keg” disputes between neighbors, acquaintances, relatives, in efforts to avert the high potential for physical altercations. Judges frequently scold the parties, impose signifigant fines, and on occasion impose jail time on one of the parties. They are typically fond of telling the parties that if they come into his or her court again on a similar dispute, jail time will be imposed—and they mean it. If you are facing harassment charges, the best practice is to hire a skilled attorney to get you through it—rather than get bogged down in the minutia of who is less culpable than the other.
The answer with regard to the domestic violence liability is YES. Under the Domestic Violence Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:25-8, the municipal court judge in the township in which you reside has authority to issue temporary restraining orders (TRO) when the Superior Court, Family Part, is not open, e.g., on weekends, holidays, etc… Your significant other could avail himself or herself of the remedy of obtaining a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). This is a remedy that is designed to prevent the defendant from having any verbal or physical contact whatsoever with the victim(s) or victim(s) immediate family members. In other words, you could be ordered not to go to the marital residence (home) and not to have any form of contact with your significant other at all. The sitting municipal court judge in the location where you reside will also set bail that you must post in order to avoid immediate jail. A search of the marital residence will be done and confiscation of any guns, weapons will be imposed. Willful violation of the TRO would be a fourth (4th) degree crime with possible jail time up to eighteen (18) months. Your first court appearance would an arraignment in the municipal court who issued the TRO. Approximately two (2) weeks after entry of the TRO you would be entitled to a Plenary Hearing as to whether the TRO should ripen into a Final Restraining Order (FRO) in the Superior Court, Family Part, or dismissed. If the matter is converted to a FRO you could be ordered to continue paying the roofing costs, e.g., mortgage, property taxes, utilities, etc…until the relationship is legally dissolved without the possibility of ever being able to set foot on the property again or communicate with your significant other ever again. Finally, the municipal court will hear the underlying charges and have jurisdiction over disposition of the underlying domestic violence offense, e.g., to convict for the harassment. Additionally, of course, you can be ordered to undergo expensive and time consuming anger management or psychological counseling as a prerequisite to any reconciliation and normalization of relations and/or property rights. There is the stigma of having been found to have harassed your significant other. If you find yourself in this kind of trouble the best practice is to hire a skilled and experienced attorney to get you through it.
