New Jersey State Senate President Calls For Review Of How Prosecutors Handled Ray Rice Case

New Jersey state senate president Stephen Sweeney and his daughter, Lauren, at a press conference announcing New Jersey had been awarded the 2014 USA Special Olympics (from US Special Olympics Flickr feed)
New Jersey state senate president Stephen Sweeney and his daughter, Lauren, at a press conference announcing New Jersey had been awarded the 2014 USA Special Olympics (from US Special Olympics Flickr feed)


The NFL has taken a well-deserved reaming for how it disciplined now-former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for punching his fiancee in an Atlantic City casino elevator. That fail, however, has its genesis in what looks like an equally egregious fail by prosecutors in Atlantic County. The NFL says it based its initial decision to suspend Rice for only two games partly on the fact that prosecutors allowed Rice to enter a pretrial intervention program after Rice was charged with aggravated assault on his then-fiancee, Janay. If Rice completes the program, however, that charge would be scrubbed from his record. Considering that prosecutors were among the first people to view the now-infamous video showing Rice leveling Janay in the elevator, that decision looks questionable at best.

New Jersey state senate president Stephen Sweeney isn’t too enthused with that prospect. On Tuesday, he called for acting attorney general John Hoffman to review how Atlantic County prosecutors handled the Rice case. In a statement, Sweeney called for Hoffman to not only review the process that led to the decision to offer Rice pretrial intervention, but also to consider whether the law governing that program “should be re-written or revised” and to review “who qualifies for PTI and when it is allowed.”

According to The New York Times, prosecutors went this route when Janay refused to testify against her husband. However, it’s hard to believe any prosecutor who saw that video would even put an offer for pretrial intervention on the table. The sight of Rice decking Janay with a roundhouse left would have been enough evidence to bring Rice to trial even without Janay’s testimony.

Atlantic County acting prosecutor Jim McClain largely confirmed this in an interview with The Press of Atlantic City. McClain said that he was prepared to go to trial without Janay Rice’s testimony, and was certain he had enough evidence for a conviction. Rice would have faced as much as five years in prison if convicted. However, according to The Press, Rice was charged with third-degree aggravated assault–a charge that carries a presumption of no jail time. McClain said that given Rice’s clean record until then, as well the fact he was already in therapy (most likely on his lawyer’s advice), a judge would have likely sentenced Rice to two years’ probation. McClain said he found himself asking, “is this a PTI case or a probation case?” He was very much on the fence, but ultimately decided to offer pretrial intervention. He felt a trial of Rice would generate staggering publicity, and if Rice were unlikely to get jail time, “it’s not fair to the victim to put her through that.” He also said that he would have offered pretrial intervention to an average Joe if the facts had been the same. When Sweeney heard this, he told The Press that if McClain’s options really were that limited, “that means we need to fix our domestic abuse laws.” He added that he didn’t want to attack McClain, but to “focus on what happened with the system.”


There’s one big problem with McClain’s reasoning, though. Under the rules governing the pretrial intervention program, defendants whose crimes were crimes “deliberately committed with violence or threat of violence against another person” should not be considered for the program. It’s a big reason why victims’ rights advocates in the Atlantic City area are as dumbfounded by McClain’s decision now as they were when Rice entered the intervention program in May. Donna D’Andrea, a legal advocate for the Women’s Center in Linwood, said that to her knowledge, Rice’s case was the first time in her 30 years working with domestic violence victims that a defendant charged with aggravated assault has been accepted into the program. Usually, she said, defendants in these cases plea to a lesser charge in return for probation so they can at least be monitored. The way Rice’s case was handled had her “stunned” and “outraged” then, and it still does now.

While McClain seemed concerned that the effort it would take for a trial wouldn’t be worth it if Rice only got probation, it would seem that it would be a risk worth taking. After all, Rice would have only two real defenses had this gone to trial–either Janay provoked him or he hit her in the heat of the moment. We already know the first defense isn’t valid, since the video shows Rice started the fight. The second defense can easily be debunked by the manner Rice hit her. You don’t hit someone that hard if it wasn’t intentional. Even if Rice only got probation, at least public confidence wouldn’t have been damaged as much as it was with the decision to offer pretrial intervention.

Constitutionally, there aren’t a lot of ways for this deal to be undone. About the only ways Rice could end up going to trial at this point would be if he didn’t successfully complete the program or it later emerged that he lied to prosecutors or police. Nonetheless, the process by which this deal ultimately came down needs to be reviewed, if only to restore confidence in the system.

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Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.