NJ Supreme Court Rules Abuse of Discretion Applies to Graves Act Waiver Denials

In State v. Delshon J. Taylor, Jr. (A-20-24/089386) (Decided August 6, 2025), Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis writing for a unanimous Supreme Court of New Jersey clarified the standard of review applicable in reviewing a prosecutor’s denial of a Graves Act waiver under N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6.2. The unanimous Court held that abuse of discretion, rather than patent and gross abuse of discretion, is the proper standard.

Facts of State v. Delshon J. Taylor, Jr.

In November 2017, officers responded to a report of shots fired and found defendant Delshon J. Taylor, Jr., walking in the area with two other men. When an officer approached defendant and told him that he would be frisked, defendant took off running. Two officers followed and saw defendant drop a handgun while running. Defendant was apprehended and charged with several offenses, including two that qualify as predicates under the Graves Act — unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. 

Under the Graves Act, persons convicted of certain enumerated offenses relating to the possession of a firearm are subject to mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment, fixed at one half of an individual’s sentence or 42 months, whichever is greater. During that time, the defendant is ineligible for parole; However, the Act includes a waiver provision known as an “escape valve,” which allows the prosecutor to move or consent to reduce the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment to one year.

Defendant requested a waiver, which the State denied via letter. Although the State recognized that defendant had no adult criminal convictions, it found that the matter fell within the class of gun possession cases that the Graves Act was intended to prevent. The State reiterated that the facts here were concerning: defendant concealed a semi-automatic handgun loaded with hollow point bullets and subsequently threw the handgun on the ground in public. 

The State concluded that because defendant “was noncompliant with the officers and his actions placed the officers and the individuals on-scene at risk of injury during this encounter . . . a Graves Act waiver is unwarranted.”

In April 2021, defendant pled guilty to one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon. At sentencing, the court found that the aggravating and mitigating factors balanced each other out. After the court inquired whether the State had changed its mind regarding imposing a lesser sentence for the period of parole ineligibility, defense counsel informed the court that prior to her representation, defendant had requested a Graves Act waiver, which the State denied. After the prosecutor submitted that he was not the one involved in the plea negotiations, the court postponed sentencing for greater explanation from the original prosecutor.

Defendant filed a motion to override the State’s denial of the Graves Act waiver. At the rescheduled hearing, the judge stated that she found that “a prima facie case had been established by the defense” that the denial of the waiver was a patent abuse of discretion. Thus, the court explained, the burden shifted to the State to support its decision. 

Ultimately, the court did not find that the prosecutor’s decision rose to the level of patent and gross abuse of discretion and sentenced defendant in accordance with the plea agreement. On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court should have reviewed the State’s decision for an abuse of discretion rather than a patent and gross abuse of discretion. The Appellate Division affirmed, relying on State v. Benjamin, 228 N.J. 358 (2017), and State v. Rodriguez, 466 N.J. Super. 71 (App. Div. 2021).

NJ Supreme Court’s Decision in State v. Delshon J. Taylor, Jr.

The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, holding that abuse of discretion is the proper standard. “We now hold that the appropriate standard of review is abuse of discretion,” Justice Pierre Louis wrote. “As a result, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and remand the case to the trial court for consideration of the prosecutor’s denial under that standard.”

In reaching its decision, the Court noted that it had never decided the appropriate standard of review on a denial of a Graves Act waiver. It also explained the difference between the two standards. It noted that a functional approach to abuse of discretion examines whether there are good reasons for an appellate court to defer to the particular decision at issue, or whether the decision is instead an arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable judgment. In contrast, the patent and gross abuse of discretion standard has been categorized as “enhanced deference” or “extra deference.” 

As the Court has defined the standard in the context of prosecutorial determinations about whether an individual should be prosecuted or be allowed to participate in the diversionary pretrial intervention (PTI) program, that heightened standard reflects a prosecutorial decision that has gone so wide of the mark sought to be accomplished by PTI that fundamental fairness and justice require judicial intervention.

The New Jersey Supreme Court went on to address why the patent and gross abuse of discretion standard has been applied in the PTI context while the ordinary abuse of discretion standard has been applied to evaluate other exercises of prosecutorial discretion. As Justice Pierre Louis explained:

Our case law thus distinguishes between prosecutorial discretion in the exercise of a traditionally judicial role, like sentencing, and prosecutorial discretion in an inherently executive function, like determining whether to pursue a conviction or PTI. Although we apply a deferential standard of review in the first situation to further the legislative aims of according the prosecutor a greater role in the sentencing process in certain contexts, we apply an even more deferential standard to prosecutorial determinations in quintessentially executive functions.

The New Jersey Supreme Court next turned to the Graves Act. “It is evident from the statutory text that Graves Act waivers relate to sentencing and are therefore not akin to PTI determinations,” Justice Pierre Louis wrote. “We find no reason to depart from the substantial body of precedent in which we have held that separation of powers principles require that courts be able to review prosecutorial determinations about sentencing — an inherently judicial function — for ordinary abuse of discretion.”

“Although we hold that abuse of discretion is the proper standard of review, we reinforce that this standard is nonetheless deferential,” he added. “It imposes a ‘heavy’ burden on defendants, and defendants must ‘show clearly and convincingly that a prosecutor abused his or her discretion in order to secure relief.’”