The law is well settled regarding plea bargaining shoplifting offenses in New Jersey. It is not allowed. Therefore , in order to have a shoplifting offense dismissed or amended, there must be a legal reason to do so. Simply being a first offender will not be sufficient to get the job done.
In this recent case, we were able to establish that the State may have a difficult time proving its case. This is not to say that if we went to trial that the State would not win. We simply made a good enough argument that the State was willing to say to the Court that they were unsure if it could prove the case because of legal reasons and therefore recommending an alternative outcome.
As a result, my client was able to avoid a criminal conviction and pay only a small fine. This allowed her to keep her job. She was very happy with the result.
