NJ Legal Beat
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Why Is Jerramiah Healy Still Mayor of Jersey City?
Mayor Jerramiah Healy of Jersey City was convicted of the disorderly persons offense of obstruction of justice. Recently, the Superior Court ordered that a sitting member of the Newark City Council must forfeit her office because she was convicted of obstruction of justice. That development has led some in Jersey City to wonder why the same fate has not befallen Mayor Healy.
The New Jersey Criminal Code provides, in pertinent part, that “(a)person holding any public office, position, or employment, elective or appointive, under the government of this State or any agency or political subdivision thereof, who is convicted of an offense shall forfeit such office or position if: (2) He is convicted of an offense involving or touching such office, position or employment;” N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2. Mayor Healy was convicted in the Bradley Beach Municipal Court of the disorderly persons offense of obstructing justice. Both the Law Division and the Appellate Division upheld the conviction on appeal. The precise legal question, then, is whether the offense touched on his office.
N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2 makes this a question for the prosecutor. The prosecutor in this case neither sought forfeiture of the office nor sought the required waiver of the forfeiture. The procedural question is, why didn’t the prosecutor do so? And why didn’t any of the three courts that handled the case order office forfeiture?
There may well be an answer to that question. Due to recent developments in Newark, this question needs to be answered. The people of Jersey City deserve a full and thorough examination of the record of the Healy case, an examination that goes beyond the newspaper accounts and looks to the actual testimony of the witnesses, the police reports and the legal papers filed with the courts. Then and only then will both the public and the proper authorities be able to answer the question of whether Mayor Healy’s offense requires that he give up his office.