STATE ENVIRONMENTAL PROSECUTOR'S ROLE

 

Steven J. Madonna

 

Environmental Prosecutor, State of New Jersey,

25 Market Street, CN118, Trenton, N.J. 08625-0118

 

             Summary

 

             The following will serve to outline in a summary fashion the uniqueness of the responsibilities and jurisdiction of the newly-created position of the New Jersey State Environmen­tal Prosecutor - the first of its kind in the nation.

            

             Responsibilities

 

             The position of State Environmental Prosecutor is a Gubernatorial appoint­ment created in 1990 by Executive Order of the newly elected-Governor, James Florio. The Prosecutor is an Assistant Attorney General within the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety and heads the Office of the Environmental Prosecutor. He answers on a day-to-day basis to the State Attorney General and additionally to the Governor. As an Assistant Attorney General he has access to the State Grand Jury and to all criminal intelligence information. His responsi­bilities extend beyond those which the name might readily suggest and include criminal, civil, and administrative aspects of environmental enforcement mat­ters. He is tasked to coordinate and prioritize the use of these resources in conjunction with his responsibility to oversee prosecutions in priority cases[1] and to create a comprehensive environ­mental enforcement program. He has the authority, jurisdic­tion, and mandate to cross all State Department and Division lines to direct the use of State resources in order to effectively coordinate the State's environ­mental enforcement efforts to the end that the most effective and efficient result is accomplished. This expressly includes the enforcement activities of the Department of Environmen­tal Protection, Board of Public Uti­lities, Division of State Police, Division of Criminal Justice, Division of Law, and the Department of Health. He is further charged with the responsibility to coordinate the State's environ­mental enforcement effort with other states and with appropriate Federal agencies.

 

             In order to achieve an effective coordination and prioriti­zation of the civil, criminal and administrative aspects on the State level, the State Envi­ronmental Prosecutor will work with the various County Prosecutors (District Attorneys) to ensure the proper prioritization and coordination of civil and regulatory as­pects with the County Prosecutors' criminal cases, and to further ensure that they receive the necessary support and resources to complete county-level inves­tigations, and to further ensure that matters of multi-county or state­wide impact are referred to the State Grand Jury and the State Division of Criminal Justice, either as the sole prosecuting agency, or in cooperative mode with the County Prosecutors. A corollary to this interrelationship with the Coun­ty Prose­cutors will be the ultimate task forcing of county level environmen­tal en­force­ment components, such as the County Health Department, the County Sheriff's Office, and local health officers, code enforcement officers, fire inspectors, police officers, environmental commissions, and other appropriate representati­ves from each of the local governments within their respective coun­ties. These county task forces will be ultimately regionalized into two or three geographic regions.

 

             The State Environmental Prosecutor will work in concert with established environmental groups to harness and focus their eyes and ears as environmental enforcement "deputies" and to utilize their insights, energies and expertise. Informal citizens groups, and those organized groups not traditionally identi­fied as environmentally oriented, will be sensitized and informally made a part of the State's overall environmental enforcement effort.

 

The initiatives of the State Environmental Prosecutor will be publicized through successful criminal, civil and administrative enforcement actions, general news releases, speeches and public appearances, and the natural dissemina­tion resul­ting from momentum and involvement of formal and informal citizens groups.

 

The foregoing will be accomplished not by the establishment of a whole new enforcement bureaucracy, but by the supervi­sion and coordination of currently existing resources and by ready and complete access to, and use of, the person­nel of the Department of Law and Public Safety. This would include the as­sign­ment of Deputy Attorneys General to assist the State Environmental Prosecu­tor on a case by case basis. It is anticipated at the outset that the Office will be staffed with several senior level Deputy Attorneys General recognized as accom­plished attorneys in the area of their assignment, two or three experienced inves­tigators to accumulate sufficient data to allow for the assignment of case lead information to the appropriate agency, and necessary clerical and admini­strative support personnel.

 

 


    [1] Matters involving either a chronic environmental offender, syndi­cated criminal involvement. Situations which pose a serious threat to public health or to the environ­ment, or high profile environ­mental enforcement matters.